1. Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by Nithyananda - Chapter 2 - You are God

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.

Nithyananda'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 Nithyananda'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!

You Are God!

It is here that we enter into the real Gita. It is from here that Bhagavan or God starts speaking.

Until now Krishna was speaking as a man, as Vasudeva Krishna, in His human form, but it is only from here that Krishna speaks as the Parabrahma Krishna, as Bhagavan, in His divine state.

An important point we all need to understand is that only an intelligent man will allow the other person to speak. We all speak continuously to each other but a conversation does not really happen. The two are quite different. We don't have conversations. We simply carry out simultaneous monologues with each other. When the other person speaks we do not listen; we are busy preparing our own reply. Similarly, when we speak, the other person is actually preparing his response.

We are polite enough to pretend that we are listening so that we will, in turn, be heard. A conversation does not happen. You need intelligence to allow the other person to speak. Please understand that you do not need intelligence to speak; you need it only to listen.

A small story:

A person was telling his friend that he had not spoken to his wife for a whole week. His friend asked him whether he was angry with her or if he had fought with her.

The man replied, 'No, I am afraid of interrupting her!'

Maybe because Bhagavan is a male, he allowed Arjuna to speak!

We may either speak verbally or mentally, but in any case, we are speaking continuously. Why do you think psychiatrists are paid so well? The professions of psychiatry and psychoanalysis are nothing but the art of listening. A psychiatrist is a person who asks expensive questions and just listens, nothing else! We speak continuously. Even when we keep quiet, we are not listening.

A real incident:

A young trainee in Psychiatry was overwhelmed by the ease with which his experienced mentor counseled patients. They poured their hearts out to him. The trainee was deeply disturbed by these traumatic experiences that were shared. Yet, his mentor went from one patient to another calmly and without being affected.

After a few weeks of this training the younger doctor approached his mentor and said, 'I am not sure I can bear this much longer. I am getting depressed. How can you listen to all these people without getting disturbed? What is the trick?'

His mentor calmly responded, 'Who listens?'

Krishna does listen. He listens carefully and answers compassionately. Of the original seven hundred forty five verses in the Gita, as part of the Bhishma Purana of Mahabharata, He responds in depth to Arjuna's fiftyseven questions through six hundred twenty verses.

In the first chapter Bhagavan does not say a word to interrupt Arjuna. He allows Arjuna to speak fully for one whole chapter. He keeps quiet even on seeing the depth of Arjuna's confusion and depression. He consciously analyzes the origin of Arjuna's thoughts to determine the platform of confusion upon which Arjuna is standing.

It is possible to become a successful businessman just by studying the first few chapters of the Gita. You can reach the peak of your profession just by learning the art of listening. Once you listen clearly, you will automatically be able to answer clearly as well. A devotee once asked me, 'Master, how is it that you are able to answer so many questions?' There is only one secret to this. I know how to listen to the question, that's all. If you know the technique of listening, the reply is immediately ready in your being.

The problem is that we do not trust ourselves and our innate intelligence to respond to a question without preparation. That is why we start preparing the reply even before listening to the question. We do not have the patience to listen to the problem. Before we listen to it, we already start judging the speaker and develop the solution to the query. We are only interested in expressing what we know, not in addressing the real problem or even in understanding what the other person has to say.

We hear mechanically at best; we never really listen.

Here, Krishna is interested in the real problem and not interested in expressing what He knows. The only reason a Master expresses is his endless compassion. He wants Arjuna to have clarity of mind and is interested in helping him find a solution to his problem. He allowed Arjuna to speak so that He could go to the root of the problem and address the issue.

One needs intelligence, or I may say enlightenment, to listen.

Only an enlightened Master like Krishna can listen. In the first chapter He listens fully and completely. Even in the second chapter, He allowed Arjuna to speak in many verses.

He knew that once He allowed Arjuna to express his problems, he would himself find the solution to them.

People come to me and say, 'Master, you know our problems; please give us the answer.' I ask them to state their problems clearly.

They say, 'You are enlightened and already know of our problems; please give us the answer.'

I say, 'Yes, I know your problem even if you don't speak, but you will not know your own problem if you do not speak.'

Even if, in some cases, we may not be able to speak out in detail with clarity, we should be able to think through our problem, so that at least we understand what the problem is. Our mind should be open to possibilities.

I tell people during the Ananda Darshan (energy awakening) part of our programs that they can ask me for advice on problems that they face.

When you speak the Master listens. More importantly, you listen within yourself. Actually, it is not even necessary to speak and hold up people who are queuing up behind you. All that is needed is to keep your mind open so that the transmission can take place. Even if you do not verbalize you can visualize your needs and problems and this will be even more powerful than speech itself.

That is what happens on the Kurukshetra battlefield. People who have the rationality to compute time may wonder, 'Arjuna spoke for so long. Now Krishna speaks for so long. How is it possible for these two to hold such a long conversation in the middle of a battlefield? What were all the others doing? Wasn't Duryodhana fed up or didn't he think that this was a good opportunity to get rid of Arjuna and Krishna, as they talked and wasted everybody's time?'

That's how the logical, rational, unaware mind thinks. Such a mind cannot conceive of the possibility that a conversation can indeed take place in silence. People are not used to visualization. They lose this skill as they grow up. Children can visualize beautifully. That is why they can keep themselves busy talking silently to themselves and talking silently with imaginary friends. Education and logic rob us of this skill.

At the next level of communication your mind needs to be still to allow the grace to move in. This is the subtlest and most powerful of all communication. At this level communication becomes communion.

When they talk of great Masters like Ramana Maharishi communicating in silence, it was indeed true. To communicate, you need not open your mouth. You only need to open up your mind. When the mind is open and free of disturbing thoughts, especially in front of the Master, communication can take place at the speed of light. The presence of the Master will help still your mind. Answers will appear even before your questions are asked.

Seekers, intellectual seekers, with years of questioning and doubting behind them, come to me and ask, 'Master, why is it that when I come to you with hundreds of questions, when I am in front of you, there is no need to ask you about them? I feel as if the answers are already there!'

This is not imagination; this is truth. Questions can only raise more questions. Questions are a reflection of your inner ego, which is violence. When you are in front of the Master, a Master you truly believe in, the first thing that happens is the melting of your ego. The ego just disappears like snow in the sun. Therefore, questions also disappear. In their place the answers that you were already aware of make their appearance, previously hidden by the veil of your ego, your ignorance. You start feeling that magically, miraculously the answers appear in front of the Master.

The truth is that the answers were all there, already there. Our ego would not allow us to accept and be aware of those answers. The Master's presence dissolved the ego and let the answers out.

There is an interesting Zen parable.

A soldier went to the Master - Nansen, with this problem.

A man kept a goose in a bottle, feeding it until it grew too large to get out of the neck of the bottle. Now, how did he get the goose out without killing the goose or breaking the bottle?

Nansen said to him, 'Oh, Officer?'

The soldier responded, 'Yes, Master?'

Nansen exclaimed 'There, the goose is out of the bottle!'

The moment the soldier addressed Nansen as Master, accepted that he was his Master, the goose, the ego, was out of the bottle, his body-mind!

Only when you open up to the Master do you actually come to know your problem clearly and the answers come as if from nowhere. You can do it at three levels. You can converse and convey through words and the Master will listen. At the next level you can communicate from the heart in silence; you can visualize instead of verbalizing in speech. Finally, you can commune in silence and the Master will grasp this even more powerfully.

Here Krishna allowed Arjuna to verbalize, so that to begin with, Arjuna himself has the clarity to understand his problem. Once Arjuna expressed his confusion, he could relapse into silence and commune with the Master.

2.1 Sanjaya said, As Arjuna's eyes overflowed with tears of pity and despair,

Krishna spoke to him thus.

2.2 Krishna said,

Where from has this dejection descended on you at this critical time, Arjuna!

You behave unlike a noble man and this will keep you away from realization.

2.9 Sanjaya said:

Arjuna then said to Krishna, 'Govinda, I shall not fight,' and fell silent.

2.10 Krishna, smilingly spoke the following words to the grief-stricken Arjuna, as they were placed in the middle of both armies.

2.11 Bhagavan said:

You grieve for those that should not be grieved for and yet, you speak words of wisdom.

The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead.

2.12 It is not that at anytime in the past I did not exist; so did you and these rulers exist,

And we shall not ever cease to be hereafter.

2.13 Just as the spirit in this body passes through childhood, youth and old age,

So does it pass into another body; the man centered within himself does not fear this.

Even though it is written here in the past tense, I feel Krishna should always be addressed in the present tense. He is still relevant to each of us today. We cannot say, 'Krishna was' but 'Krishna is'; not 'Krishna said' but 'Krishna says'.

Once again, having lamented about what he is being forced to do, and not wishing to do what he is expected to do, Arjuna, like a petulant child sits down saying, 'I am not going to fight.' It is as if Arjuna is waiting to be persuaded.

He is seeking an explanation.

Krishna says to him gently and smilingly, 'While speaking learned words, you are mourning for what is not worthy of grief. Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor for the dead.'

Again, Krishna addresses the issue directly, 'O Arjuna! You speak as if you are intelligent, enlightened. You speak the words without having experienced them. Therefore, your words do not carry conviction.

Your emotion, your being, shows that you are not enlightened, that you have not understood, that you have not experienced. A truly enlightened person will never worry for the living or the dead.'

If you worry for somebody living or dead, you cannot be an intelligent person. What is death and life after all? There are thousands, rather millions, who have lived and gone.

Someone once asked me, 'Why is it that natural calamities happen? Why is it that so many people die in wars and calamities? Why is God doing these things and why is God being mean?'

I told him, 'To give you an honest answer, I do not know. But if you insist on an answer, I can give you an answer the next time God calls for a conference. I can ask Him to give me an answer!'

These questions have no answer in Existence. The question is asked from a very low level, from your logic, but God is beyond your logic.

You can never have an answer for these questions.

For example, a small ant asks the elephant, 'Why are you as dark as I am? How is it that we both have the same color skin?' Will the elephant be able to answer? The elephant will not even know that it is being asked this question. He will not even be aware of the ant or it's question!

Likewise, it is important to understand the rules of Existence, of the Divine.

Only the ignorant worry about people who are living or dead. A truly intelligent person does not bother about death.

Often people ask me, 'How was the universe created? Was it by Brahma, as Hindu scriptures say? Or was it created in six days by a nameless God as the Old Testament would have us believe?'

