1. Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by Nithyananda - Chapter 4 - Path of Knowledge

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!

4.9 One who knows or experiences my divine appearance and activities does not take birth again in this material world after leaving the body

But attains me, O Arjuna.

4.10 Being freed from attachment, fear and anger, being filled with me and by taking refuge in me,

Many beings in the past have become sanctified by the knowledge of me and have realized me.

4.11 I reward everyone, I show myself to all people, according to the manner in which they surrender unto me,

In the manner that they are devoted to me, o Partha!

4.12 Men in this world desire success from activities and therefore they worship the gods.

Men get instant results from active work in this world.

This is a very strange statement. He says, 'One who understands the nature of My appearance and activities will be liberated from this birth and death cycle.'

How can it be? He says, 'Understand my transcendental nature of birthlessness and deathlessness.' Just now He said he is birthless and deathless. Ajopi: I am birthless. Just now He says, ajopi san avyaya atma bhutanam ishwaropi san. He says, 'I am birthless and deathless.'

Now He says, 'If you understand the truth of the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities, once you leave the body, you will not take birth and death like ordinary humans do. If you understand My transcendental nature, you will also achieve the same transcendental nature.'

'If you understand that I don't take body, you will also realize and you also will not take the body. If you understand I am liberated, you will realize that you are also liberated.' How can it be?

We will start with an incident from Ramana Maharishi's life. In the presence of Ramana Maharishi, everyday they used to sing some songs. There is a song called. 'Ramana Satguru', which means 'Praising Ramana Maharishi, Ramana is the true Master.' So when the song is sung, Ramana himself used to sing along with the devotees.

Not only would he be sitting and enjoying, he would also be singing along with the devotees. Somebody asked him, 'What is this? You are an enlightened person, you yourself are singing your own name. You are also singing, Ramana satguru Ramana satguru. What do you mean by this?'

Bhagavan says, 'Fool! Why are you reducing Ramana to this six feet body? Why are you reducing me to this six feet body?'

This is a deep, very subtle thing; difficult to understand. He says, 'Just as you are all seeing this body from a distance, in the same way, I am also seeing this body. For you Ramana is somebody. For me also Ramana is somebody! I am not associating with this name and form. That is the reason why just like how you all can enjoy singing the name, I also enjoy, because I have not associated myself with this form.'

I tell you, an egoistic person, at least in public will not show that he enjoys, because, if he shows, people will see that he is egoistic. An egoistic man will make others praise him. He will never be open. Here, Ramana Maharishi is totally open. He is straight. He says, 'Just like you enjoy, I also enjoy this name, enjoy this form, because I don't feel this is me. I don't feel associated with it. The name is just getting repeated, that's all.'

Another incident: one of his disciples, Muruganathan writes 'Ramana Puranam'. It is the stotra (verses in praise) of Ramana Maharishi. He wrote a few lines and somehow he was not able to write further. So he just brings the paper and puts it at the feet of the Master and says, 'Bhagavan, I am not able to write.' Bhagavan says, 'Alright, you go, let us see tomorrow.' The next day when the disciple comes back, he sees that the poem is completed.

Bhagavan himself wrote and completed it. He wrote three hundred lines and completed the whole poem. The disciple was surprised. Bhagavan himself had written about himself; his own stotra, written by himself!

Later, when the disciple published it, when it came out as a book, the author put a small footnote: 'From this line onwards it was written by Bhagavan himself', just so that the devotees would be aware that those particular verses were Bhagavan's own words.

The first copy of the book was taken to Bhagavan. Bhagavan just saw the book, saw the footnote: 'From this line onwards it was written by Bhagavan himself.'

He turned to the disciple and asked, 'Oh! Were the other lines written by you then?'

Understand, he asks, 'Oh! Does it mean that the other lines are all written by you?'

Bhagavan said, 'When you wrote all those verses, it was I who wrote through you. You cannot think about me. You cannot write about me. What do you know about me?

Unless I express myself through you, you cannot know anything about me.'

Only a man who has disappeared into the divine consciousness can write his poem.

In the Bhagavatam (life story of Lord Krishna), Krishna himself sings, 'I am the Lord,' just like how He now says, bhutanam ishwaropi.

Here, He says beautifully, this word is such a beautiful word: bhutanam ishwaropi: I am the Lord of all living beings.

A mere boy from Brindavan, a cowherd boy from Brindavan, says this! See, you should not look at Krishna from today's perspective. You should understand the whole scene as it happened, when this happened on the battlefield at Kurukshetra.

Now, because of time, we have accepted Krishna as God. But this was said when He was alive. When He was alive, people could not accept him as God. Hardly a few people realized that He was God.

When Rama was walking on planet Earth, only the saptarishis (the energy of seven sages that controls the world) knew He was an incarnation. Nobody else knew. In the same way, when Krishna was alive, very few people recognized who He was. At least Rama lived a controlled life; he is easy for people to accept. But Krishna lived such an ecstatic and spontaneous life; it is very difficult to realize Krishna!

For a socially intellectual person, or a so-called religious person, it is very difficult to realize Krishna, very difficult to understand Krishna. But He says, bhutanam ishwaropi, I am the Lord of all living entities.

Naturally, it is difficult for them to understand. It is very difficult for people to understand. Somebody asks Ramana, 'Why are you speaking about yourself? Why are you expressing your own glory?'

Bhagavan says, 'If I don't tell about myself, you can never understand me. Unless I reveal, you can never realize. Unless I express, you can never understand. Just out of my compassion for all of you, I express the truth, I express myself.'

It is like this: you are going somewhere and you see a traffic jam on the road. You know one of your friends is traveling ahead of you on the same road. You ring up and ask him, 'How is it at that place? Is there a traffic jam? Can I come by the same road or should I take some other road?' Will he not have the simple basic courtesy to guide you? He will surely have that basic courtesy.

He will tell you, 'No, no, this route is okay, you come. In ten minutes everything will become alright. In this area there is no traffic jam.' He will give you some instructions. He will guide you.

