To Be In Action Is Human Nature

3.5 Surely, not even for a moment can anyone stand without doing something.

He is always in action, despite himself, as this is his very nature.

3.6 He who restrains the sense organs, but who still thinks of the objects of the senses is deluded and is called a hypocrite.

3.7 He who begins controlling the senses by the mind and performs

selfless work through the sense organs is superior, O Arjuna.

3.8 Do your prescribed work, as doing work is better than being idle.

Even your own body cannot be maintained without work.

Usually people ask, 'Master, you say that life is purposeless. Then I may as well just lie down and relax. Who will give me food? Who will pay my bills?'

Let me tell you, you can never lie down forever. You may lie down for the next four or five days, because you always go to the extreme, like a pendulum. Now the pendulum is in one extreme.

If you remove your hand, it will swing to the other extreme. For a maximum of one week you will be able to lie down. After that, you won't be able to lie down. By your very nature you will start doing some work. I tell you that by your very nature you will start doing work.

When I say life is purposeless, I am not asking you to just lie down and relax in your house. All I am saying is, 'Let your body and mind work without disturbing your inner space. You don't have to sell your inner space to have outer place. You don't have to sell your inner bliss to have outer comforts.'

'By your very nature,' Krishna gives the assurance here, 'By your very nature, your body and mind will work; if you just keep quiet that is enough; they will function beautifully.'

Somebody asked me, 'Master, what should I do to do the right thing? How should I keep my mind in order to do the right thing?'

I told him, 'Just keep quiet. Automatically your body and mind will do the right thing. If you just get out of your system, that is enough, the Divine will get in.'

All we need to do is to just get out for the Divine to enter.

'By nature,' He says, 'Prakriti-jair gunaiho - by their very nature your body and mind know the right thing to do.' The problem however is that you never trust your body and mind. You never follow your body and mind fully. You always trust your ego and it finally dumps you in the dustbin. Yet you never trust your body and mind.

Be very clear, your body and mind by nature will do the work. All you need to do is keep quiet, relax from your ego. Don't think your inner space is needed for the outer work. The person who understands what nithya, eternal is, and what anithya, transient is, the person who understands what is eternal and what is ephemeral and relaxes into existence is always in eternal consciousness. He always resides in nithya ananda – eternal bliss.

Krishna says, 'A karma yogi (one who follows the path of action) is a man who relaxes into nithya ananda and does his work.'

Just relax into your inner space, and automatically you will be guided. You always think, 'If I relax in my mind thinking that life is purposeless, how will I know what is right and what is wrong?'

Please be very clear, when you worry about what is right and what is wrong, you will not make small mistakes; you will commit big blunders. The person who doesn't worry, who never bothers, may make small mistakes. But the person who continuously worries will never make small mistakes; he will commit big blunders. And I tell you, to take this jump of not worrying needs courage. Even if you make one or two mistakes, what is wrong?

Taking the risk and jumping, and living without worrying is what I call courage, courage to enter into spiritual life. When you take the jump, you will naturally make one or two small mistakes. Don't worry about them.

Putting up with that mistake is what I call penance. Penance is nothing but accepting the small mistakes which you make when the conscious transition happens in your being.

When you move from ephemeral consciousness to eternal consciousness, when you move from worry to bliss, when you move from falsehood to truth, you will make one or two mistakes.

You will fall and rise just like a small child learning to walk. When children learn to walk, they always fall once or twice. But just because of that, can you say they should never start walking? No! Even if they make one or two small mistakes, they have to stand up and start walking. Those one or two small mistakes of falling and trying to stand up are the penance done to learn how to walk.

In the same way when you start living without the ego, initially you may commit one or two mistakes. But don't worry about that. That is penance.

Have courage and just enter into the zone of no-ego. Enter into the zone of eternal consciousness. Simply start living and realize the purposelessness of Existence.

Decide, 'Today onwards I will live without worrying. Life is too short to be spent worrying.'