I say to them what Buddha said thousands of years ago based on his personal perception. 'The universe,' Buddha said, 'has neither been created nor will it ever be destroyed. It always has been.'

The universe created itself. It is the creation that embodies the creator and results in what has been created. The universe is the ultimate expression of the non-dual advaitic experience, in which the experience merges with the experiencer and the experienced.

Our questions regarding the 'right' and 'wrong' of what happens around us arise only when they threaten us in some manner or another. These questions, these issues about the morality of the universe, spring forth when our ego is threatened, when our identity is threatened, when our life is threatened.

Every person stricken with an incurable and fatal affliction such as cancer, would invariably ask the question, 'Why me?' If it is a young child, then certainly the parents, relatives and friends are bound to question the justice and fairness of God.

What do we know about the fairness of God? What do we know at all about God? All we know and care about is our own welfare. All we wish is to be secure in the comforts of our own wellbeing and that of our near and dear ones. Any concern about the rest of humanity is only after one's own comfort zone is managed.

The creator is also the destroyer. What is created will be destroyed. We have no agreement with God that when we are born we will be assured of so many years of life along with the knowledge of the timing and nature of our death. We are born into this world with no awareness of why we are here. We will also die with no awareness of when and how. The truth is that simple. We have no birthright to all this information. Birth itself is not our right!

When you truly realize your Self, when you are enlightened, you will be aware of when you will die and how you will die. It will then make no difference to you whether your body is alive or dead. Living and dying are no longer issues in which you feel you need to play a part. They are progressions of nature and being enlightened, you flow with nature.

We are just playing with words when we talk about karma and destiny, saying that they are responsible for everything that happens to us and for everything that we do.

Let me tell you this: We are responsible for what happens to us. We are responsible for what we do. It is a misrepresentation of nature's law to blame nature for what happens to us.

Earthquakes and tsunamis occur because man has plundered nature. Looking for oil and minerals, we have drilled holes tens of thousands of meters into the bowels of the Earth, on land and in the ocean. We have ruthlessly destroyed forests and hills. We have drilled holes through the ozone layer in search of our comfort zone. Then we wonder why nature misbehaves. Nature only behaves, She never misbehaves.

Nature does not guarantee that the person who creates havoc and destroys is the one to suffer in that body. Nature is patient and all knowing. Nature's law strikes without fear or favor. What one generation does to destroy nature may visit upon another generation. From nature's standpoint we never die. We just disappear and reappear. In whichever scene we reappear, we still bear responsibility for what we have done in an earlier scene.

That's why questions of why a ten-year-old should die or contract cancer have neither meaning nor relevance. The ten-year-old is only the reappearance of someone who has been here before and probably will reincarnate to be here again. We are not normally aware of what one has done before and what one is therefore responsible for.

Some people question, 'Is it fair that we are held responsible for what we did in another lifetime and are not even aware of now?'

Who said anything about fairness? What do we know of fairness except what we determine what is fair out of our own selfishness? It is possible to be conscious of what one has done in previous births; it is even possible to have a conscious birth, coming into this world fully conscious and aware. Before that happens, we need to drop our ego and merge with nature. We need to surrender our existence to nature. When we do so, nature responds and opens up.

Sanjaya says Krishna was smiling as He uttered these words. Krishna must have been laughing at Arjuna. 'You fool, you pretend to be wise and quote the scriptures. Who do you think you are quoting the scriptures to? What can you understand of what I, Myself have said?'

Krishna continues: 'Never was there a time when I did not exist or you and all these kings, and never in the future shall any of us cease to be.'

With this verse begins the essence of the whole Gita.

This is the gist of the whole Gita. This is atmagnana, Self Realization. If you can understand this one verse, you can become enlightened straightaway and enter into eternal bliss.

Krishna says there was never a time when I, you and all the kings did not exist. If you think our souls will also die with our bodies, you are wrong. We were there before our birth and this death and will remain after death. It is not true that any of us will not be in the future.

In Zen Buddhism there is a beautiful meditation technique to achieve enlightenment.

You are asked to meditate on the face you had before your birth. The koan or sutra, a technique for meditation says, 'What was your face like before your father and mother were born?'

Upon meditating on this koan you realize that you existed in the past, exist in the present and will exist in the future. Your face and body may change but you continue to exist. Then why do we think we will die and why do we fear death? If what Krishna says is true, why are we worried about this life and about death? You need to first understand the concept of the past, present and future to enable you to understand what Krishna says.

Let me explain this concept first.

Time is like a shaft continuously moving from the future on the right into the past on the left. The future is on your right and the past is on your left. The future is continuously moving into the past; every moment and every second it is turning into the past. The present is the point where the future and the past meet. Your mind as such is nothing but movements between the past and the future.

You cannot have any thoughts if you stop thinking about the past and the future. Your thoughts consist of nothing but the constant movements between past and the future. The more your thoughts shift from past to future or future to past, the higher the frequency of thoughts. The less you shift from past to future or future

to past, less the number of thoughts. Try to think of something in the present, you will find that you cannot. You can think of it only by taking it into the past or future. You are either worrying about the future or remembering the past.

The higher the frequency of thoughts, the more you are caught in the physical and material world.

For example, if you have 100 Thoughts Per Second (TPS), it means you have jumped 100 times between the past and future back and forth in one second. If you have 80 TPS, it means you have jumped that many times between these two dimensions. The higher the frequency, the more you will be away from the present. The higher the frequency of thoughts, the more worries and problems you have. If the number of thoughts reduces, you fall into the present moment.

When your frequency of thoughts is high, you are in the physical body or the annamaya kosha. When the frequency is a little less, you move into a higher energy layer called praanamaya kosha. When your TPS is say 60 (here the reference is just proportional), you move into the mental layer or manomaya kosha or the next layer – pleasure layer or the vignanamaya kosha; you come a little close to the atman. If you fall in the present moment, you are in the inner most layer, that is the anandamaya kosha; you are atman or the soul*.*

The past, present and future, all the three put together are eternal, nithya or atman. Only when you come to the present moment do you experience atman – your true Self, but as of now you are constantly shuttling between the past and future.

The Upanishads talk of these five body layers. The vignanamaya kosha is where the TPS is still less, say 40. When your TPS is very low, say 20, you come to the anandamaya kosha.

When the number of thoughts reduces, you will not even be aware of the passage of time. For example, when you are with someone you love, even two or three hours will seem like a short while. On the contrary, when you are with someone whose company is boring, even a short time seems very long. You will keep glancing at your watch and wondering why time does not move!

Time is more psychological than chronological. That is why, in our scriptures or Vedas, we have the word kshana to describe the unit of time. Kshana does not denote one second, but is defined as the gap or time interval between two thoughts. The larger the kshana, or the gap between two thoughts, the more in the present we are. Each person's kshana will be different depending on how busy their mind is! Normally, our kshana will be in the region of microseconds because we are continuously flooded with thoughts.

When our TPS is lower, we will naturally be in ecstasy, in bliss. When our thoughts are less, we will not know how much time has passed and we live in heaven. When the number of our thoughts is high, we are in hell. Hell and heaven are nothing but the number of thoughts that we entertain, that's all. That is why I say heaven and hell are not geographical places, but psychological spaces.

With a higher frequency of thoughts, you are in hell, caught in the physical layer; you think you are the body. When the frequency of thoughts reduces, you think you are the mind and just emotion and bliss prevail. When the thoughts become zero, you realize you are atman - Self; you are there in the past, present and future. Only a man whose TPS is zero can realize what Krishna says - You will be there forever. The past, present and future are just words; you exist throughout.

But right now the frequency of thoughts is very high. You do not have the patience or the energy to understand who you are, your base and your nature. The moment you fall into the present moment, you experience that you were there in the past, are in the present and will be in the future. Krishna says, 'You were there in the past, you are in the present and you will be in the future; you do not die.'

When He says that, He means that you are nithya atman, eternal consciousness; you are beyond your mind and body. But you are restless and know only this space of moving from past to future, that is why you are unable to believe that this space of the present exists within you. You are away from the present moment, away from the eternal consciousness, therefore unable to see the truth of eternal consciousness*.* The higher the TPS, the farther away you are and from there, you cannot see it clearly. When you come down in your TPS, you can see and experience your nature more clearly, more deeply.

When Krishna says, 'You are the eternal atman', He means that as a being, you are beyond time, but as of now, you are caught in the mind between the past and the future.

He says beautifully, 'There was never a time when I, you and all these kings did not exist. If you think that our souls will also die along with our bodies, you are wrong. We existed before our birth and will remain after our death. It is also not true that any of us will not be in the future.' We will be in the future as there is no death of our being or consciousness. Whatever dies, can never live. Whatever lives can never die.'

Here, your deep consciousness says that something is living in you. This quality you attribute to your body and mind. Do not misunderstand your consciousness to be your body and mind.

You are not the body or the mind. As long as you are caught in the past and the future, you think that you are the body and mind. The moment you come down to the present moment, you experience that you are beyond the body, beyond the mind.

Krishna does not mean that we existed in the form that we are here now or that He was present always as Krishna in the form we imagine Him to be, with a flute in His hand and a peacock feather on His head. He means that our spirits which are eternal, always existed and will always exist. In our spiritual state, that of our atman, we are divine, one with the universal energy, Brahman.

The gist of the second chapter is that you are atman, that you are divine and that you are God.

Even as the spirit resides in this body, the body passes through its seasons of childhood, youth, middle age and old age as the seasons of nature do in each year. Finally, it passes through death, and then reappears, just as trees shed leaves in autumn and produce new leaves in spring.

Transition of the spirit through the body as it ages is no different from the transition of time through the seasons. One does not grieve as one enjoys the pleasures of childhood, youth and middle age. Why then should one grieve the onset of old age and then death?

At death the spirit passes from one body into another body. It has three kshanas to achieve this, each kshana being a time period between thoughts. A person who is in a high thought frequency state, a high TPS (thoughts per second) state, has a much shorter time to shift from one body to another compared to another person whose TPS is low, whose frequency of thoughts is low.

A person in a no-mind, no-thought state has infinite time, as the time between thoughts is infinite. His spirit is at liberty to stay free without taking another body as long as he chooses, or more correctly, as the universe chooses.

All enlightened Masters are in this category. When the spirit leaves the mind-body system, it becomes one with the universal energy.

Imagine a number of circles drawn on a whiteboard. Think of the whiteboard space as the universal energy. Individual body-mind systems are represented by the circles drawn on the whiteboard. The white space enclosed in the circles is the spirit and this is the same energy as the white space outside the circles. The space within is atman, and the space outside is brahman.