With the same basic courtesy, Krishna is revealing his truth towards you. He is revealing his truth to all of us. He is revealing his truth to us. It is just a simple basic courtesy of help for fellow travelers.

Here, when He says, 'I am God, I am the ultimate,' He says there is a possibility - when I can achieve, why not you?' He shows the possibility, He gives us the courage, He encourages us. Here He says, 'When I can achieve, why not you?'

It is like a seed always afraid of rupturing to become a tree. It always feels, 'If I break and the tree doesn't happen, then what will happen? I will die.' But the tree tells the seed, 'Unless you open, I cannot happen.' Unless the seed opens, the tree cannot happen. The seed says, 'No, no, no, let the tree happen; then I will open.' But the tree says, 'No, no, first you have to open, only then I can happen.' The problem between the tree and the seed continues endlessly.

It is necessary for somebody to give a little courage to the seed. A tree that was a seed once and now has become tree, one such tree comes and says, 'Oh seed, don't worry, open, I was also a seed. I opened and today I have become a tree. Be courageous. Don't worry. You will never perish. Open. Just like me you will also become a tree.'

In the manner how the tree gives courage to the seed, in the same way Krishna gives courage to us. You can also become God, like me. You can also experience the truth like me.

When He says, 'I am the ultimate,' He expresses the possibility. He shows us the possibility. He again and again reminds us of our potentiality. He inspires us to enter into the same consciousness. He inspires us to experience the same bliss. He shows us the way of the truth, which we need to experience.

When Krishna reveals this truth, be very clear, Krishna is not egoistic. He is expressing His true nature out of simple basic courtesy to fellow travelers.

The senior tree encourages the junior seed to open up and become a tree. The tree assures the seed. It says, 'Don't worry, I have become a tree. You can also become like me. You don't have to feel you will disappear.' It is an assurance.

That is why again and again I tell you, when He tells us 'I am God', He means, 'You too are God.' He gives you the courage; He encourages you to enter into the same experience.

And one more thing we need to understand, as I was telling you, as Ramana says, 'Why do you reduce Ramana to this six feet body?' Ramana is far superior, far greater than his six feet body.

When enlightened Masters say 'I', they don't have any meaning behind that 'I'. Only the divinity speaks. For a normal man, take yourself for example, when you say the word 'God' it is just a word. There is no meaning behind it. At the most, you will have some imagination about God, that's all. There is no solid meaning behind that word when you use it. But when you say 'I', you attribute a solid meaning for it, you have a solid identity. You know clearly what you mean. But when you say 'God', you don't know what you mean. The emotion or the understanding is not supported well with any experience. The word is not supported by an emotional understanding or experience.

But with enlightened people, when they say 'God', it is based on solid experience and when they say 'I', it has no meaning. It is just for utility sake that they use the word 'I'. It is an empty word for them. Because they can't use any other word, they use the word 'I'. They have to use some word; there is no other way. That is the reason they use the word 'I'.

There was a great enlightened Master. His name was Nisargadatta Maharaj. He lived in Bharat. Somebody went to him and asked, 'Master, you say enlightened people don't have karma. But how can you speak? How can you do all your activities if you don't have karma?'

He said, 'I am not doing anything!' The disciple asked, 'No, you are speaking to me. How can you speak to me if you don't have karma?' Nisargadatta Maharaj said straightaway, 'I am not speaking to you.' He said, 'I am not speaking to you!'

He was saying the words and yet he said, 'I am not speaking to you.' It is very difficult to understand!

Then Maharaj says, 'Because you wanted me to speak, the speaking is happening through this body. There is nobody inside.' He was just like a hollow bamboo. When the breeze enters a hollow bamboo, it comes out as music. There is nobody inside, just empty hollow bamboo. That is why whatever goes in comes out as music.

When you become like a hollow bamboo, whatever words come out of your mouth become a mantra, a sacred syllable. Your form becomes yantra, the tool of liberation, and your whole life becomes tantra, a technique for liberation. Your words are sastra, scriptures. Your form is the center for stotra, devotional prayers. And your life is sutra, the technique. Your very life is sutra.

Here, when Krishna says, 'I', there is nobody inside. It is just the Divine that is speaking; just the emptiness that is speaking.

Then the disciple asks Nisargadatta Maharaj, 'Then how do you say I am not speaking to you?' What do you mean by the word 'I'?

Maharaj says, 'Because there is no other word, I have to use the word 'I'.' But this 'I' has got no meaning like how your 'I' has. Your 'I' is supported by experience. When you say the word 'God', it is an empty word. It is not supported by experience.'

When you say the word 'I', it is supported by solid experience. You know it. You feel it. If somebody asks, 'Are you mad?' you shout at them to prove it! When somebody asks, 'Are you a dog?' you just bark at them and prove it! You know, the 'I' in you is solid. It has got meaning.

But when you utter the word 'God', it has no meaning. It is superficial, some imagination which you created through what you read in some books; something which was taught to you in some discourse; which you heard when you were a small child from your mother. That's all.

But when enlightened people, like enlightened Masters, say the word 'I', it has no meaning. How the word 'God' is empty for you, the word 'I' is empty for them. There is no meaning. But when they say the word 'God', there is a solid experience for that word.

Here, when Krishna says 'I', there is nobody inside. It is pure emptiness. Just the Divine speaks through him. Just pure Existence speaks through him. He has become a hollow bamboo. He has become pure energy. That is why He can courageously declare in a battlefield, bhutanam ishwaropi, I am the Lord of all beings.

Sitting in a home, comfortably, where you have all the security, safety, all insurances, all the protection, and declaring 'I am God' is very easy, because there is nothing to risk. There is no risk. You don't need to take any big risk. You don't need to prove anything. Just make the statement, what is there in it? After all it is free! Say whatever you want!