Don't bother, never worry about the goals - just drop the goals. The moment you understand the beauty of purposelessness, all the wounds, which you have created in your inner space will be healed. You will fall into the comfort of eternal bliss.

A man who keeps his senses under control, but who is not able to keep his inner space under control is called a pretender, a hypocrite, says Krishna.

Please be very clear, the quality of your life will be judged only based on the quality of your inner space, not based on the quality of your outer space. When you leave your body and enter into your next life, nobody is going to see the account of what type of car you drove, in what type of house you lived, how much bank balance you had. No! These accounts will not come with you.

How you lived, how your inner space was, what was the quality of your inner space when you lived, only that you are going to carry forward with you. That is why the scriptures state, 'You are going to carry only the samskara (engraved memories), the karma (unfulfilled desires) and the vasana (mindset) as the inner space with you - not the outer space.'

A beautiful story from Ramakrishna:

A monk was living in the temple area, doing intense meditation and preaching the glory of the Lord. Opposite to his dwelling lived a prostitute who was busy all day long. She was deeply devoted to the Lord. No matter what her business was, she was immersed in the silent meditation of His glory.

As was the tradition in earlier times, she and others from her group would serve the temple by singing and dancing in front of the main deity.

Everyday this monk would see everyone that entered the prostitute's house, what time they entered, what time they left, how many people entered; he would keep track of everything because he had no other work. What to do, he had no other work! When you don't have any other work you will be interested in the other fellows work; you need to do something.

Continuously, he kept accounts of how much time each person spent there, etc. He was almost like the diary maintainer for that prostitute!

He maintained a complete diary of who came, who left, who visited regularly, who came once in a while or often. The whole day he thought about what was going on in there.

And that lady, the prostitute, she lived in a different way. She thought, 'My life, my natural duty is this. This has been given to me in this life. I don't know any other profession. I have to live only like this. For my food I have to live this life. Oh Lord! But please save me, let my mind and heart always be at Your feet.' She was deeply devoted to Krishna.

Her inner space was filled with the Divine. Her inner space was filled with God's name and Divine love. Life went on. After sometime, suddenly, both of them died on the same day. This monk and the prostitute, both of them died on the same day. The story is beautiful!

Both of them reach Yama Dharma's (Lord of Death) court for judgment. First, the prostitute comes in. Yama Dharma sees her list of sins and merits and says, 'All right! Don't worry. You lived throughout your life thinking of the Divine, so go to heaven.' She is sent to heaven.

The monk is next. The moment the monk arrives, Yama Dharma says, 'This is your list of sins and

merits. Throughout your life you thought about wrong things, so go to hell.'

The monk starts shouting, 'How dare you send me to hell!' And you know he is a professional preacher, so he knows how to shout! He starts shouting, 'I will sue you'. He must have visited America many times! 'I will sue you', he shouts.

Yama Dharma says, 'Please relax. Here up in the heaven we don't bother about what you do, we bother about how you live. Through your body you lived a pure life. Look at planet Earth and see how your body is respected.'

There the monk saw his body was respected like that of a celebrity; people were falling at the feet of his body. Big garlands were offered. Big worship was being done to the body. His body was being carried to a big tomb earmarked for holy men and his body was receiving respect.

Yama continued, 'Through your body you lived a pure life; your body is now getting respect. But through the mind, you lived an impure life; now go to hell. Similarly, she lived an impure life through the body. Look at her body.'

Nobody was there even to care. Because she was a prostitute, no husband, no sons, nobody was there even to do the last rites; the body was stinking. The government fellows just came and dragged the body and dumped it somewhere. 'See! Through the body she lived an impure life. Her body is suffering. But through the mind she lived a pure life, divine life. She is therefore going to the divine.'

It is more important how you live in the inner space of your mind. Your inner space is the real achievement.

