Introduction

In this series, a young enlightened Master, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM comments on the Bhagavad Gita.

Many hundreds of commentaries of the Gita have been written over the years. The earliest commentaries were by the great spiritual masters such as Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva, some thousand years ago. In recent times, great masters such as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharishi have spoken from the Gita extensively. Many others have written volumes on this great scripture.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's commentary on the Bhagavad Gita is not just a literary translation and a simple explanation of that translation. He takes the reader through a world tour while talking about each verse. It is believed that each verse of the Gita has seven levels of meaning. What is commonly rendered is the first level meaning. Here, an enlightened master takes us beyond the common into the uncommon, with equal ease and simplicity.

To read THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's commentary on the Gita is to obtain an insight that is rare. It is not mere reading; it is an experience; it is a meditation.

Sankara, the great master philosopher said:

'A little reading of the Gita, a drop of Ganga water to drink, remembering Krishna once in a while, all this will ensure that you have no problems with the God of Death.'

Editors of these volumes of Bhagavad Gita have expanded upon the original discourses delivered by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM through further discussions with Him. For ease of understanding for English speaking readers, and to cater to their academic interest, the original Sanskrit verses in their English translation have been included as an appendix in this book.

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

Beauty of Purposelessness

The whole of Existence, the whole universe, is purposeless.

Of course, it would be very shocking to hear this. From a very young age, you are taught and socially conditioned to believe that life has got some purpose. Always you are made to run towards some goal, towards some purpose.

'What is life without purpose?' you may ask. You may wonder, 'How can it have any meaning?' Any activity, let alone one's entire life, has to have a purpose, a definition, and an end point.

Then it becomes meaningful. That purpose is what drives us, motivates us and provides spice to our day-to-day activities.

'You are making us confused,' you would say. 'All our lives we have been brought up to believe that we are here for a purpose. As children we are expected to do well at school, and later at college. Once we grow up, we are supposed to get married happily and bring up children. At each phase of our life, at each stage of our life, we have specific templates, specific guidelines that society and our families have set up for us. How can we let them down? How can we believe that all these expectations are wrong, and that there is no purpose to life?'

You would say, 'You are turning our life upside down. You are driving us crazy!'

The more you run towards a goal, the more you are considered a successful person. The greater the speed, the more you are respected. The greater the speed, more the rewards. From your birth, again and again, you are taught, society teaches you, that life has got some purpose and that life has some goal. Life without purpose seems meaningless to us. We cannot even comprehend such a possibility.

Understand that this is what you have been brought up to believe. This is not the truth of Existence. Life does not need a defined goal to make living worthwhile, meaningful and happy. The absence of purpose makes our life meaningful. Absence of goals in life makes living worthwhile.

The universe, nature, has no purpose. It just is. It exists. A river runs downhill towards the ocean because it is its nature to run downhill. It is not because it has a purpose to meet the ocean. Our life, too, has no purpose. We were not born for a purpose. We were born to live, to enjoy life and to be happy. Instead, we set ourselves up for unhappiness; we set goals for ourselves, and almost always these goals are based on fantasies and not on realities. In the process, we stop enjoying life.

The more you run towards the goal, the more you miss life itself!

A person who is continuously bothered about goals will never be able to enjoy his life. He lives in the future and ignores the present. When we are in the present moment, the here and now, we do not need a goal to guide us.

Just the awareness of the present moment will help us decide what needs to be done at that point in time. When the present moment is taken care of with awareness, the future gets resolved on its own. As long as the path is right, whatever destination we reach will be right. We do not need to define the destination; the right path defines its own destination.

However, we constantly worry about the future. We constantly think of the past, relate it to our future and define our expectations based on what we have missed in the past, or what we believe will provide us happiness in the future.

For example, when you are studying you always think, 'When I have a job, my life will be happy.' When you have your job you think, 'After marriage my life will be happy.' After marriage, you think, 'When we have kids and our own house, my life will be happy.' After you have kids and your own house you think, 'When the kids grow up and all my responsibilities are over, I will be happy.' By the time your kids are settled, by the time your responsibilities are over, when you want to relax, your being is conditioned so much that you can't relax!

With this mental attitude, we are constantly running to stay in the same spot. Happiness is where we are. It is not where we think we should be.

A small story:

A very successful investment banker from New York was getting burnt-out. He had been earning millions since young age by constantly running behind goals and targets. Seeing him getting burnt-out, his friends advised him to take a break.

Knowing that the word 'relaxation' was not in his dictionary, they advised him to go to a distant rural spot well known for fishing. They told him that fishing was very good for his health so he could come back even more energetic.

The man agreed and he went out and bought designer gear - clothes, shoes, hat, and, of course, the most expensive fishing gear, including designer bait. He took a flight, flew to the nearby city and then drove from there to the village. He booked himself in the most comfortable place to stay.

Early next morning, he dressed up and with all his gear went to the fishing spot. He sat under a shady tree, made himself comfortable and put his fishing line into the water and waited. He waited and waited. An hour passed. There was no sign of any fish being caught. He was getting impatient but he could not accept that he was not successful at something as simple as fishing when he could handle such complex businesses.