But Krishna is making this statement in a place where He needs to prove it. He is making this statement in a battlefield, where all the risky things are there, where his life itself is at risk. One arrow is enough to finish his body. He will be dead. But He is making this statement in that space. In the battlefield He declares, 'I am God.'

What courage and energy has to be there behind His words! It can come only from a solid experience, a deep conscious experience.

Earlier I told you the story of Alexander threatening an enlightened Master with his sword, and the Master laughing at Alexander. 'Fool', he said, 'what will you destroy? What is in me is indestructible!'

Only an enlightened man can laugh in front of a sword. Alexander is standing with a naked sword and the Master is laughing. He is not bothered. Just imagine, on the street, if somebody is holding a gun towards you, and asking for your wallet, will you be able to laugh? Impossible!

But here, this person is able to laugh, in front of Alexander's sword. The courage that comes out of satya, truth, is the courage that comes out of solid experience. One important thing that the Vedanta scriptures can give you is courage; courage to live, courage to face life and death; courage to see the whole Existence, courage to face the whole Existence.

One of the great disciples of Vivekananda, sister Nivedita asks him, 'Swamiji, if I come with you what will you teach me? What will you give me?'

Vivekananda says, 'I will teach you how to face death.' That is the ultimate teaching. Here, Krishna is giving that ultimate teaching.

In these two verses, He says,

Yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bharata Abhyutthanam adharmasya tada atmanam srujamyaham

Paritranaya sadhunam vinashaya cha dushkrutam Dharma samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge

Then the next statement is very strange:

Janma karma cha me divyam evam yo vetti tattvataha Tyaktva deham punarjanma naiti mam eti so Arjuna

It means: if you understand the secret of My birth and death, you will be liberated from birth and death, Arjuna.

How? Let us see the secret of the birth and death of Krishna, how we all go through the birth and death cycle.

Now, just as how Krishna made the statement, 'I tell you this because you are my devotee and friend', now I have to make the same statement to you all again.

Here I am going to speak on something which is beyond logic. It is purely experience. Before speaking, I take an oath: whatever I speak is the truth.

Whenever the ultimate truth is uttered, whenever something beyond our logic is uttered, we never receive it completely. Please be very clear: a silent listener is a person who is thinking about something else! A silent listener is a person who is thinking about something else. Whenever something which goes beyond our logic is told, we never receive it.

If we are courageous enough, we fight, we question, we argue. If we don't have that much of courage, we don't allow that word to enter into us. To tell you honestly, we never believe anybody.

Please be very clear: we never believe anybody. It is always an argument. It is always an argument, sometimes open, and at other times, in the mind. If we can't express it openly, we continuously repeat the same words in the mind.

That is why, before entering into the truths, I tell you that what I speak is the truth. If you can, receive it. There is a possibility of transformation, because here I speak the truth that is realized only by experience, which cannot be logically true.

Let me first describe what Near Death Experience is. People who are declared clinically dead, after four or five hours, sometimes come back to life. Especially these mothers-in-law! They don't leave! And, after four or five hours, they come back! I was just joking.

The doctor who created this website went around all over the world, meeting only those types of people; only the people who came back to life after four to five hours, people who are declared medically dead by doctors. He was interested only in those who have come back to life after the doctor's declaration that the person is dead.

He traveled all over the world and met about many people. He has recorded and collected the reminiscences of many people. If you find time, try to see the website. He has collected so many different kinds of experiences from different kinds of people - experiences from Buddhists, experiences from Christians, experiences from Hindus, experiences from Muslims, and so on.

So many religions describe the death process in so many ways. Some say, if you have done punya or merits, you will reach a place called heaven, and St. Peter will be standing at the pearly gates, and only then you will be taken in; if you have committed sins, you will be taken to eternal hell. Each one has got his or her own faith.

Some say there is no hell or heaven and you directly go to Vaikunta (place where Lord Vishnu lives). Some say there will be a special pushpaka vimanam (mythological aircraft), special aircraft, sent from Kailash (place where Shiva resides), where Ramba and Menaka (celestial dancers) will be serving you and you will be directly taken to Shiva's place. There are so many different versions as to what happens after death or what happens at the time of death.

The Katopanishad says you will enter through a tunnel and see the Angushta matra purusha piranam, meaning the light that is thumb sized, which is your soul. You will see the light when the soul leaves the body.

There are so many explanations, so many different kinds of versions as to how death happens, and how your spirit enters into the next body.

This researcher has categorized and explained everything. In the end, after doing research for so many years, he makes one important statement. He says, 'I have studied so many Near Death Experiences. Now I can tell one thing: only when people live, they are Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. That is to say, they belong to different religions. When they die, all of them undergo the same experience.'

He says very clearly, all of them undergo the same experience, and this is the experience that is described in the Katopanishad.

Here, Krishna explains that beautifully. In a much deeper way He explains later in the chapter on Purushottama Yoga. We will see that subject when we come to that chapter. We will study that then. Now I just want to give you an introduction. I just want you to know the science into which we are entering.

He says people belong to different religions only when they are alive. When they are dead, they follow only one path, which is described in the Katopanishad.

Exactly what happens at the time of leaving the body? When you leave the body, the moment the physical body dies and relaxes, the moment the physical body says, 'I cannot hold the soul anymore, I am tired,' that very moment the soul leaves the body.

You decide what you think of as the highest pleasure in your life based upon how you have lived in the 70-80 years. If you think eating is the highest pleasure in your life, naturally you would have spent the whole life in eating. Then at the time of leaving the body, eating is the highest pleasure.

You will think, 'I should take a body which will continuously help me to eat, eat, and eat. Which is the best body?' You see through all the choices. Then you decide: pig body is the best body. Let me take that life!

If you have that thought that sleeping is the greatest, happiest and most joyful experience in your life, if you have lived your whole life in sleep, tamas (inactivity), then you would think, 'I think sleep is the best experience in my life. Why not take the buffalo body? I can then spend my whole life in sleeping.'

Whatever you think is the greatest experience in your life, which senses you have spent the most energy on, the maximum time and maximum part of your inner space, you decide your next birth based on that desire, based on that point.