When a body mind dies, when an individual dies, all that happens is that these perimeter lines get erased, that is all. The space within the circle merges with the space outside the circle. White merges with white. Energy merges with energy.

When the spirit, the energy, is ready to move into another mind-body system, it enters another circle. It is a continuous, ongoing process and a natural process. One

who understands this process and accepts it is an integrated person. Krishna refers to him as a 'dheera', one who is firm, centered and aware.

Q: The question I have is about the past and the future. This has to do with astrologers and palmists who tell us our past and future. Some of them are correct and some of them are wrong. Does astrology have validity?

See, if you are sitting in a low point or a valley, can you see what there is at a distance? You cannot. That is how it is when your thoughts crowd your mind and the TPS (thoughts per second) is high. If you sit higher or

closer you can see a little more clearly. Closer still, with fewer thoughts, you can see still more clearly. From up close, you can see like your own personal computer.

A person with a low TPS can see very clearly. He can see through time. He can predict your past and future properly and clearly. If the person's TPS is high, he cannot predict at all because his mind is constantly moving between past and future. A person who has established himself in the nithya atman or eternal consciousness can not only predict but also change the future!

There is a beautiful verse in the Vedic scriptures that says that all the letters so painstakingly written by Brahma – the Lord of Creation - on your forehead can simply be erased by the Guru's left toe when the Guru casually walks past! The man who is established in the eternal consciousness can recreate the future.

Astrology, Jyotisha in Sanskrit, and any form of prediction, whether palmistry or tarot cards, is not so much about the science as it is about what state the individual who predicts is in. Yes, astrology is a science and it is based on valid principles of how the universal energy field affects individuals. In the Vedic culture, astrology was rarely used beyond adolescence and even then only as a guidance to evaluate the aptitude of a student. A guru at the Gurukul - Vedic school, used astrology to determine the aptitude and potential of a young student, much as you would use SAT tests today, the student aptitude tests.

Using astrology to decide what you have to do day after day is a misuse of that knowledge. When you understand that you are part of the flow of the cosmic energy, which is what astrology teaches, you need to have the intelligence to flow with that energy and allow what happens to happen.

2.14 O son of Kunti, contact with sense objects causes heat and cold, pleasure and pain, and these have a beginning and an end.

O Bharata, these are not permanent; endure them bravely.

2.15 O chief among men, these surely do not afflict the man who is centered,

Pleasure and pain are the same to him and he is ready for enlightenment.

Part 3: Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM - Chapter 2 - You are God_English_part_3.md

2.16 The nonexistent has no being; that which exists never ceases to exist;

This truth about both is perceived by those who know the Truth.

2.17 Know It to be indestructible, by which all this body is pervaded.

Nothing can destroy It, the Imperishable.

2.18 These bodies of the material energy are perishable.

The Energy itself is eternal, incomprehensible and indestructible.

Therefore, fight, O Bharata.

Krishna says here that the sensory experiences are all temporary. Feelings of hot and cold, sweet and sour, wet and dry, experiences of pain and pleasure, as well as other experiences of like and dislike are all temporary. These experiences do not affect the centered person who is qualified to be enlightened.

Buddha refers to sensory experiences as anichha or impermanent and unreal. That they are impermanent is easy to understand. These experiences last only as long as the sensory stimuli are in place. Moreover, they are relative. What may be considered hot by one person may not be perceived as hot by another. Certainly, the conclusions that heat is pleasurable or cold is pleasurable are both specific to individuals and circumstances. These are related to time, space and individuals.

There are many sadhus - ascetics, who stay in the higher reaches of the Himalayan mountains with very little clothing, in what everyone would consider bitter cold. There are those who carry out the parikrama, circumambulation, of Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar with meager clothing and footwear. Studies have been conducted on Tibetan Lamas in their high altitude snowcovered monasteries that show how the Lamas can bear extreme cold without any discomfort. Renowned scientists from reputed institutions such as the Harvard Medical School have conducted such studies.

When nature is accepted totally, heat, cold, rain, dryness and all these changes do not affect the mindbody system. If we walk around without footwear, the earth that we walk upon becomes our friend. As long as we wear footwear with the intention of protecting ourselves from nature, we are treating nature as an outsider, as an enemy. We can therefore never be comfortable with nature because of this attitude.

One who is firmly grounded in himself is grounded in nature. To such a person, changes in nature's parameters such as heat and cold, rain and shine, make no difference. They do not give him either pleasure or pain. Such a person treats them naturally, equally, with no difference.

Krishna says that such a person is qualified and ready for enlightenment. Such persons have brought their senses under control, and as a result have their mind too under control.

What Krishna says here, and what was understood by the wise sages of the East for thousands of years, is only now being grasped by scientists and researchers.

The mind-body system that we are born with is transient, in the sense that it is perishable and ceases to exist at death. No human being, or for that matter, any living being on this planet Earth is exempt from this rule. Everything in material form ceases to exist in that form at some point in time, and in that sense, does not have permanence or a basis in Truth.

It is now accepted by medical science that the mindbody dies many deaths before its final exit. Cells within our body die in thousands everyday and get reborn. Over a period of a few years, every single cell in the mindbody system is replaced and renewed. What you were two or three years ago is not what you are today. What you are today is not what you will be in two or three years from now. Every single cell in your mind-body system, and therefore, every single bone, muscle, tissue, artery, vein, limb and body part are new, completely different from what they were two or three years ago.

The mind-body continually ceases to exist and gets recreated. It is not permanent. It is transient.

Separate from the mind body system is our spirit that lives on eternally. The spirit remains the same throughout our life with no change, despite all the changes to the mind body system. It continues to be, to exist, even after our death. The spirit does not die with the body. It lives on. It is permanent and true.

When one understands this difference between what is eternal - nithya, and what is transient - mithya, one becomes a seer and knower of Truth.

Nithya and mithya do not translate into real and unreal. In the same way maya is not unreal. Maya and mithya are real and perceived by our senses but they are not true, they are not lasting. They are not sat - truth, they are asat - untruth. They are factually real but truthfully unreal. That which is true will always be true, it cannot cease to exist. Truth here refers to the state of permanence, of being eternal.

I say a living Master is not present as you feel, and a dead Master is not absent as you think. The presence of a dead Master, an enlightened dead Master, is permanent and always real. A living Master's form is not His presence. He is present in His absence as well.

Our perceptions through our senses may be real but not necessarily true. What is an observed fact is not necessarily true. A dream is very real when it happens. You may get angry, frightened, excited, lustful and all of these when you dream. Your body responds to these emotions that you feel in a dream and your senses react to what you observe in the dream. Yet the moment you start witnessing the dream, you awaken. You cannot dream when you become aware. The dream is not true, though it seemed real.

The same happens when you are awake and daydreaming, which is most of the time. You are awake but you fantasize. The fantasies are real when you undergo the experience; they exist in your mind and even your senses but they are not true. They are not permanent and you cannot do anything tangible with them.

Even when you think you are fully awake, what you perceive through your senses may not be what you interpret them to mean. Your mind always filters its own lens of the ego. You judge whatever you perceive through your conditioned memories. In almost all cases, your judgment has already been made. All that you do is selectively put together pieces of what you perceive, to support your judgment.

That is the reason why the great Masters have always urged their disciples to wake up. Jagrat is the word used to awaken them. This is not the call to wake up from sleep but the call to wake up into awareness! It is the call to emerge from the non-existent reality of facts and observation into the truly existent Truth of self-experience.

Most of the time we exist in our past or future. We are constantly caught in the experiences of the past, reliving them under the excuse of learning from them, but in actuality, we are caught in guilt, regret or pleasure from remembering the past experiences and memories with no ability whatsoever to do anything about them. They are the ghosts hovering in our lives. The past is history. It is gone. The moving finger has written and moved on. There is no way that it will erase even a single thing that has been written. Our intelligence, creativity and bliss can be accessed only in this present moment, not in reviewing the past.

Our other mistake is to speculate about the future. The future is just as unreal as the past. If anything, it is more unreal, as it has not even happened. Yet, we build castles, we plan, we dream, and we fantasize about the future without the capacity to execute any of it. We are not even confident of taking our next breath that is not under our control. How can we control events of the future when we cannot control our breath?

The futility of our constant movement between past to future and back again is the greatest wonder of it all. It is merely the stuff of our thoughts and our belief that it is real. And it is the source of all of our suffering!

The only truth, the only true reality, is the truth of this very moment. As long as we focus on this present moment, we are truly aware and centered. The present moment never ceases to exist. In fact, that is all that does exist. The present moment alone is sat, truth, everything else is asat, untruth.

One who realizes this and acts accordingly, says Krishna, is enlightened.

We are all made of body, mind and spirit. The body is tangible; we can feel its boundaries. When a part of the body is sick, we can feel the discomfort. As long as we feel the body working smoothly, the parts of our body, we say we are in good health.

Our mind is subtle. We do not feel the mind in the same way as we feel the body. We do not feel its boundaries. Yet, we feel the effects of the mind: thoughts, desires, emotions etc. Modern scientific studies have shown that what we term as mind is spread all over the body. Mind and its intelligence are inbuilt into our cellular structure.

Recent studies have shown that it is our belief systems, which in turn arise from our experiences that define the development of our mind, and in turn influence the cellular structure. Earlier it was believed that genetic modifications to the cellular structures influenced the way we behaved. Now it is proven that it is our behavior that leads to our beliefs and thereafter determines our genetics.

Even subtler is the spirit. In fact, many people question this entity called spirit. What is it, they ask? What is this thing called spirit or soul? We cannot see it and we cannot touch it. Becoming aware of this subtle spirit or soul is just what Self-realization is all about.

In these verses, Krishna says first that the spirit pervades the body. His definition of body is the mindbody system. Secondly, He states that the body and mind are destroyed at death. Thirdly, He declares that the spirit does not die at death. Fourthly, He explains that the spirit is beyond our mental comprehension.

When death happens, body functions stop. Senses that are a function of the mind stop working. The brain which processes thoughts stops working. The entire mind-body system is then left by itself and it degenerates. This part is clear to all of us who have seen death.

What is unclear or unknown to us is that there is something within us that does not perish at death. Krishna clarifies here that this is the Self, the Ātman, the energy that never dies.

Upanishads talk about this spirit as dwelling deep in our hearts and being of such minute proportions that it is smaller than a fraction of a fraction of one's hair!