How your inner space is, is what matters. Please be very clear, again and again Krishna declares:

karmendriyani sanyamya ya aste manasa smaran indriyarthan vimudha atma mithyacharaha sa uchyate

If you can't clear your inner space, even if you control your body, even if you control your senses, you are just a hypocrite. Your life will not be a blissful life; your life will not be a real life. Not only will it not be a spiritual life, it will not even be life at all!

The meaning of living is bliss but there is no purpose. The more you think about purposes, the more will you create worries; the more will you try to squeeze the most from life. But life is much more intelligent than you.

Please be very clear, life is much more intelligent than you. When you try to squeeze the maximum out of life, it just slips away through your fingers.

Life is like a river. If you put your hands in the river and keep them open, it will always be there in your hands. But if you try to catch it, if you try to hold it, you will have only empty hands!

Life is a flowing river. If you just allow it to happen it will continuously flow in you. The moment you try to catch it, the moment you try to possess it, you will have only empty hands. You will not be able to have life itself.

Be very clear, the moment you understand that life is purposeless, the moment you understand the purposelessness of life, you start experiencing the meaning of living, the bliss. The moment you drop the goal, the very path itself will become beautiful; your whole life will become beautiful. Your whole life will become ecstasy. There is nothing to achieve separately; the whole thing is purposeless.

The moment you experience in your inner space that nothing is going to be with you permanently or nothing is permanent, the moment you understand that, a deep healing, a deep cooling breeze enters into your consciousness. Your whole inner space will be healed.

You have so many thousands of wounds in your inner space. Wounds created by your own desires, wounds created by your failures and by others, wounds created by your near and dear ones. All these wounds will be healed with this one single medicine.

This one meditation of understanding that life is purposeless, one meditation of realizing that whatever you achieve is just nothing, and that nothing is going to be with you, is enough.

A small story about Alexander:

Alexander the Great, who committed so many murders, can never be called 'the great'. Please be very clear: never teach your kids that Alexander is great. Then you are inspiring them to commit murders. You are inspiring them to enter into war. Unconsciously, you are putting all these ideas in front of them! Never do that. Alexander the so-called 'Great'! Of course, he did one good thing.

Unfortunately or fortunately, he met an enlightened Master in Bharat. You can say unfortunately only, because this guy didn't know how to respect him. Somehow, he got the idea from his teacher in Greece, 'Bring one enlightened Master and the Vedas from Bharat, and I will change the whole society'.

So this guy decided he would take at least one enlightened person from Bharat. Somehow he got the chance to meet an enlightened person. He invited him, 'Please come to our country'.

The Master just laughed and said, 'No, no! I don't want to come anywhere; I want to be here only.'

Alexander said, 'No, no, no! Please come. I will give you a big palace. Here you are living like a beggar without even clothes, without even having enough food. Please come with me. I will give you a big palace and all the comforts.'

The Master just laughed, 'No. I am quite happy here, I don't want to come.'

You know what is the next step a king will take. First, by attacking the Master's greed he tried; because it did not work, he wanted to try through his fear now. He just took his sword out and said, 'If you are not ready to come, you will be killed.'

Just in front of the naked sword the Master laughed. Please be very clear, laughing now is very easy but laughing in front of a naked sword is very difficult, especially when the person who is holding the sword is a king, because if he kills there is nobody to question. There is nobody to question him.

But in front of the naked sword, he laughed and said, 'Fool! You are a great liar.' He straightaway looked into the eyes of Alexander and said, 'Fool! You are a great liar.'

For the first time Alexander was shaken. For the first time he was afraid! He asked, 'Are you not afraid?'

The Master said, 'You can never kill me. You may destroy this body, but you cannot kill me.'

That is the courage or the confidence of his experience: the courage that is expressed by the spiritual experience that we study in the Gita:

'Nainam chindanti shastrani nainam dahati pavakaha na chainam kledayanti apo na shoshayati marutaha (2.23)'

It means: Atman or the soul cannot be killed; Atman cannot be destroyed; it cannot be burned.