Please be very clear, nobody else decides your birth, it is you who decides. It is simply you who chooses. It is clearly the conscious decision of your individual soul.

I am ready for any of your questions. Naturally this is a very controversial subject; very difficult to understand. But after this, any question you ask, I will surely. But you need to understand the science of birth and death, the mystery, the secret and mystery behind birth and death.

Here Krishna says beautifully, 'Here I am telling you the secret of things.' Krishna says 'rahasyam hetuduttamam'. 'I am telling you the mysterious ultimate science, Oh my dear devotee and friend: Bhaktosi me sakha cheti rahasyam hetuduttamam: I am telling you the ultimate mysterious science.'

We need to understand one thing: how we take birth. Let us analyze this concept with questions and answers. Understand, now I made few statements: 'You take birth based on your desires, based on how you live in the previous birth. 'Birth and death are your conscious decisions.' These are all the statements that I have made.

We will analyze these statements with questions and answers. Only then we will be able to internalize it. If you just hear these words and go away, they will not go inside you. I always encourage people to ask questions. Because it is only when you question that you will be able to relate with the idea.

Never think that by asking questions everyone around will look at you and you will look like a fool. If you ask a question you may look like a fool. If you don't, you will be a fool! Better to look like a fool than to be a fool.

We will analyze this whole concept - the secret of birth and death, the mysterious science that Krishna delivers, through our question and answers. Then you will be able to internalize this truth. The moment this truth is understood, you will immediately see that life is a blessing.

This life is your decision, please be very clear about it. Including poverty, everything is your decision. Don't think poverty has been forced on you. Even that is your decision. When we take birth, when we assume the body, we take birth based on our fear and greed. On one side, greed pushes us, 'Let me become the son of a king, let me become the son of rich man.' On the other side, our own fears say, 'No no, I can't take on so much of responsibility.' Please be very clear, along with money, a big responsibility of protecting it comes. Along with money, the big responsibility of protecting the money comes. That is why Goddess Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, is handed over to Lord Vishnu, the Protector! Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, is neither with the Creator, Brahma, nor with the Destroyer, Shiva. She is with the Protector, with Vishnu.

Along with Lakshmi who represents wealth, the responsibility to protect Her also comes. Most of the time we don't want to take the responsibility. We only want enjoyment. We only want the enjoyment, we don't want the responsibility. That is where the trouble starts. A person who is ready to take on the responsibility as well as the enjoyment, will never miss and will never be deprived.

If you understand this secret mystery clearly, this moment you will feel that your life is a blessing and not a curse. Usually we always blame life. 'If I am given a chance, I would make the world much better than what it is now!' We always think we can develop on the existing creation.

Be very clear, surely God is much more intelligent than us! Whether it is to do with your life or to do with the whole of Existence, He has done the maximum of what can be done. Because we don't understand the mystery of our decisions, we continuously blame life and the person who gave this life to us.

Let me narrate to you a small incident. It really happened. It happened in America. A small boy had autism. He was a small boy who was about seven or eight years old. He was brought to THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM for healing. The father and mother requested of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, 'Master, please heal him, help him to become alright.' I put my hand on his head and started healing.

Immediately, the boy started talking to me in Tamil, my mother tongue. The family doesn't know Tamil. Even the boy doesn't know even a single word of Tamil.

The parents were shocked. They said, 'We don't know how he is speaking Tamil, because we don't know Tamil.' The boy simply started talking in Tamil with great clarity. They said that normally, even in English he does not speak that fluently. He would utter only one or two words. But that day, straight away he started speaking to me.

And he said, 'Stop healing.' Using Tamil slang, he told me very crudely, 'Stop healing.' I was shocked to first of all hear him speak in Tamil in clear words, and then in a crude rough manner, 'Stop healing!' I was shocked.

Then I asked him, 'Why are you asking me to stop healing?' I thought some evil spirit is there inside his body, maybe some other spirit. So I started asking, 'Who are you? Why are you asking me to stop?'

Then he said, 'I took this decision consciously. I don't want to take the responsibility of leading a regular life. I don't want to take the responsibility of attending school, making money and leading a regular life. That is why I took this affliction. I took this decision of autism consciously.'

The whole thing he spoke to me in Tamil, in my mother tongue. I don't know how you will be able to believe this. Because this is personal, I am not able to give his name and reference. But I tell you honestly that this really happened.

Straightaway he started addressing me: 'I don't want to take the responsibility of life. I am not interested in doing all these regular things, going to school, going through life. That is why I took this type of body. I wanted somebody to take care of me. I want to just enjoy.'

Then I asked him, 'Alright, that is okay, beautiful, but why did you take birth with such nice people?' They are such nice people, why did you take birth through them? Why did you come down as a son for them?'

Then he replied, 'I took birth in their family because they are nice people! They will take care of me. They will not abandon me. Had it been someone else, they would have abandoned me. They wouldn't have taken care of me. That is the reason I took birth in their family.'

All the while, he spoke to me in Tamil. I was shocked. And in the end, by force he removed my hand from his head. Then I said, 'Alright, I cannot interfere in the decision of any individual.' I cannot interfere in anybody's life.

The greatness of God is that He gives you the freedom to be in bondage. Even if it is the ultimate freedom He offers you, He never forces it on you. He gives you the freedom to be in bondage if that was your choice. And in the end, I did not heal him.

The whole thing, your whole birth, is based on your fear and greed. But the enlightened Master's birth is based on love and compassion. The whole secret is this. Ordinary man takes birth based on fear and greed. That is why his whole life is driven by fear and greed. His whole life runs based on fear and greed. Enlightened Masters achieve the body out of love and compassion.

That is why Krishna beautifully says: atma mayaya, because of my own energy, my own shakti, my own maya, I take birth. Sambhavyam atma mayaya prakritim svam adhishthaya sambhavami atma mayaya. 'With my own energy, just out of my love and compassion, I land on this planet Earth.'