What is death? Is it the spirit leaving the body that causes death or is it that death forces the spirit into leaving the body? This argument becomes irrelevant once one understands that the body and the mind-body systems are perishable, that it has a definite shelf life. It comes with an expiry date, whatever that date may be. However, beyond this expiry date, there is something that lives on and that is the spirit.

This spirit is energy; it is the energy of life. As I explained before, after death this energy moves from within the body that it occupied temporarily to the energy that is outside the body, the universal energy that surrounds the body.

Krishna urges Arjuna to fight, with the full understanding that what he thinks of as real is unreal, that what he thinks of as permanent is impermanent, and what he thinks he is about to destroy can, in truth, never be destroyed.

Arjuna is overcome with remorse, guilt, pity and insecurity at the very thought of killing his kinsmen. He believes that he is committing a mortal sin by killing them, since he thinks it will be the end of them. Krishna tells him to open his eyes. He tells Arjuna that what he is about to do will only destroy that which is going to perish anyway. Even if he wanted to, Arjuna cannot destroy the imperishable spirit that lives on.

Arjuna's concern about the death of his kinsmen and elders arises out of his insecurity about his own death. He does not realize his true imperishable nature and therefore he is afraid of dying. By extension, he is afraid of others' deaths as well, especially at his own hands. Krishna tells him that there is no such thing as death. He tells him that death is unreal.

All our lives we see people around us dying. We all know that there is no one who is immortal. We all know that death is the only certainty in this otherwise uncertain world. Everyone, whether a beggar or a prince, must die.

When we wake up from a dream, we don't mourn our dream lives, as real as they felt at the time. Do we? No. In the same way, when we awaken into the highest state of consciousness, we have the same experience that this 'real' life was only a dream. There is nothing to mourn or fret over. The lineage of all enlightened Masters the world over has again and again supported Krishna's declarations with their own direct experience. The body is just the shell that houses your spirit. Even when the body perishes, you do not. It is impossible because you are eternal. You are bliss.

Krishna is stating this reality, straight out. He says firmly that there is no such thing as death. He says what dies or seems to perish is unreal; it had no permanent existence any way.

What does have existence, what is truly real, exists now, has always existed and will exist forever!

Q: Is it possible to be detached without being indifferent? How do we keep our hearts open along the spiritual path?

Please be very clear: only a person with an open heart can be detached.

If you are indifferent, you will only be dull, not detached. Only a person who can give himself completely can also detach himself completely. Understand that you never shower yourself on anybody because you are afraid that you may not be able to detach. The power to share and detach

is one and the same. If you cannot share yourself intensely, you cannot detach yourself. The person who struggles is half of everything, being able to neither attach nor detach. The one who can attach fully can also detach himself.

Many of you are so much in need of attention yourselves that it is difficult to express love and affection to others all the time. Your heart energy center, the anāhata chakra, is blocked by a desperate need for attention. You suck energy from others, since attention is energy. The main reason for this is your upbringing. Since childhood you are conditioned to please others and over time you cannot exist without approval of others.

Many of you may have experienced this. When someone is bitter and grieving and you give him or her a shoulder to cry on, you are left feel drained of energy. You are not doing anything physical. You are not even experiencing anything emotional directly. You are only listening to some one cry. Yet, it affects you, it drains you. This is real. People suck energy from you. If you are not centered in your heart center and your heart center is not open, you will feel drained. This may then affect you physically.

By unblocking and energizing your anāhata chakra, the heart center, you become a permanent source of energy and become capable of showering attention, affection on others without expecting anything in return and without feeling drained. We teach a simple meditation technique

to activate and energize the anāhata chakra in our first level chakra energization courses, the Life Bliss Program level 1. Not only is this capable of giving love without expectation, but it is also a powerful self healing meditation.

When you do not expect anything in return, you have no attachment and you become detached. Detachment does not refer to a state of non-caring, it is in fact just the opposite. The right word is nonattachment, not detachment. When you are not attached, you do not differentiate between strangers and family and friends. You shower attention and affection equally. There is no boundary to your circle of care; it is infinite.

Attachment binds you to the past and present. Nonattachment centers you in the present. When you genuinely care, and care unconditionally, you are no longer bothered about what a person did in the past and how he or she behaved with you. You are also no longer concerned about how they may act with you in the future. All that matters is that you care now.

That is why true love is always in the present. That is why it is blind; it is blind to the past and future. Real love only has eyes to see in the present moment. So long as the love has a fixed object, it remains blind.

When you let go the object and let the love flow wherever, to whomever and however, love blossoms into compassion; it is love expressed in a state of total awareness.

Q: Some Masters talk of the Self as poorna and some as sunya. These have contradictory meanings. How can both be correct?

Buddha refers to the ultimate stage as sunya, nothingness. Sankara refers to the same stage as poorna, the fullness stage. Both Masters refer to the same state. Sankara refers to Self-realization and liberation from all bondages of life and death. Buddha also refers to liberation from all bondages though he says there is no Self and all that there is, is nothingness.

Nothingness and fullness are opposite sides of the same state. They are not different from each other. They are just being viewed differently. When we refer to sunya, we negate; when we refer to poorna we include, that's all.

The Vedic chant 'poornamadah poornamidam' says that from fullness arises fullness; when fullness comes out of fullness, fullness still remains. One can replace the word fullness in this chant with nothingness and the meaning will not change. Just as there is nothing beyond nothing, there is nothing beyond fullness.

Whatever you may add or subtract or multiply or divide from infinity, it will remain infinity. In mathematics if you add to zero you may get something, but if you add anything to nothingness, it will absorb the nothingness into it like a black hole and there will be nothing to show.

Sankara, who talked about poorna, fullness, was the ultimate denier of everything. 'Neti, neti, not this, not this,' was his motto. At eight years of age, he responded to his guru Govindapada, on the banks of the river Tungabadra with six verses that form Atmashataka. Every verse in this response is denial. 'I am not this, I am not that,' Sankara says. I am not the five elements. I am not the emotions. I am not the enjoyment. He says, 'I am Shiva. Nothingness leads to fullness.'

2.19 Neither understands, he who takes the Self to be slayer nor he who thinks he is slain.

He who knows the truth understands that the Self does not slay, nor is It slain.

2.20 Self is neither born nor does It ever die. After having been, It never ceases not to be.

It is Unborn, Eternal, Changeless and Ancient. It is not killed when the body is killed.

2.21 O Partha, how can man slay or cause others to be slain,

When he knows It to be indestructible, eternal, unborn, and unchangeable?

2.22 Just as man casts off his worn out clothes and puts on new ones,

Self casts off worn out bodies and enters newer ones.

2.23 Weapons do not cleave the Self, fire does not burn It water does not moisten It

And wind does not dry It.

2.24 The Self cannot be broken nor burnt nor dissolved nor dried up.

It is eternal, all-pervading, stable, immovable and ancient.

2.25 The Self is said to be unmanifest, unthinkable and unchangeable and able.

Knowing this to be such, you should not grieve.

Krishna directly addresses some of Arjuna's earlier doubts in these verses. Arjuna has claimed that destroying his relatives and his mentors will bring him untold grief, not only in this world but in future births as well. He claims that his future generations will suffer as a result of such evil deeds.

Krishna explains to Arjuna that all his fears are misplaced. There is no death in reality. What is seen as death is the destruction of the impermanent body. No one therefore can kill another person or be killed by another person. Both are illusions.

The spirit that occupies the body lives on forever. It occupies the body temporarily but by itself the Self is eternal, indestructible, and it has no births and deaths. It is the body, the sheath that covers it, that dies and is reborn. The spirit or the Self lives on forever.

What Krishna says here is radically different from what any other scripture has said. Krishna denies the concept of death here. He says there is no such thing as death. He is not saying: be good, and you will be taken care of when you die and if you are bad, you will suffer. He says there is no death, that's all.

Just imagine that as an infant, you are cast away on an island with no other living being. As you grow older will you have any idea of what it is to die? When indeed your body gives up what will happen? Nothing. You will not know anything, that's all. It is as Socrates said as he died, 'How does it matter if I am going into nothingness and I never come back? Birth, rebirth and all this will also not make a difference.'

Here Krishna is talking to someone who has witnessed death. So, He has to explain to him that death does not exist; that it is a mere passage from one shell into another; it is a transfer from one body into another.

It is the individual's attachment to the body that creates the illusion that the individual also perishes with the body.

Attachment to the body is the most intense of all attachments. We also get attached to material possessions as well as our relationships. The potential loss of these attachments leads to fears similar to that of losing one's body.

One who understands that all these attachments are temporary and are the cause of all our suffering, understands the Truth.

Understanding this truth removes all fears.

Cultures that do not accept the concept of the continuance of the spirit incubate this fear of loss of identity deeply into the individual psyche. People are bred on the belief that one's life ends at death. It is a permanent end. This belief leads to desperate behavior, as if there is no further time for the individual to seek happiness. Hell and heaven have been created based on this concept of having a single life and the permanence of death. Concepts of hell and heaven are used by all cultures to control people through fear and greed.

Once a person understands that death, like birth, is a merely a passage, and sees the continuity of being, the fear of losing one's identity disappears. One is relaxed. One is no longer terrorized and controlled by fears of sin and hell.

This is why religions that accept the continuance of life after death, as Hinduism and Buddhism do, breed a culture of tolerance amongst their followers. There is no rush to live and extract the maximum juice out of one's life in a single birth. These religions state that we all come from a common energy source and we go back to this source, and the cycle continues. Those who understand this spiritual truth in these religions preach the concept of acceptance, inclusion and compassion, and they have no desire to convert others to their beliefs.

It is easy to misinterpret these verses and say that if there is no one killing or being killed, then what stops us from mindlessly killing. That is not what Krishna intends.

One who truly understands that death is not the end of the path, but only a milestone in the journey, is not perturbed by death when it happens naturally or when it is caused for a purpose.

These truths are preached to Arjuna who already understands the basic truths of yama (the first step of the philosophy formulated by Patanjali, a great ancient Master). These are the principles of satya (truth), ahimsa (non-violence), aparigraha (living simply), asteya (non covetousness) and brahmacharya (living without fantasies). Arjuna fully understands the implications of killing, and that, as a kshatriya, it is his dharmic code of conduct that requires him to slay his enemies.

Here Krishna preaches to the person about a more subtle level of truth that he hasn't yet grasped. Arjuna shies away from killing, not because of his conviction of ahimsa, non-violence, but because he identifies with the people he has to destroy. His hesitation is from the ignorance of attachment and fantasy, not from the wisdom of non-violent compassion.