This has become an experience for him. That is why he has courage and confidence. He just laughed.

Slowly, Alexander started thinking, 'If he can laugh in front of my naked sword, how courageous must he be!' For the first time he was shaken because he had never seen anybody who could laugh in front of a naked sword, who could laugh in the face of death. Even he was afraid.

Please be very clear, all the so-called great warriors are deep cowards. They kill others before they are killed, that's all. Continuously, they are afraid of death. That is why they kill others.

Be very clear, warriors are the worst cowards! Just to hide their cowardice or to escape from the fear of death they start killing others. Alexander was totally shaken. He was shocked to see the courage of this Master.

He then asked him, 'Please tell me something. How are you so courageous, so bold?'

The Master asked: 'Why did you come to Bharat?'

Alexander replied, 'To conquer Bharat.'

The Master continued, 'After that what are you going to do?'

Alexander replied confidently, 'I will conquer the next country.'

The Master again asked, 'After that what are you going to do?'

Alexander continued, 'I will conquer the next country.'

The Master persisted, 'And after that?'

Alexander replied as if the answer was obvious, 'I will conquer the whole world.'

The Master questioned further, 'After that?'

Alexander replied, 'I will relax and enjoy.'

The Master said, 'Fool! That is what I am doing now!'

The Master said, 'Don't you see that that is what I am doing now? The same thing I am doing now. Why do you need to go around and conquer the whole world to relax and enjoy? That is what I am doing now straightaway in front of your eyes!'

Only a man who has understood the purposelessness of life can relax and enjoy. The Master gave a glimpse of the Truth to Alexander.

That is why Alexander said to his ministers, 'After my death, when you carry my dead body, please keep my hands out. Please keep my hands out in an open position. Let people know that even the great Alexander did not carry anything with him'.

Even Alexander did not carry anything with him.

This is a beautiful story.

You need to understand three things. The first thing is the courage and confidence radiated by an enlightened person.

The next thing is the purposelessness of our running. For what was Alexander running? To relax and enjoy! This Master was already doing the same thing.

The third thing is that we are not going to carry anything with us from this life. We are not going to carry anything. Please be very clear, even if the whole world worships you as a king, you cannot carry that with you! You have to go empty handed only.

Mad people also claim they are kings, while people who are sitting on the throne also claim they are kings. Why is it that the former are put in an asylum and the latter are respected?

If the guy is cunning enough to convince others to believe what he says, he is respected and made to sit on the throne. People who are innocent, people who are not so cunning, people who are not able to frighten others to believe what he says, are put in the asylum, that's all.

Otherwise, there is no difference between a person who is sitting in the asylum and claiming he is a king and a person who is sitting on the throne and claiming he is a king. The person who is sitting on a throne and claiming he is a king is cunning, or somehow he is able to torture people, or threaten people, or frighten people to believe in what he says. The person who is sitting in the asylum doesn't have that much cunningness.

In Existence, there is no mad person, and there is no king. Both are one and the same. The person who has enough courage or enough of capacity to frighten others, who can make others believe what he says is the truth, he sits on the throne. The one who doesn't have that much cunningness sits in the asylum.

A small story:

One guy in Bharat suddenly started thinking and claiming he was Jawaharlal Nehru. At that time, Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister of Bharat.

If he had only started claiming, that would have been okay. He started dressing like him, which was also okay. Then he started writing letters to all officials and started signing them like Jawaharlal Nehru. Naturally, he was taken to an asylum and for six months he was treated.

After all the treatment, he started behaving almost normally. The doctor said, 'I think you can be discharged now.' The day he was about to be released, fortunately or unfortunately, Jawaharlal Nehru himself visited the asylum. He himself came to the asylum.

They brought this patient to Nehru and introduced him. 'Sir, he is the person who started claiming he was Jawaharlal Nehru.' After the formal introduction, this patient asked Nehru, 'Who are you?' Nehru said, 'I am Jawaharlal Nehru.'