The next question that follows is this: how can we be liberated by knowing this truth? In what way is it going to help us directly in our life?

Please be very clear, when I say the word birth or death, I don't mean just dying at the end of life. I mean every night's sleep is your birth and death. Every night when you go to sleep, you die! When you come back, in the morning, you take birth one more time. Every day, you assume the body. Every day, you leave the body. When you go to the karana sareera (causal body), when you go to sleep, when you fall asleep, every day, you die. When you come back, every day you come back to life.

Now, as of now, every day morning, how do we come back to life? How do we take this body? Just look deeply. What happens at the time you get up from bed?

First thing, usually, the moment you get the awareness that you are awake, either a thought based on greed or a thought based on fear hits you. A thought based on greed - maybe you wanted to meet somebody, you have got something to do, or a thought based on fear - you have to go to office, you have to do finish some deadline. Some thought based on fear or greed hits you. Immediately you jump out of your bed. Am I right? If you have analyzed your waking up, how you assume this body every morning, that moment is actually your taking birth.

Please be very clear, that moment that you take the body matters. These are the basic, very subtle, mysterious secrets of altering the whole consciousness. Early morning, with whichever thought you enter into the body, whichever thought makes you assume the body, that thought is going to play a major role in your consciousness. The first thought is going to play a major role in your consciousness for that entire day.

But an enlightened person, an enlightened Master assumes the body out of love and compassion. He comes back just to pour his compassion out, just to share himself with the whole world. When I say he comes back, I mean his coming back every day, every morning!

If you understand this once and alter your thoughts at the time of waking up, you will alter your whole consciousness; the very quality of your consciousness can be changed.

It is just like how a camera works. The first moment the lens is opened, whatever scene is there in front of the camera eye, is recorded in the film. That will stay there forever. In the same way, during the first moment of your consciousness while assuming the physical body, the thought that you have while entering into the body plays a major role on your consciousness for the whole day.

When you get up from bed, let the first thought be related to love and compassion. Let it be related to a deep, divine spiritual thought. Get up only to express your life in bliss. Get up just out of joy. The moment you come to consciousness, the moment you become aware of yourself, express, 'Oh Lord, so beautiful! You have given me one more day! I have come back to life once more just to see Your Existence. I am blessed that You have given me one more day extension!'

Please be very clear, you have no right to have any extension. Don't think life is your birthright. I have seen many people taking things for granted. Before they get the job, they would say, 'If I get that $10,000 per month salary, I will be really safe. I will feel blessed.' The moment they get the job, in one month, they think it is their birthright.

Birth itself is not your right. Then how can you say something is your birthright? The word birthright is completely wrong. Birth itself is not your right. You have no right even to your own birth. It is a pure gift. You can't expend even a single breath thinking it is your own.

You can't inhale or exhale for even one single moment unless the Divine allows you, unless the Parasakti gives the extension. So every day is a blessing. Every day is an extension. When you get up from the bed, get up, come out of the bed and assume the body with this gratitude to the Divine. The quality of your whole consciousness will change and you will become an incarnation.

Here I am giving you the straight technique on how to become Krishna, how to enter into Krishna Consciousness, how to become an incarnation. The man who assumes the body out of love and compassion is an incarnation. If you assume the body out of greed or fear, you are man. If you assume the body out of love and compassion, you are an incarnation and you are Divine. Your whole life will become pure eternal bliss. Your whole life will happen with a different consciousness.

I was explaining the secret of birth and death: how we go through, how it is our conscious decision, how it is our choice.

Please be very clear, your whole life is purely your responsibility. Nobody has forced anything on you! It is completely your responsibility. It is you who is taking the responsibility of your whole life. It is your decision.

People always ask me, 'Then why do we get into accidents, Master?' Please be very clear, everything, including accidents is your choice. I am making a bold statement: everything, including accidents is your choice. You can send me your questions. I will explain the answers tomorrow when I see the questions. Then you will understand this truth in a much deeper way.

Here Krishna gives us a technique to attain Him. If we are able to live in such a way as to be free from the attachments born out of anger and fear, then we can be absorbed in Him, we can attain Him.

We have to understand, all actions create their own reactions. When we sow a seed, the action, though it may appear to be complete, is in reality not so. We have set into motion a cycle, a chain of events. The seed sprouts and becomes a plant or tree.

Thus it is so in the order of existence, that every action or we can say, cause, has its own reaction or, we can say, effect. It is therefore quite difficult to escape from the clutches of the cause-effect cycle. Here Krishna gives a technique for how to cut these karmic bonds. How to escape and realize the reality.

Actions that are free from fear and anger do not create bonds. They lead us towards elevated consciousness. Fear and anger that arise out of greed are two of the most provocative emotions that create action, and lead to bondage.

Attachments are our bondage to the future based on experiences of the past. We have unfulfilled desires that we hope to fulfill. We look for results. We get attached to the possibility of these results. When the results happen the way we wish them to, there is temporary satisfaction. More wishes arise. More attachments are formed.

When things do not happen the way we want them to, we feel sorrow, we are depressed. We strive again.

Either way it is a never ending cycle that brings sorrow in the end. When we let go of attachments and perform actions with no expectations, we enjoy the path of action. There is no stress of what must happen, since there is no attachment.

Krishna offers a way out. He says, 'Be drowned in Me; you will have no anger, no fear. All actions will thus be without bondage. In this manner, you can realize Me.'

He gives the assurance, the valid proof, that having done so, having followed this path, many people in the past have achieved.

He is not telling us, if you do this, maybe something good will happen. No! He straightaway gives the positive assurance. 'Do it, you will achieve! Not only one or two people, many people have done so and have realized Me.'

Masters are like mirrors. They are a true reflection of us. Devotees get whatever they ask for. If the devotee is praying for wealth, he gets it. If he wants healing for body or mind, he is granted it. To the devotee who says, 'Oh Lord, I want nothing except knowledge of Your true reality,' the Lord grants him that. He shows him the way to the ultimate reality.