Krishna's message to Arjuna is as it would be to someone who has to uphold dharma at all costs, and in today's context that would apply to a soldier or a policeman. However, it would not be a blind acceptance of orders that would compel such people to take lives. It would not be an action driven by fear and greed. It would not be killing for gain and it would not be killing out of fear that one would be killed. It would be an ultimate action, born out of the knowledge that such destruction is needed for universal good and that such destruction would lead to creation.

Such is the destructive aspect of Nature. Nature destroys to recreate. Shiva is the Rejuvenator not the destroyer as we normally refer to him. This is what Krishna preaches to Arjuna within this context.

You may ask, 'If nothing is destroyed and nothing can be destroyed, is there no sin in killing at all? All the people whom we call villains like Hitler, Bin Laden and others, do they commit no sin by killing? They are only killing bodies that will perish anyway. So Krishna is indifferent to mass violence, isn't He?

No, He is not. For one thing, Krishna speaks as an enlightened Master from an existentialist perspective and says that, even when the body perishes, the spirit lives on, and therefore, there is no death.

Violence and killing are not merely physical acts. They are psychological compulsions acted out. A person with Hitler's mindset but without Hilter's power, would have behaved similarly but on a smaller scale. The generals who ordered the bombing of Hiroshima were far more violent than the poor pilot who was ordered to press the button that dropped the bomb. The ruler of a country who orders warfare against others is the violent one, even if he hides behind his throne.

Violence of the mind is fatal; violence of the body is not. Violence of the mind carries on as the vasana or desires; the essence of the spirit, that incarnates from birth to birth. That is the horror that does not end with the act of killing. The spirit is violated, degraded, and degenerated by this attitude of violence.

A violent man is always a coward. He does not have the courage to face the truth. He does not have the courage to treat others as he expects to be treated.

He isolates himself in a cocoon of lies, using the excuse of defending himself, and commits offensive violence against others.

In modern times, violence has increased because it is so much easier to kill than to work through problems and find solutions.

Most often we do not even have to face the person we want to kill. We can fire a pistol or a rifle; we can throw bombs; we can detonate bombs, and if one is a ruler with power, he or she can press a button or convince a nation that unleashing havoc is the safe and best option available. We do not have to face the consequences of what we are doing and can pretend we know nothing about it. We can even pretend that we are committing these acts in the name of God and righteousness.

When we become aware, when we become conscious that the person next to us is actually an expression of the energy of God, how can we possibly respond with violence? It has nothing to do with whether someone is family, part of our culture, part of our religion or part of our nation. It does not matter if the other person shares our history, habits or beliefs. The other person may oppose all that we believe in. Yet he is as much a part of this universe as we are.

That is why Krishna says, 'How can that man slay or cause others to be slain, who knows Him to be indestructible, eternal, unborn, unchangeable?'

How can we? How can violence develop in us when we recognize ourselves to be God, which automatically enables us to be aware that every other living being, animate and inanimate too is God's image.

If this message of Krishna is truly understood, there can be no violence in this world, no killing at all. You will not even kill an insect. You will not kill even in selfdefense because once you are in awareness, your awareness is transmitted to the other being and that being will not even attack you.

Once in Omkareshwar, a forest region, I ran into this huge bear when I got up from meditation. It was very close to me. I felt no fear. The bear looked at me and walked away. I have come across deadly cobras many times very close by. They just look at me and go away. When I feel no fear, and therefore no enmity to them, they understand and accept. All this talk about killing others in self-defense is a lie.

All the nations in this world claim they have standing armies because they need to defend themselves. The right to defend is enshrined in all self-respecting constitutions. So, if everybody is only defending, who then is offending? Does anyone think about that?

Even a domesticated dog reacts in anger only when it detects our fear. Our violence arises out of our own fear. Even that dog knows that because it is intelligent, naturally intelligent, unlike us humans. Only humans have the choice to deny nature and be idiotic.

Understand what Krishna says and you will never have fear, either for yourself or for others. You are imperishable; everyone around you is imperishable. Shed your fear and violence. Let love for others fill your being.

Krishna continues:

Just as man casts off his worn out clothes and puts on new ones, Self casts off worn out bodies and enters newer ones. Weapons do not cleave the Self, fire does not burn It, water does not moisten It, and wind does not dry It. The Self cannot be broken nor burnt nor dissolved nor dried up. It is eternal, allpervading, stable, immovable and ancient.

These verses are amongst the most quoted verses of Bhagavad Gita. Here, in very few words, Krishna expounds upon the entire truth of life and death, mind, body and spirit. He clarifies why we should accept death gladly, as a matter of fact and course, instead of grieving over it.

He says this so simply that even an innocent child can understand this truth.

One does not have to be learned in scriptures. In fact, it is a great liability to read the Gita when one is well versed in scriptures. We then miss the truth, the simplicity, the innocence of what Krishna says.

What makes Gita stand apart from all other scriptures, and yet be considered one of the most sacred scriptures amongst the Vedas and Upanishads, is this simple authority and clarity with which this jagat guru, Master of the Universe, this poornavataara, the complete incarnation, speaks.

So simply He says: 'Just as you cast off your shirt when it is dirty and put on a new one, so does the spirit cast off this body and enter into a new one.'

Do we grieve over a dirty shirt that we have cast away when we know we will have a new one? Do we say, 'Oh, I was so attached to this shirt. I cannot let it go. Let me keep wearing it. I shall be heart broken if I have to take off this shirt?'

When we see a new shirt, a new garment, the feeling is automatic. We let go the old and take on the new. Why then this hesitation, this fear, when the spirit says, 'Let me get out of this body; it is so old and decrepit; it is diseased and foul. Let me go find a newer, better body.'

If only we understand that a body needs to be changed when it grows old, in just the same way as the shirt does when it is dirty, there would be no grief, no attachment.

This simple truth is so profound that it takes the greatest Master of all to say it.

'Don't worry', He says, 'what you will find is a newer, better and more attractive model. Let go of your fears; let go of your attachment. Look forward to what is to follow with joy and a sense of anticipation and celebration. Celebrate death. Do not mourn over it.'

Krishna goes on to explain further what that unchanging continuity is, even as the spirit moves from one body to another. What is the nature of that spirit? How is it that it is everlasting?

Krishna says, 'Please understand, Arjuna, the Soul is not destroyed as you think. It cannot be destroyed at all. No weapon can destroy It. No astra, no brahmastra, no nuclear weapon can destroy the energy within the body. Fire cannot burn It, water cannot wet It, and air cannot dry It. It is not made of the elements and cannot be destroyed by the elements. Neither can the absence of the elements destroy It. It is beyond the five elements. It is the energy behind the elements. It is the energy that creates the elements. How can It then die?'

'It cannot be disintegrated in any manner, by breaking, dissolving, burning or drying, as one could do to any other substance made of the five elements of nature. It is eternal. It transcends all the elemental powers. It pervades the Universe. It has been there always. It never had to be created. Therefore, It never can be destroyed.'

An understanding of the truth that Krishna unveils here is the key to immortality. It is the key to liberation from the bondage of life and death. It is the doorway to enlightenment.

'Do not fear death,' Krishna says, 'neither yours nor that of others. It is just a passage. It is the disappearance of this material body. However, you are beyond this material body. Even if the body perishes, you live on, so you do not have to worry or fear.'

What survives death is the sacred spirit in you that can never be destroyed. This spirit is not matter; it is pure energy. How can you destroy energy? Science tells that energy can only appear in another form; it cannot be destroyed. As I have said, the energy of the spirit reappears in another form as matter or it stays as energy.

It is the energy behind the elements; it is that source which creates the elements. It is the energy that is the universe that has always been and will be, never created, never destroyed. It is unchanging, neutral, eternal and all pervading. The experience of every enlightened being verifies the truth that Krishna is uttering.

'When you are that spirit, that energy,' asks Krishna, 'what is there to grieve about? When you are the Divine yourself, what can you fear? What can you want? What more can you ask for?'

The same answer, the same explanation holds good for every one of us. We are Divine. We are the universe. We cannot be destroyed. We live on despite what we see to be the destruction of our body and identity. Once we understand this truth, nothing can disturb us. We can be in bliss.

In the Mundakopanishad there is a story of two birds.

Two birds were sitting on a large fruit-bearing tree that had many branches. It had many fruits on each of its branches. One of the birds was a golden-hued bird with a lovely plumage. It had a serene calmness about it and was

perched silently upon one of the upper branches, which had fewer fruits. It spent most of its time unmoving, showing no interest in the fruits around it. The second bird was smaller and livelier. This bird was always restless and kept jumping from one branch to another branch searching for fruits to eat.

The second bird felt very happy when it tasted sweet fruits and chirped happily. When it came across a bitter or sour fruit that was often, it made irritated noises and looked unhappy. More the sour and bitter fruits that it tasted, more sorrowful this bird became. It said to itself that there is no joy in these fruits and there is no joy at all in living like this.

It then looked up and saw the blissful golden bird perched above it, sitting in silence, calm and relaxed. The golden bird seemed to light up the entire tree. The smaller bird flew up to look at the golden bird more closely. On the way up it saw some juicy fruits and it stopped to peck at them. The fruits were tasty and it settled down to eat more. Then some fruits turned bitter and some sour, and it grew disappointed. It looked up and saw the golden bird again, calm, happy, and relaxed. It moved up again.

It flitted up and down, right and left. Each time it saw the golden bird it would fly up closer. It would then stop to taste a fruit that first tasted sweet, only to move on to bitter and sour fruits as it stayed on to eat more.

Finally, it reached the treetop where the golden bird was perched. It looked at it closely and was startled to find that the golden bird was none other than its own self! It went closer and closer, becoming happier and more relaxed. The smaller bird felt a deep connection with the golden-hued bird. It was love, not falling in love, but rising in love. Soon it lost its own identity and merged with the golden bird.

When we realize that we are one with the golden bird, our inner divinity, there is no longer any fear of death. There is no longer any question about who we are. We know.

'Weapons cannot cleave It, fire cannot burn It.' If only the so-called leaders of this world understood what Krishna is saying! Then, there would then be no need for United Nations, Peace Days, Friendship Days and so on. Everyday would be a Peace Day.

What are we trying to do by killing people, by eliminating the physical evidence of their existence? We are trying to eliminate the evidence of people who do not believe us, who dare to question us, and who dare to laugh at us. We would only like to be surrounded by people who fear us, and out of that fear, pretend to respect us, like us, love us. Hitler killed Jews, not because they offended him in any way but because he was afraid of them. Stalin and such other dictators killed to protect themselves, out of fear. Externally they projected an image of great courage, but inside they were cowards. These dictators would have people eat their food first in case it was poisoned. They would have their 'twins' following them to mislead people. They all live their lives out of utter fear.