Just then, an old man, a local, dressed in crumpled shorts and a simple shirt came by and sat a few meters downstream from him.

The banker watched this old man with amusement, convinced that this simple man would also not be able to catch any fish. The old man had a fishing rod, which was nothing but a long, sturdy twig and a can of worms for attracting the fish. He settled down and put his fishing rod into the stream.

Within minutes, the old man was catching fish; not just one, but one after another. Without hesitation, the old man was throwing the fish back into the water and laughing. He was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Suddenly, the old man became aware of the young banker staring at him. He turned to him with a broad smile and greeted him, 'Hi', he said, 'Why don't you shift over here? This is a better place to catch them.'

The young banker quickly moved next to the old man who guided him as to where to cast his rod. Soon, the young banker was also catching fish. He was very excited.

The banker was a typical businessman. As soon as he started catching fish, he got the idea about how this could be used to make money. He said to the old man, 'You are so brilliant at what you do. You should come to New York. I can introduce you to rich people who you can teach and you can make a lot of money.'

The old man listened attentively to the banker. He then asked the banker, 'Are you rich?' The banker said, 'Yes, sir. I earn a lot of money.'

The old man asked, 'What do you plan to do now, now that you have a lot of money?' The banker replied, 'I am married to a lovely lady and hope to have a couple of children.'

The old man continued, 'Then?' The banker said, 'Oh, we shall build a lovely house. We shall take vacations. When we need to take a vacation to get relief from my stressful work, I shall come here and fish.'

The old man simply said, 'But that is exactly what I am doing now!'

Most of us need to get stressed out before we can relax. We do not understand what it is to relax. When I tell people to relax during meditation, they ask me, 'Master, please give us detailed guidelines how to relax!' What a sad state of affairs! We feel we need to lose our happiness before we can start searching for it.

The tension of running behind something has become a part of our being. It has become part of our conditioning. After that, resting will not be rest anymore. It will not be relaxation anymore. It will be a state of loneliness!

When we run behind goals, all that seems to matter is the achievement of that goal. Any sacrifice seems to be worth achieving it. We do not feel connected to people around us anymore, even those who we claim we love and care for.

When we have rest at the end of our lives, we will feel lonely because we have been conditioned to run behind something. We have been conditioned to live with something. We have been conditioned to associate ourselves with some activity.

The more you run the more titles you receive. You always say with respect and a trace of envy, 'He is a multi-dimensional personality.' You praise people who run more and call them multidimensional personalities. Please be very clear, they are schizophrenics, not multidimensional personalities!

Only a person who has deeply experienced himself, who rests in himself, who experiences inaction in action, only such a person can be a multidimensional personality. Only such a person understands himself and his many personalities, and is comfortable with all of them.

Only a Krishna can be a multidimensional personality. A man who completely rests in himself, who knows how to relax within himself, can be a multidimensional personality.

A person who runs for society, who is made to run by society, can never experience peace. Be very clear the more you run, the greater is the possibility for you to become mad. But society wants you to run. Only then you will be useful to society.

Society doesn't want you as you are. It wants you as it thinks you should be. It wants you as a useful member of society. If you are a doctor, if you are a lawyer, if you are an accountant, if you are useful to society in some way, then you are rewarded, you are praised. That is why society gives so much importance to your title. It ignores you and belittles you if you are a homeless person or a bankrupt person.

You are respected just based on your title, for what you are. The more titles you have, the more respect you get. The fewer titles you have, the lesser is the respect. The more useful you are to the society, the more you are respected.

Again and again, you are made to run. You are taught that life has got a purpose. Please understand: life is purposeless. Look into your life deeply. Whatever you think as the goal of your life, even if it were fulfilled, do you think you would be able to rest? Do you think you will be able to relax? Do you think you will be in bliss? Do you think you will feel fulfilled? No! You will only feel depressed.

As each goal is fulfilled, another springs up in its place. There is no resting point. There is not even any time to appreciate what you have achieved and enjoy your achievement and acquisitions. You are driven from one goal to another, from one desire to another. In the process, there is no fulfillment. There is always a feeling of discontentment. You are driven not because your being tells you to, but because society drives you so.

One guy came to me and said, 'Earlier I used to smoke and drink. My wife used to fight with me all the time. She always blamed me whenever things went wrong. She would connect anything and everything with my smoking and drinking and blame me. If the kids did not study well, she would say, 'You are a drunkard. You don't care for your kids. That is why they are not studying well.' If something went wrong in the house, again she would find some way of connecting it with my smoking and drinking. Continuously I was blamed this way. I was totally disturbed. So, finally, somehow, I gave up smoking and drinking.'

I asked, 'Oh! Is she happy now?'

He said, 'No, no! Now she is not able to complain about anything. So she is suffering. She is struggling because she is not able to complain about anything. She is not able to blame me. She is not able to put responsibility on anyone.'

When you have something or someone to blame, you can always put responsibility on them and feel comfortable. You can feel relaxed. When you can't put responsibility on something else, when you can't put responsibility on somebody, you suffer.

It is easy to escape reality by putting responsibility on someone else. We look for convenient excuses to hide from reality when we can't handle it. Here, Arjuna is doing the same thing by asking Krishna this question in the third chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna is shifting responsibility.