If you visit our ashram, you will see that there is something there for everyone. No one goes back empty handed. We have prayers, fire rituals, devotional songs, yoga, meditation, etc. for all kinds of people. People from all walks of life, from all cross-sections of society, from all kinds of economic strata, can find their place here.

For the devotee who has faith in worship, there are the temples. For the devotee who wishes to attain through yoga, there are various yoga programs. For those on the path of knowledge, there are enough and more avenues and meditation techniques. Only in this manner can we lift the consciousness of society.

I always say we cannot hope to transform society through any mass movement. It can happen only through individual transformation. The mass has to be made up of such transformed people. When such people act together, it will have the same power as a laser beam.

I always say that each devotee and each disciple is unique. The way I treat each one is unique. What I tell one person is not applicable to another. I warn my disciples, time and again, please do not advise someone else based on the advice I have given you. It will only cause more confusion.

Vivekananda once lectured another disciple of Ramakrishna and made him believe that all his devotional beliefs were nonsense. Such was the powerful personality of Vivekananda that he convinced this disciple that he must follow the advaitic, non-duality route that Vivekananda himself espoused, instead of the bhakti or devotional path that Ramakrishna had chosen for that disciple.

Ramakrishna called Vivekananda immediately, without anyone telling him what had happened. He said sorrowfully to Vivekananda, 'What have you done to this disciple of mine? I have been working on him based on his nature and being. Now, with your words, you have set him backwards in his spiritual progress. It will take me years to bring him back on his path.'

Here, Krishna promises and reaffirms what He has said earlier, that He will take care of every need of his devotee.

Only the most compassionate being, only such a person who cares for all, will make this statement. Now it is left to the devotee to have some wisdom, some intelligence as to what to approach the Master for.

Krishna explains here why non-attachment is so difficult. It is in our nature to look for success in whatever we do. It is impossible to embark on an activity expecting it to fail.

There is nothing wrong in looking for success at the end of an activity. What creates problems is the illogical attachment to that expectation of success. We become so obsessed with what we desire that the expectation consumes us.

What Krishna says here shows that our mindset, human nature, has not changed in over five thousand years. Even then they were looking for material success. They were looking for instant results. When they prayed to God they were praying to fulfill their expectations of material success.

Again, I must say that Krishna is the greatest psychologist who ever lived. He has measured human nature accurately. What we want is results, material, tangible results, and instant results. In His days, in Krishna's days, when samskaras were relatively fewer, when the cerebral pollution was much less, the word 'instant' itself must have been rarely used. People had a different concept of time. There was much less rush and much less aggression.

Yet the Master uses a term 'kshipram', instant. The Master is talking about humanity, past, present and future.

He says you normally pray to God not as an expression of gratitude and not for spiritual benefits, but to seek unfulfilled material desires. You go to a temple and pray to the idol so that you may have more money, a beautiful spouse, more children, better jobs and all that you think will bring you happiness.

All your actions, Krishna says, are based on material success and He says such activities bear instant results. Please note that they bear instant results. Whether you understand it or not, all these prayers and actions do produce instant results.

This does not mean that whatever you pray for is instantly granted by whichever God you prayed to. God, fortunately, has far more wisdom than we have. God uses His buddhi, wisdom, to grant what He deems appropriate.

However, the result of your actions is instant. The karmaphala is immediate. When religions talk of karma, which is action and karmaphala, the fruits or outcome of such action, they speak in terms of merits and sins, papa and punya. They tell you that you will go to hell if you accumulate sins, and you will go to heaven if you gain merits. They use these concepts only to control you. They try to control you through fear and greed; through fear of hell and greed of heaven. That is all.

There is no papa and punya, spiritually speaking. None of it is accumulated and presented to you at the pearly gates by Chitragupta or St. Peter. There is no hell or heaven. Hell and heaven are both states of your mind, not locations in some distant future in God's own land.

When you think good thoughts, when you do good deeds, you feel good you are in heaven. When you think evil, you act evil, you feel evil and you are in hell. That is all. That is all there is to karma. This is the cosmic cause and effect principle. You are what your intent is; you become what your intent is.

Karma acts instantly. It is here and now. It is not some slow grinding of the wheels of God. You live in the tormented mindset of a sinner or the blissful mindset of a sage depending on what you choose to think and do. Remember that. Do not blame your actions on some misunderstood principle of karma.

Karma is in your hands. You are a free spirit; you have free will and you have freedom of thought and action. It is not merely guaranteed by your national constitution, but by God's own constitution. What you sow, you shall certainly reap.

Q: Master, you say that we decide our rebirth, in terms of what we shall be born as, to whom, where etc. Why are so many desperately poor and sad people out there? Why would they ever want to be born that way? People say that is their karma, which to me seems more acceptable.

Yes, we do decide on our rebirth. Rebirth is decided by the mindset of your previous life. It is the accumulated effect of all the experiences that you have had in your earlier life, the samskaras. These samskaras leave a subtle footprint in your spirit that it carries when it leaves the mind-body system. This is called the vasana.

If vasana is a seed, samskara is then a partly grown plant and karma is a fully grown tree. All these are to do with your desires. As long as you do not move out of your desires*, vasana*, samskara and karma bind you. Karma is not cause and effect as you think. It is not as if you do something, your religion or society labels as bad and you are born a pig, or if you do all good things, you will go to heaven. No.

There is no heaven and hell. These are what you create in your own mind. You live in hell throughout your life if you have a bad mindset. If you are always happy and carefree, you live in heaven.

Krishna says elsewhere that you are reborn as what your last thoughts are. He means that you are reborn in line with your vasana, or mindset. You may think, 'Ok, that is good, I shall think good thoughts when I die and I shall be reborn comfortably.' I tell you, if you have lived a miserable life fighting with everyone throughout your life, your last thoughts can be no different. In any case, you cannot plan your death and if you know you are going to die, you will not be able to think differently just because you are going to die.