At the heart of all torture and killing is fear and greed. When we sincerely contemplate these teachings, and this verse of Gita in particular, such concerns dissolve and we live peacefully with ourselves and others.

If you are courageous, you will face up to anyone and state your case. In the event you cannot convince the other person, you will accept the situation and walk away. In life, in this world, there is enough room for different opinions. It is when we get opinionated, fixed in obsessive beliefs, become intolerant to others who share different values and belief systems that we become afraid. We become afraid that we too may lose our belief, that we may lose our identity. That insecurity and fear of loss of identity is greater than the fear of death. It is in fact nothing but the fear of death, since we see death as the ultimate elimination of our identity. So we respond violently. To avoid being killed, we kill. We kill out of fear.

Once we understand what Krishna says, that death is like changing a worn out garment, our fears will disappear. If we are truly wise, this false identity itself will disappear. Why do we need that garment at all? We will feel freer, fully liberated when we do not have that garment. Then there is no need even to worry about that change.

In fact, of the deeper level understanding of this truth is that there is really no need to change the garment. It is only when we have the garment that one has to worry about whether the garment is dirty or torn and how to replace it. If there is no garment at all, there are no more concerns. Going beyond the garment is going beyond the body mind. It is going beyond the cycle of life and death, the cycle of samsara. It is going to the ultimate liberation in this life itself. It is the ultimate relaxation.

Sankara says hauntingly in Bhaja Govindam: Again and again one is born and one dies; one keeps going back into the mother's womb. Oh Lord, the rower of the boat that would help me cross this ocean of life and death, please help me across.

2.26 O mighty-armed, even if you should think of the soul as being constantly born and constantly dying,

Even then, you should not lament.

2.27 Indeed, death is certain for the born and birth is certain for the dead. Therefore, you should not grieve over the inevitable.

2. 28 O Bharata, being intangible in the beginning, being intangible again in their end, seemingly tangible in the middle.

What are we grieving about?

2.29 One sees It as a wonder, another speaks of It as a wonder, another hears of It as a wonder.

Yet, having heard, none understands It at all!

2.30 O Bharata, This that dwells in the body of everyone can never be destroyed;

Do not grieve for any creature.

When you understand what Krishna is saying in these verses you get over any fear of death. In fact you will celebrate death.

Sometime ago when I was delivering a discourse in Bharat, news arrived that my father had died. I continued with the discourse. Later that night many of our disciples traveled with me to Tiruvannamalai where the body lay. If you see the videos of this event, you will find that my mother never once cried. She was a very traditional person, brought up in a rural environment that sets great importance on how one should behave socially. When one's husband dies one is naturally heart broken; especially as in the case of my mother and father, who were very close to each other. His departure would have been a great loss to her. She understood the meaning of these verses of Krishna without my ever having to explain them to her.

She has such immense faith in me that when I told her my father, her husband, is now in energy form that is eternal, she trusted me implicitly and joined me in celebrating his release. Many of our followers have seen the video recording of this event. It was made specifically to explain what Krishna is saying here. They could see it in action and get over any fear that they may have still have had about death.

Even more interestingly, another incident reinforced this truth. Soon after my father's death, the father of a disciple died and the family requested that the body be cremated at our Bidadi ashram and that I do the last rites. People who met the widow after the cremation were astounded to see the peace and calm in her, unlike what one would see in a traditional Hindu widow. When people asked her how she felt she simply replied that she fully believed that her husband's energy survived the destruction of the body and she was happy that he found peace.

We are not talking about philosophers and saints here. We are talking about very ordinary people whose lifestyle was all about fear of death and grief at death. They understood very easily what Krishna was saying. They understood that the spirit lives on after the body perishes and death is indeed an event to celebrate and not to grieve. It is only the scholars who have a mere intellectual understanding of what the Gita says with no trust in Krishna who still suffer from the fear of death. They may talk philosophically about how to detach from death as long as it does not affect them; the moment they face the death of a beloved or worse still, their own, their logical defenses crumble.

Krishna's words are not about logic; they are about trust in the Master.

The celebrated Greek philosopher, Socrates, was sentenced to death because the Greek society could not accept his views and his constant questioning attitude. He was asked to take back his sayings, failing which, he was sentenced to die by drinking poison. Since he refused to reject his own philosophy, Socrates was sentenced to death.

As he calmly awaited his death, his disciples asked him, 'Master, are you not afraid of dying?' Socrates said, 'There are two possibilities. One, that there is indeed life after death. In that case I shall go to a place better than where I am. The other is that there is no life after death. In that case I shall not be aware of anything that would happen now. In either case, what is there to worry?'

Death is inevitable. Whether the spirit lives on after the body perishes and locates itself in another body may be a debatable point to some. Krishna says that this is not a reason to lament death. In either case, death can be a passage that one can look forward to as Socrates did.

Whether the spirit goes to a region called hell or another region called heaven is as debatable a point as to whether there is an undying spirit at all, or whether that spirit reincarnates. You may believe whatever you like to believe. Occidental religions profess not to believe in the cycle of life and death. They seem to believe that death is once and for all. Even then what is there to worry about?

We all know death is inevitable.

A deeply disturbed woman approached Buddha one morning. She brought the body of her dead son to Buddha and said, 'Master, they tell me that you are the only one in this world with the power to revive the dead. Please give life back to my son.'

Buddha knew that no words of His could console the mother. He merely said, 'Mother, please bring me a handful of rice from any household that has not experienced death so far and I shall revive your son.'

The woman went door-to-door seeking a handful of rice. Every household she visited was only too glad to give her what she asked for. However, they all said that they too had suffered such a loss in their household. She went to neighboring villages and got the same reply.

She came back to Buddha and said, 'Master, I now understand that death is inevitable and that there can be no life without death. Thank you for teaching me this invaluable truth. I would like to sit at your feet for the rest of my life. Please accept me as your disciple.'

Bringing the dead back to life is not a miracle. It can be done under certain circumstances, but to transform the individual and to instill truth in them is indeed the miracle that only a true Master can perform.

Many of us do believe that life is a wonder; truly so. Life is wondrous! We do not understand how life is created. We may have a biological explanation as to how a sperm impregnates an egg and cells are created but that is not life at all.

Even today there is no absolute proof as to how the universe was created. All one has are theories such as Big Bang etc. What was there before Big Bang? No one knows.

Buddha rightly observed, 'The universe creates itself. It always was and always will be.' No one knows as well, how the first life form originated. Again, there are only theories. The explanation for 'abiogenesis', creation of life from non-living matter, has no scientific proof as yet. The first life form just seems to have happened. One fine morning or evening or night, the first amino acid, the first life block, seems to have sprung up from nowhere.

All that we know is that life exists. All we can observe and wonder about is the life form that is in front of us, that is manifest. What was there before and what happened to it thereafter are shrouded in questions and mystery. We can believe in what we believe but we do not know as we have not observed.

From time immemorial this has been the human quest. What happens after life, more correctly after death? Conversely, what were we before we were born?

I mentioned the famous Zen koan, 'What was your face like before your father and mother were born?' What was it indeed? If only you knew, you would have solved the mystery of life and death, wouldn't you?

The very effort of visualizing the possibility of an existence before this life opens doors. That is what this koan tries to do. There is no need to see your face. The fact that you understand and realize that you existed before, exist now and will exist again makes a difference to how you live your life from now on. You will no longer fear death because you have been there before!

It is unfortunate that the present day version of the Bible discounts the statement of Jesus when He says I was there before Abraham. It is the same as Krishna saying in the Gita that He taught Surya, the Sun God. Jesus implies that the spirit energy lives on and death of the body is not final.

The cycle of life and death is a mystery and a wonder. As yet there is no 'scientific' proof as the logic minded would demand, though there is plenty of empirical evidence. Quantum Physics and Molecular Biology are making rapid advances in this area and it is possible that there would be some 'proof' soon.

Those who are confident enough to accept the truth of the eternal nature of spirit as it comes are the fortunate, the blessed. Those who fight and grieve are the wretched, the miserable. You cannot fight life or death. They are both beyond you, out of your control. You can marvel at them and be happy and joyous. Or you can keep questioning them and be miserable. This is the choice and free will you have.

The illustrious King Yayati lived for hundreds of years. Bhagavatam, the Hindu epic, says that when Yama, God of Death, came to Yayati at his appointed time of death, Yayati begged to be allowed to live on. He said he had not lived life enough and he needed more time. Yama relented and said if one of his sons would give Yayati the rest of his life time, then he could live that long. Using the life span of his sons, Yayati lived many hundreds of years. Finally the realization dawned on him that no matter how long he lived, his desires would never cease and that fulfillment would never happen through material enjoyment. Yayati gave himself up to Yama once he realized this truth.

It is not death that frightens us. It is leaving our desires and unlived life that frightens us.

The problem is that we do not know how to live a fulfilled life, how to genuinely enjoy ourselves so that our desires are fulfilled. All our desires are partially fulfilled because, before they are fulfilled, we move on to other desires. We do not give our attention or awareness fully to what we are doing and experiencing. The simple fact is that we do not know how to be joyful.

To be truly joyful, to be eternally blissful, is to understand the truth that you are indestructible, that your spirit lives on.

Death is not an end; it is a passage of sorts. The truth is that the spirit is not satisfied with mere material pleasures. However much you please your senses, you cannot achieve satisfaction. More you enjoy through your senses, more the need for more enjoyment. It never stops. Discontentment with material pleasures alone is hardwired into the human psyche.

People are really confused about the concept of spirituality. Spirituality is not something intangible or something mysterious that religion and religious leaders need to explain.

Spirituality is the total understanding and enjoyment of life, materially, physically, emotionally, relationally and in all senses without discontent and with responsibility. This enjoyment and responsibility arise out of awareness. This awareness arises out of our ability to focus on the present moment. That is when our mind stops flitting from the past to the future, from regrets to speculation.

The present moment is the only moment when we are truly alive. That is the only moment we are awake. The rest of the time we are in deep sleep, even if our eyes are open; we are in virtual death. Yet, we, the walking dead are afraid to die.

Whether one believes in God or not, and accepts the inner divinity within oneself or not, is irrelevant to how one understands life after death.