The patient said, 'Please be here for six months. They will make you alright!'

Understand that there is no difference between these two. Somehow one is able to convince others that what he says is the truth. The other one is not able to convince, that's all! There is no other big difference.

In Existence, there are no boundaries. In Existence there is no post. The person who knows how to convince others in a cunning way becomes a king. Even if you become a king, that doesn't fulfill anything. That doesn't give you anything.

Never think that having the outer space or having comforts in the outer world will give you inner fulfillment. Never! All developed countries are filled with depression.

All developed countries are filled with depression! They have the best roads, the best dams, the best bridges, the best infrastructure, but people are depressed. People are depressed! All developed countries are drowning in depression. Never think that outer space will give you inner space.

If you want inner space, if you want to achieve the inner space, you need to work for the inner space. You need to understand the dynamics of the inner space. You need to understand the technology of the inner space.

Here, Krishna is giving you the technology of the inner space. This is how we work, or how our mind moves. This is your being. Material life is a horizontal line and spiritual life is a vertical line. Continuously, we fight or we try to choose something. You continuously bother about whether to choose the horizontal line or the vertical line; whether to go in this (horizontal) path, or in that (vertical) path.

You are always stuck somewhere on the horizontal line or somewhere on the vertical line. You try to move but

Material life	Spiritual life

you are always caught in the dilemma of whether to go this way or that way.

Mind is dilemma. Mind is nothing but dilemma. Whatever thought you choose, whether in the material life or in the spiritual life, you will always feel you are missing the other part. You will continuously feel you are missing something.

One important thing is that as long as you think you are the mind, as long as you live with the mind, you will have this problem of material life or spiritual life. But if you can just draw into the being, you can just forget about the goal. You locate a purpose somewhere and you are continuously running towards it, running towards the purpose.

One more thing: just like you have goals in material life, people have goals in spiritual life also. There are so many people who say, 'I should meditate for seven hours. I should become enlightened. I should become that, I should do this, I should be that.'

Please be very clear, goals in material life and goals in spiritual life both make you mad. If you want to become mad, continuously think of some goal. It is the direct way to go mad. Nothing else needs to be done. A simple technique to become mad is to remember some goals!

The more you are bothered about the goal, the less you will be able to live the path. For example, if a teacher is continuously bothered about his salary, he will never be able to see the faces of his students. He will see only the face that is printed on the dollar bill. In the same way, the man who is caught in the goal will never be able to live life.

The man who continuously bothers about or thinks about the goal will never be able to enjoy the simple things around him. He can't smile at a flower. He can't stop to see nature. He can't enjoy anything. He will be continuously running, running, running behind the printed-paper, the dollar bill, which has no value.

Money is nothing but a utility. We run behind the utility. We run behind these things for a reason and eventually we achieve things, but we never achieve what for we wanted to achieve all these things in the first place.

The man who runs behind the goals, the material goals, will always feel he is missing the spiritual goal.

One more basic secret: understand that all rich communities will always follow spiritual Masters. All rich communities, invariably, will always follow spiritual Masters, because inside them there is a deep guilt that they are missing spirituality.

All rich communities will always go to and will always have strong spiritual Masters. You can see this in every society. If the community is rich, they will have strong gurus, because of the deep guilt that they are missing spirituality.

The person who chooses the spiritual path will always be running behind the rich men. The person who chooses material path will always be running behind the spiritual man. Both fulfill each other. The spiritual guy wants to fulfill the material person and the material person wants to fulfill the spiritual guy.

Please be very clear, that is why the so-called religious men or the so-called rich men are always trying to be together. You can always see that these two will be together because the rich guy needs the religious man and the religious guy needs the rich man. Both feel that they miss the other.