If you were a miser all your life, your last thought will be of money. It will not even be positive; it will be only about hoarding money. If you had been a playboy all your life, your last thought will be on sensual pleasures only. There is no way you can avoid that.

So your question is, 'Why would any one want to be born a beggar?' You remember the autistic boy I told you about, the one that I didn't heal? Why was he born autistic? His spirit had decided that he had had enough responsibilities in his previous life. He just did not want any responsibility in this life. He would rather be a nonresponsive person with no responsibilities and being taken care of.

A wealthy man in his previous life may have had enormous burdens and miseries that his spirit did not wish to repeat in its next body. He may have regretted accumulating wealth. He may have had money but may have been cast aside by his family and friends. He may have been generally feeling miserable, so much so that he would not wish to be wealthy again. So, he is born poor.

Why do you assume that to be poor is to be unhappy? This is not at all true. I have met many people who are poor as it relates to money and do not know where their next meal is coming from, and yet are wonderfully happy. It is the mindset. Material wealth does not guarantee happiness. Your state of happiness depends on how you treat wealth and poverty.

You may ask, 'Ok, I can accept your theory on being poor; but, then why would anyone want to be born terribly unhealthy and with painful diseases. Surely, this could not have been brought about by any desire.'

You can ask my disciples. Many of them have come to me with chronic and life threatening illnesses, some, just days before meeting me have been told by doctors that they were going to die. But they have lived on. These people if you see are the sincere seekers. They all would have had the same quest - Self-realization. In their previous births they must missed the experience. For one reason or another, they would not have been able to find and stay with a Master, which would have helped them in their spiritual paths. After many such failures, their spirit would have decided that it would be born in a condition, desperate enough, that it would lead to a Master. That is how we say even diseases are our choice!

So, you do decide your rebirth, as what, how, where, and to whom.

In our second level meditation courses LBP 2 – THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Spurana Program, we take participants through the energy layers that the spirit passes through at the time of death. This program is in a sense a re-creation of one's death, and the participant literally feels reborn. In one of the sessions the participants work through what they think are their desires at that moment. When they go through the meditation that takes them through that energy layer, they understand that most of what they assumed as their desires were not real. They realize their true desires, the vasana, the prarabda karma, with which they were born into this world.

4.13 Depending upon the distribution of the three attributes or gunas and action, I have created the four castes.

Yet, I am to be known as the nondoer, the unchangeable.

4.14 I am not affected by any work; nor do I long for the outcome of such work.

One who understands this truth about me also does not get caught in the bondage of work.

Part 3: Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM - Chapter 4 - Path of Knowledge

4.15 All the wise and liberated souls of ancient times have acted with this understanding and thus attained liberation.

Just as the ancients did, perform your duty with this understanding.

4.16 What is action and what is inaction, even the wise are confused.

Let me explain to you what action is, knowing which you shall be liberated from all ills.

Now, we come to the controversial topic of the socalled caste system. Krishna says, 'I have created the four castes depending upon the distribution of the three gunas or attributes.'

We have to understand a bit about the gunas. The word 'guna' can be roughly translated to mean 'attribute' or 'quality' that we are born with. It is like a state of mind and it is also a reflection of the prarabda karma, the vasana, and the mindset with which we are born into this world. All people have all or at least one of the gunas in them. There are three basic gunas and they are: sattva or purity, rajas or activity and tamas or inactivity.

So many people have quoted this one verse out of context for such a long time. People quote this verse whenever they want the support of religion for making the caste system more solid.

They say, 'Krishna himself has sanctioned it' or, 'this system has been given by the incarnation Himself.' We should try to see and examine what Krishna actually meant. If we look a little bit more deeply into Krishna's words, we can see that He uses the words, 'depending upon the distribution of the three gunas.' He does not say, 'depending upon the birth.'

It is a fact, I can even say a truth - and there is a lot of difference between fact and truth - that no two persons on this planet Earth can be the same. By the same token, all persons are unique and possess unique ratios of the three gunas.

Again, we have to note that Krishna does not discriminate. He does not say that this caste is superior, the other one is inferior and so on. He merely states that there are basically four kinds of people, the character of the person will be of that guna which is more in him, which is more dominant in him.

The same way that guna does not come by birth, varna (caste) too does not happen by birth. Guna, the mental attribute, is an inherent part of one's nature, carried over with the vasana from previous births. Krishna says, 'Based on the guna one is born with, I decide on his varna, one's caste.'

In the traditional Vedic Hindu system of education, a guru, the Master, took charge of children at an early age and trained them. He was not only the disseminator of knowledge to these children in what was known as the gurukul system, but he was also the decider of the career and future of each child. The guru evaluated the aptitude of each child under his care based on the child's mental attitude and attributes, the gunas, and then decided on the vocation that the child should pursue. This decision was a very scientific process based on an evaluation of the attitude, aptitude, likes and dislikes of the child, supported by astrological studies.

The varna system was four-fold. Brahmanas were the scholars and priests, intellectually inclined, mostly satva guna based people. Kshatriyas were the soldiers, nobles and kings, aggressive, ambitious, physically strong, and rajas guna based people, with a mix of satva. Vaisya was the business community, traders and businessmen, with strong commercial acumen, with a mix of rajas and satva guna. Sudras were the workers, physically able and skillful, with a predominance of tamas guna.

Based on these skill sets, the children were trained; based on their gunas not birth, they were trained for their vocations, their varna or caste. It was similar to an assessment of aptitudes and streaming the children, but far more scientific than what is done today in the name of streaming.

Over time, as happens, this system was manipulated. Those who believed that they had a better varna, caste, decided they should make it a hereditary right, a birthright. This was an imposition of social and political evil, a misuse of power. A system that did not allow the son of a brahmana to be a priest if he was unsuitable or the son of a kshatriya to be a warrior if he was inadequate, was corrupted to allow that to happen.

Krishna never condoned the system as it exists today.