If, instead of believing in God, we choose to believe in science, we still need to accept that there are no answers to what we were before we were born and what we will be once we are dead. It is still unmanifest at both ends; it is still a mystery before and after, with no answers. This understanding can only come with the understanding that we live on in spirit.

A Zen Master was asked, 'Now that you are enlightened, what is the difference in your perception of things around you?'

The Master said, 'Before enlightenment, I saw a mountain as a mountain and a river as a river. During the process toward enlightenment the mountain was not a mountain and the river was not a river. Now again, the mountain is a mountain and the river is a river.'

The Master here means that before he set out on his spiritual journey, he just saw the physical forms of the mountains, rivers etc. But once he started experiencing the energy behind them, he saw them all as manifestations of the very same energy.

Upon enlightenment, he saw that all matter as the very energy itself that is the real nature of them all.

Krishna says whatever was permanent and real was intangible before it became tangible and again it will be intangible. Everything is in a state of becoming something else. At every moment we die and are reborn; millions of cells in our mind-body system die everyday and are reborn. Yet, through all this change there is continuity. There is a continuity that we cannot see, touch or feel. What we see as manifested, as this body and mind, hides from us the process of constant change that happens within us, as well as the continuous thread that holds the thread of change.

Q: Master, please be very clear (Oh! here we are getting instructions first!). Are Krishna and Christ the same? Both were born in confined places. Krishna was born in Mathura; Christ in a place called Mathiria. Both were shepherds and so on. If so, please explain.

A historical controversy! I do not know the historical part because I am not a historian! I can only say that spiritually they are one and the same. I can only say in terms of spirituality, not historically. As I do not know history, I cannot make a controversial statement. In the conscious level, they are the same.

There are stories that the idea of Christ is built around the Bhagavatam, the famous book of Hindu mythology*.* We do not know the truth behind these stories. You may have heard of this beautiful book, The Da Vinci Code. If any of you have read this book, you will find it is controversial but at the same time solid. The writer is clear about what he says. We are not able to deny it completely. I read it, and honestly, am not able to deny the contents. There are so many things he says which make sense.

There are books written and research done about Christ's time and life after crucifixion, where he was between the age of 7 and 14, etc.

A couple of interesting things I read in the book:

The theory goes that Christ had his training in a Buddhist monastery in Puri. The Sermon on the Mount is an exact replication of a pali sutra which is repeated every morning in that monastery as a prayer. In this way, many research reports keep coming out but the only thing I can say is that at the conscious level, they are both the same.

Recently, there have been documentaries aired in the reputed BBC TV that Christ after crucifixion was taken to Kashmir, where he lived till he was eighty. They even showed the tomb where he was buried. This was based on a lot of researched data.

The fact is that the earliest documentation of the life and death of Christ was made a few centuries after he died. It is known that there was a lot of selection in terms of what was officially accepted by the Christian Church, from the vast material that was available as the historical evidence relating to Jesus.

But as I said, the energy of all enlightened Masters is one and the same. Their consciousness is identical.

Q: Krishna says that the truth is seemingly tangible in the middle and intangible in the beginning and the end. If he is referring to past, present and future, the past is also clear to us. Why is the beginning unclear then?

We arise from energy; we disappear into energy; for a while we live as matter even though we are energy.

Our senses can perceive only the material as long as they are focused on the external objects. They can only interact with material objects and experience material pleasures. That is the way our mind is programmed. So tangibility to us is what we can perceive through our senses.

It is when we go inwards that we can feel the energy within. When we lose our external identity and open ourselves to the universal energy, we too can feel that we are energy. We can understand who we truly are now, before and after. That is what meditation can do for you. It can take you through the inner journey of awareness that makes the truth tangible in the past and future as well.

When you say that the past is clear to you, even what you remember of the past in your own life is actually very selective. Only 5 to 10% of what your senses perceive is stored consciously. The rest is buried deep within. Ironically, the most powerful experiences, whether of pain or pleasure, are rarely in the conscious realm. They are buried deep within and come up without any conscious effort when the unconscious decides it is the right time to reveal them. This is why we are driven by addictions and phobias that are so difficult to let go.

Most of the time, we look into the future that is totally hazy through the mirror of our past. It is like driving a car through the rear view mirror. You know where you will end if you do that. Yet, that is how we drive our own lives.

The present is the only tangible moment. Not because it is about the material body-mind which exists in the present moment, but because only when you are in the present that you are centered in your energy. Your body mind system can focus inwards into your inner energy system only when you are in the present moment. It is because only in this state your inner chatter stops.

Your thoughts are nothing but the movement of your mind from past to future and back from future to past. It is the constant oscillation of the mind that you call thought and which I term inner chatter. Once you settle into the present moment your thoughts cease and inner chatter stops. You are then in synch with your own energy.

Meditation is the key to bring you into this state.

Q: I read somewhere that the whole concept of rebirth is negative. It is all about continuance of suffering. All those who believe in rebirth are desperately trying to get out of it. So, what is the point in believing in it?

Rebirth is neither negative nor positive. It is a phenomenon of existence in which the spirit continues to exist as energy and the body-mind perishes as matter. There is nothing that anyone can do about it, in the same manner that there is nothing that can be done about death. Death happens and so does rebirth.

If you are at least aware that you are born again and again as a result of unfulfilled desires, then you can make an attempt to fulfill and transcend your desires so that you can be free from this cycle of life, birth and death, called saṃsāra in Vedic science. One part of what you said is correct. People who are wise try to get out of this cycle of life and death so that they are liberated into energy forever. The concept of Self-realization and enlightenment follow from this effort.

Buddha refers to this again and again. He attributes suffering to desires and teaches methods to overcome these desires and get out of the cycle of birth and death. As I have mentioned elsewhere the desires Buddha talks about are the wants that we pick up through our conditioning in this lifetime, the saṃskāras that bind us. Once these saṃskāras are dissolved we are out of the clutches of saṃsāra.

It is not a matter of believing or not believing. Truth does not change if you do not believe. Medieval Europe believed that the Earth is flat and that the Sun revolved around the Earth. So, you too are at liberty to believe that there is no rebirth and that this lifetime is the end of the road for you.

If you believe so, would that make you a better person? Would that belief make you happier? In reality it makes you desperate. Your wish to acquire, enjoy and fulfill may end during this one lifetime. This obsession fills you with greed and fear. The understanding that one's spirit lives on as energy even after the body-mind perishes gives one far greater freedom.

When you realize that you are forever and not that you live and die only once, you don't need to be desperate and make choices that you regret later. There is no last train that you need to catch. You can lead a choiceless life, because life is forever.

This is the freedom that our Vedic sages experienced and transmitted so that others can experience the same bliss.

Code of the Samurai

2.31 You should look at your own duty as a kṣatriya*.*

There is nothing higher for a kṣatriya than a righteous war. You ought not to hesitate.

2.32 O Partha, happy indeed are the kṣatriya who are called to fight in such a battle without seeking;

This opens for them the door to heaven.

2.33 If you will not fight this

righteous war, then you will incur sin having abandoned your own duty, and you will lose your reputation.

2.34 People too will remember your everlasting dishonor and to one who has been honored, dishonor is worse than death.

2.35 The great generals will think that you have withdrawn from the battle because you are a coward.

You will be looked down upon by those who had thought much of you and your heroism in the past.

2.36 Many unspeakable words would be spoken by your enemies reviling your power.

Can there be anything more painful than this?

2.37 Slain, you will achieve heaven; victorious, you will enjoy the Earth.

O son of Kunti, stand up determined to fight.

2.38 Pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat – treat them all the same.

Do battle for the sake of battle. You shall incur no sin.

Krishna works on Arjuna at two levels. At one level He talks to Arjuna at the super conscious plane educating him on what the ultimate truth is.

He talks to Arjuna about how life does not end with the death of the body, about how the undying and

indestructible spirit lives on. Here, Krishna addresses Arjuna's fears about killing his relatives and elders and teaches him that what he considers to be the end of life for these people is just one step in their journey.

Krishna then descends to the practical level at which Arjuna exists. Krishna explains to Arjuna why, from a societal point of view, he should not run away from the battlefield, but instead, stay on and fight as it behooves a warrior. Krishna here addresses Arjuna as the kṣatriya, the warrior.

In each society there are groups of people who are the designated protectors of that society. They are the warriors, the soldiers, who defend their country and countrymen. In the same manner, there are others who are designated as clerics and priests, as teachers and counselors, as traders and businessmen and as workers and manual laborers.

In most modern societies these are commercial as well as societal divisions. They are commercial classifications to the extent that they are the means to one's livelihood, based on one's acquisition of skills and education with the expectation of pursuing such a career and vocation. They however become societal classification as well subsequently, as these careers become the tools of building wealth and status. Even in modern societies the wealth and name thus acquired are passed on through generations, even if those born subsequently have done nothing to earn the wealth and status and do not have the capability to maintain them.

In ancient Bharat, the system of education was the gurukul system, in which young children stayed with a Master and learned both material and spiritual skills. This education started very early, as early as three and latest by seven, when the children were left in the Master's care by their parents. The Master gauged the capability and aptitude of each child and trained the child in an appropriate manner. The vocation of the parent or father was not a major criterion in deciding upon the skills imparted to the child. The Master determined the child's aptitude by its own behavior and through such studies as astrology.

The varṇa or caste system practiced by the Hindus from time immemorial had its roots in the gurukul education. Unfortunately, over time, caste determination became based on birthright. Son of a warrior was assumed to be a warrior, irrespective of his capabilities, aptitude or inclination. So, the four varṇa or castes that are brāhmaṇa, the priest and teacher, kṣatriya, the ruler and warrior, vaiśya, the trader and businessman, and śūdra, the worker, became rigid social structures based on birthright.

This corruption of such a scientific practice has led to many social inequalities and injustices. The son of a brāhmaṇa has no right to call himself a brāhmaṇa, unless he has the aptitude and then the learning to be a teacher and a priest. In our ashrams, we now have many young men and women from different castes and religious groups who are being trained in spiritual and religious rituals that so far had been considered the prerogative of only the

brāhmaṇa caste. We have brahmacharis who are of Christian faith, who train others in guru homa and mantra, the fire rituals, chants etc. In no way are these young priests inferior to any brāhmaṇa!

When Krishna refers to Arjuna as a kṣatriya, he is referring to the entire personality of Arjuna, the great warrior, which had been only partly by birth and mostly by training based on his aptitude. Arjuna is the quintessential warrior, the samurai, who knows no fear, and yet is now disturbed by issues of whether he is doing right or wrong by fighting against his kinsmen. The code of kṣatriya, as with the code of samurai the professional Japanese warriors of earlier days and all other soldiers even till today, is a professional code as well. Once you are in the army you fight irrespective of what you think about who you are fighting against. Rights and wrongs no longer apply.