The guy who travels on the horizontal line feels he is missing the spiritual life and the guy who travels on the vertical line feels he is missing the material life. Both are trying to fulfill each other cerebrally.

The materialist fulfills the spiritualist's ideal and the spiritualist fulfills the materialist's ideal. The person who chooses the spiritual life feels if rich men are around him, what he is missing will be fulfilled. In the same way, the person who chose the worldly life feels that if he goes to a spiritual man or a religious man, he will be fulfilled. Both are helping each other.

The man who realizes purposelessness of these goals, the purposelessness of the running, just falls back into his being. If you realize that whatever you keep as the purpose or goal in your life is purposeless and is useless, the very moment you realize this and the moment the glamour is gone, that moment the need for perspiration is gone; you stop running.

Mind you, it is not inspiration; it is just perspiration that you give up. The moment purpose is gone, the moment respect for the purpose is gone in your life, you will simply fall into your being.

One important thing: the moment you fall into your being, you explode! Not only do you start flowing in the direction of horizontal and vertical lines, but you also explode in 360 degrees in all dimensions. Whatever you can imagine and whatever you can't imagine will start happening, and you will start exploding in all the directions. Only then you become a multi-dimensional being.

A man who has fallen into his being, one who has dropped goals, who understands the purposelessness of Existence, who has realized, who has tasted the beauty of purposelessness, falls into his being, into his ātman, and explodes in 360 degrees, in all dimensions. He simply radiates in all directions!

He starts experiencing the ultimate bliss of spiritual life and the ultimate happiness of material life and something more! Only he enters into eternal bliss or Krishna Consciousness.

As long as you are caught with material goals or spiritual goals, you travel only in that line, because you think you are body or mind.

The more you are caught with the purpose, the more you will think you are body or mind. The moment you realize the purposelessness of it all, you will straightaway fall into the depths of your being.

You experience your ātman; you relax and your inner wounds are healed. The first inner wound is thinking of your Self as body and mind. That is the Original Sin.

Please be very clear, the Original Sin is thinking of your Self as body and mind. Don't think Adam eating the apple is the Original Sin. No! Why should we suffer for Adam's sin? Surely, we don't have to suffer for his sin. The Original Sin is not Adam eating the apple; it is you thinking of your Self as body or mind.

When you have purposes, when you think of the purpose of life, you think you are a body or a mind, that you are matter. When you realize purposelessness, you just drop into the energy of your being. The moment you drop into your being, you explode; your inner wounds are healed. Understand this one thing. If you can understand this one thing and live in this moment, you can become enlightened.

Actually, for any single individual to become enlightened you don't need the whole Gita. This single verse is enough. This single Gita verse is enough to make any individual enlightened.

Then why am I speaking on all the verses? It is only because there are so many different kinds of individuals. This is a key for different individuals, which is the reason why I am explaining all the verses.

If you can fall into yourself, just look into yourself and understand this one verse for yourself, not for going and explaining to your wife, not for going and explaining to your mother-in-law, not for going and explaining to your friend, not for going and explaining to somebody else, but for your own self.

Please be very clear, whenever I speak, understand that I am speaking to you. Don't prepare notes in your mind to go and repeat it to somebody else. When you prepare notes you think, 'I should go and tell this to my friend, I should go and tell this to my husband.'

When you prepare mental notes to repeat it to somebody, you are sure to miss experiencing it.

Just allow this one idea to work on you: the truth of the purposelessness of life. You can just close your eyes and think, contemplate for two or three minutes. 'Really what is the purpose of my life? Why am I doing what I am doing? Where am I going? What is happening?'

If your inner eye just opens, if your inner space understands the beauty of purposelessness, that is enough. You will fall into your being. When you fall into your being, you explode in 360 degrees, in all dimensions.

You experience a totally different kind of material life and a totally different kind of spiritual life. As of now, you can neither experience material life nor experience spiritual life because when you are here, you are looking there and when you are there, you are looking here. You never experience anything in a solid way.