Krishna says, 'Fight! You are a kṣatriya. By fighting as your duty demands, you earn merits and go to heaven. If you run away from this war you commit a sin. You will also be termed a coward and people who know you will laugh at you. You will be dishonored, and for a kṣatriya, dishonor is far worse than death. Do not worry about victory or defeat. If you are defeated and die you will ascend to heaven. If you are victorious, you will enjoy material benefits in this world itself. Therefore, fight as it is your duty as a kṣatriya.'

Krishna says to treat pain and pleasure, gain and loss, victory and defeat all the same. He says to fight without worrying about the outcome. To fight is your duty. When the Paramatma – Supreme Soul says this, it means that Arjuna does not have to worry about right and wrong, about sin or merit.

Isn't fighting, isn't killing people a sin, you will ask. Then why is it that Krishna recommends Arjuna, not merely recommend, but actually force Arjuna to fight and kill. What is the operative logic here, you may ask?

There is no logic. Krishna's exhortation is beyond human rationale. It is not what you do that matters. It is who you are that matters. An enlightened Master can do no wrong even if he kills, because when he kills it would be with awareness, not for personal benefit. On the other hand, any average person even while doing an act of kindness may be doing something wrong.

You may have seen movies where an undercover policeman with a gun is arresting some dangerous criminals and suddenly a cop in uniform shows up. This uniformed cop would ask the undercover cop to put his hands up and in the confusion the criminals would escape. This may seem funny in a movie, but it happens all the time in real life. You think you are doing something very good based on your sense perceptions and yet the reality of the situation may be far different.

The problem is that we do whatever we do with a motive. It is all outcome based. What is in it for me is the million dollar question. We do things either out of fear or greed. These are the two most powerful motivators, the carrot and the stick. What applies to a donkey applies even more relevantly to a human being.

Krishna is not worried about what you do, He is concerned only about who you are. If your actions are innocent of motives, whatever you do is right. If what you do is motivated by fear and greed, pain and pleasure, victory and defeat, you can do nothing right. Whatever we do for gain is sinful.

What if you were in a totally strange place for a very short period and you know nothing that you do will have any repercussions. Will you have any inhibitions based on what your conditioning has been? It is as if you are invisible and you will leave no trace. What will your behavior be like?

What happens when the fear of loss of reputation and loss of identity disappears? Will you be the same person?

What happens when you have an Aladdin's lamp with a genie, which makes all your dreams come true? How long will the excitement last when you know that whatever you wish will happen? Will your greed still last?

Fear and greed are strong motivators because we are not centered; we are not sure about ourselves; we do not know who we are. Here Krishna is breaking that mould. Act without fear and greed, He says. Do not worry about consequences. This is against all societal and religious conditioning.

Krishna, as the transcendental Parabrahman, is not concerned about the practical and societal consequences of Arjuna walking out of the battlefield. He is only concerned about what that would do to Arjuna's inner self. If Arjuna had truly been steeped in ahimsa, nonviolence, Krishna would have never attempted to persuade Arjuna into violence. Arjuna however, was trying to avoid fighting, not because of any moral and conscientious objection, but from the angle of emotional attachment to his kinsmen and others arising out of his own identification with them.

In these verses, Krishna is trying to bring Arjuna out of his dilemma, his depression, his confusion, and his viṣāda that has obscured his normally clear vision. Krishna is trying to get Arjuna to transcend his conditioned actions based on fear and greed. He is trying to get him to act without worrying about the outcome.

Jump First, Think Later

Q: Is it normal to speak less and seek silence as sadhana or spiritual practice progresses?

There is a Zen meditation which says, 'When I was not meditating, a tree was a tree and a mountain was a mountain. When I started meditation, they were both not what they were. When I finished meditation and became enlightened, the tree was again a tree and the mountain was a mountain.'

Before the sadhana you speak a lot. After enlightenment, you may speak a lot but with a totally new awareness, but during sadhana people usually tend to become silent.

As your spiritual awareness progresses, you may find one of two things.

In the past, you had an opinion about everything and you had to express it. If you did not you felt inadequate. You felt that others will not respect you unless you stood up for yourself, expressed yourself loudly and volubly and most importantly argued so that the other person felt small and withdrew.

This is the way we are conditioned. We are taught that to win and to feel good, another person must lose and feel bad. Talking in an argument you feel is less harmful than physical fights, however ill judged this may be, and so you indulge in talking warfare.

As your energy level increases with spiritual practice, you are more centered and you do not feel the need to prove yourself anymore. You also realize that words can harm far worse than physical attacks. So you settle into yourself and become silent.

At another level, you find that you can communicate just as well and perhaps better with others of similar energy just being silent. The need to talk reduces.

Either way, you find silence golden.

2.39 What has been taught to you concerns the wisdom of Sankhya. Now, listen to the wisdom of Yoga.

Having known this, O Partha, you shall cast off the bonds of action.

2.40 There is no wasted effort or dangerous effect from this.

Even a little knowledge of this, even a little practice of Yoga, protects one from great fear.

2.41 O Joy of the Kuru, all you need is single-pointed determination;

Thoughts of the irresolute are many, branched and endless.

2.42 Foolish ones speak a lot, taking pleasure in the eulogizing words of Vedas, O Partha, saying, 'There is nothing else.'

2.43 Men of little knowledge are very much attached to the flowery words of the Vedas that recommend various fruitful activities for elevation to heavenly planets, resulting in good birth, power, and so forth.

Being desirous of sense gratification and opulent life, they say that there is nothing more than this to living.

2.44 Those whose minds are diverted by such teachings and who cling to joy and mere devotion,

Are not determined or resolute and are not fit for steady meditation and samadhi.

2.45 O Arjuna! Be you above the three attributes that the Vedas deal in; free yourself from the pairs-of-opposites and be always in satva (goodness),

Free from all thoughts of acquisition or preservation and be established in the Self.

2.46 The Sage who has known the Self has little use for the Vedic scriptures as these are like a pool of water in a place that is already in flood.

Krishna begins his teachings of Karma Yoga to Arjuna in these verses. These verses should be read carefully by those who believe solely in scriptural authority, based on their superficial understanding of the meaning of what has been said.

Krishna unequivocally says here, 'Forget the Vedas.'

He says, 'All the knowledge contained in the Vedas is of as much use as water in a flood to one who has realized himself. Vedas is self-limiting; it concerns the three attributes, satva, rajas and tamas, the attributes of calmness, aggressive action and lazy inaction. The time has come now to move beyond these attributes; at least move from rajas into the state of satva, calmness.'

'Do not quote to Me what the scriptures say,' Krishna says. He continues, 'Do not tell me about what you should do and should not do in this life through rituals and practices that will please the deities and ancestors so that you will benefit materially in this life and spiritually in some after life. All this is for people with limited understanding of their own Self, people who have not experienced the Truth. These are the people who still hanker after fulfilling sensual pleasures and name and fame.'

'Move beyond them to the single pointed determination of Yoga that I shall teach you,' Krishna says, 'and be installed in a state where you are no longer concerned about creation, preservation and destruction. You will be beyond these and reach the state of the Parabrahman.'

Only a Master, the Master of the universe, the Jagat Guru, can say such things and get away with it. Krishna's authority as He speaks these words is compelling. He is casting away the divinely transmitted scriptures, the Vedas, to instill truth in the mind of Arjuna.

It is the truth as spoken by the Divine who Himself has all the knowledge contained in the Vedas.

Vedas, the collection of knowledge as experienced by the great sages, the rishis, was conveyed for generations by word of mouth and was referred to as sruti, transmitted to the ear. This knowledge was really experiential knowledge. The real meaning of the sruti is that it was heard internally, not by expression. The moment an experience is expressed, it is no longer the truth of that experience.

All great Masters, the enlightened ones have had the same experience of nithyananda – eternal bliss. However, each expressed it differently. Mahavira went without clothes. Buddha taught very differently from Mahavira. Both were princes from the same period. The truth of one Master is not and cannot be the same as that of another Master.

As the Masters shared their experiences through body language and verbal language with close disciples, different interpretations arose. Vedanta, Sankhya, Mimamsa and such other philosophical paths had their origins from the Vedas, as learned men over generations contemplated upon these truths and added their own learning and sometimes their experiences.

Sankhya philosophy is about the apparent duality, Purusha, the static male principle, and Prakriti, the active female principle. Though Sankhya accepts that one cannot exist without the other, the two are deemed separate. Kapila is credited to the author of Sankhya. Vedanta on the other hand, credited for its brilliant exposition and subsequent development by Sankara, is all about nonduality. It says, Brahman or collective consciousness and Atman or individual consciousness are one and the same and what keeps them separate is ignorance, maya.

All these apparent contradictions arise from the superficial understanding of the Vedic knowledge. All the great scriptures, Vedas, Upanishads and Gita*,* exist at different levels of understanding, seven levels, to be precise, depending on the energy level that one dwells in. At the highest level one understands that all that there is, is ONE. There is no experiencer, experienced or experience as separate entities at the highest energy level; ALL is ONE.

Krishna refers to that truth here in these verses, the truth of the highest energy. 'Do not be carried away by the apparent ritualistic approach of the Vedas as propounded by half learned scholars,' the Master says, 'go beyond; go beyond duality. All these seem to bring joy but it is transient; that joy is the brief intermission between periods of sorrow. Go beyond and seek the firm truth of the ONE, the union, that is yoga,' He says to Arjuna.

'There is something beyond these superficial understandings,' Krishna says, 'that will take you beyond the three human attributes of satva (calmness), rajas (active action) and tamas (passive inaction) and into liberation arising out of true understanding. At that stage you will be beyond creation, preservation and destruction, as these would have no meaning in the understanding of the permanence of the ultimate energy.'

Krishna finally says, 'Once you understand and realize the Brahman, all the knowledge of the Vedas that you quote so passionately, will be of as much relevance to you as a lake in the midst of an ocean.'

Krishna is leading Arjuna step by step as if teaching a baby to walk. One by one the Master demolishes Arjuna's arguments and fears, dispelling his dilemma.

These first baby steps address Arjuna's intellect, for that's all Arjuna was using till then. Krishna shows Arjuna how inadequate and meaningless his intellectual knowledge is. It is all borrowed with no experiential backing. He now seeks to lead him into experiential knowledge.