Krishna states very clearly that only he who transcends these three gunas can reach His state, can reach the higher levels of consciousness. To reach Krishna one has to be a triguna rahita, beyond the three gunas. Then, one becomes a non-doer, a no varna, no guna person.

In the next verses, He elaborates on this aspect.

When a desire is fulfilled, it no longer creates ripples in the mind. Desires that get fulfilled are the basic needs that one is born with, which are the result of the carry over vasana, the prarabda karma. We acquire all other desires by comparing ourselves with others. These are wants, not needs. Existence has no way of fulfilling such wants.

Ramana Maharishi says beautifully: The universe can fulfill the needs of all its inhabitants, but it cannot fulfill the want of even one person. Wants never stop. They grow and grow. Want and greed only stop with death. Even then they continue to haunt as the mental attitude, the carried over vasanas.

When one works out of basic needs, he acquires no karma, since the desires get fulfilled and do not recur. Look at a poor man with just one pair of footwear. He is happy that he does not have to go barefoot. Till that footwear is exhausted, he has no need for another one. In comparison, many of us acquire dozens of shoes, many of which we rarely wear. These purchases are born out of your wants, which can never be fulfilled. Nor will we ever get joy out of these possessions. Once acquired, they lose value and then we seek the next acquisition. The cycle goes on.

Have you ever seen a rich man sitting at a five star restaurant enjoying his meal in the same manner as a hard working manual laborer eating his sandwich? The rich man will be more worried about the various illnesses he has and what he should not eat than the quality of the food in front of him.

A person who has taken a conscious birth, and only a person who has a conscious birth, is aware of his prarabda karma, the list of needs he is born with. Only he can extinguish his karma by fulfilling this list. Such a person has no attachment to his needs or the results of his action to fulfill these needs. These needs carry an energy of their own that gets them fulfilled. Once fulfilled, they leave no karma trace.

Krishna, the ultimate Master, is always conscious. He of course has no karma, no unfulfilled desires, and no attachment. So it is with every enlightened Master. His so called desires get fulfilled as they arise.

When I desire food, it appears. When I feel the need to sleep, I rest. There is no gap between my desire and its fulfillment. There is no trace of that desire after it is fulfilled. The fulfillment is complete. The attachment is zero. Therefore, there is no karma.

This is the lesson every Master tries to teach his disciples. Work from your needs, not from your wants. Act without attachment. You shall attract no karma. You shall be liberated.

Q: Master, even though Krishna may not have meant the caste system to develop the way it has developed in Bharat today, it has become an evil practice. How can one accept this? It needs to be eliminated. Is it not?

If you are looking for a socially acceptable answer, I am not the person to address this question to. If you are looking for a politically acceptable answer, I won't be able to satisfy you.

If you are looking for the truth, the truth is this.

Each of us is unique. We all have different strengths, and along with them some weaknesses as well. All societies are based on this differential uniqueness. That is why every society, every political structure and every religious organization has a leader to take decisions and to make that effective. If each of us were to lead an independent life, totally separate from each other's, all living in forests and mountains, such structures may not be needed. In such a case the race will not survive either. The moment man and woman start living as husband and wife to build a family, you start institutionalizing a family structure, with hierarchy and inequality.

Every society has its norms on how the hierarchy works. What you call a democracy is not equality. There are rulers and the ruled. The ruled may live under the illusion that they appoint the rulers, but they are not equals; the same rules do not apply to both. Even in communism, there was no equality between the rulers and the ruled; there was only forced equality amongst the ruled. The rulers were dictators.

In Western countries today, you say you are a democracy and everybody is equal. But some people are more equal than others. There are the rich and the poor and various shades in between. So your society is based on the power of money. In another country it may be based on power of land ownership; in yet another, it is based on the power of connections or the power of education and so on. There is always an underlying basis to differentiate one person from another. Without this differentiation, organized society does not function.

In the Vedic culture that prevailed in ancient Bharat, this differentiation was based on aptitude. At an early age in the schooling system, called the gurukul or the Master's environment, children were tested for aptitude and trained accordingly. It was not, as I mentioned before, based on birth, but it was based on aptitude. This is the best method I can think of, far better than bringing up a generation based on birth, or parents' wealth or family connections and so on.

If it had not been for this caste system, the Vedic culture would not have survived till today in Bharat even to the extent it has. It is the brahmana communities in various locations, who even at the risk of their lives, protected and nurtured this culture and preserved the knowledge. If centers like Chidambaram in the south and Varanasi in the north are repositories of Vedic culture, it is mainly because of the brahmana community who acted in accordance with what they were taught to be their righteous duty.

Today, these people are vilified in parts of Bharat. Do people remember the contribution that they have made? Do they acknowledge the contribution made by the caste system to the preservation of the Vedic culture? Do they realize that it is this Vedic culture that will be Bharat's differentiation and success factor in the world, now and in future?

It is said that Lord Macaulay, who visited Bharat almost two hundred years ago on behalf of his Queen of England, declared after traveling through the whole country that he could not find a single beggar or thief. He recommended that to conquer Bharat, the British had to destroy her culture and education system. He said that Hindus would lose their self-esteem, start thinking that the English culture was superior and allow themselves to be ruled.

Whether this incident is true or not, this man was prophetic and that is what happened. The British destroyed the cultural base of Bharat, far more definitively than the Mughals before them. The British planted the seeds of hatred towards the caste system so that they could divide and rule. 'Educated' Hindus gladly followed.

Let us not judge based on political and social prejudices, incited by some who have vested interests. In every form of society there will be some who feel disadvantaged. They will need something in that society to blame for their seemingly disadvantaged position.

In the USA for instance, can you ban wealth creation because the society is differentiated based on wealth and not all can be wealthy? That is what Russia and China tried for many decades and we now know the result.

I do not think abolishing the caste system is a solution. Removing the selfish motives that have been added to it is one solution. Building the Vedic tradition of education is another solution. The Vedic culture did not prejudice anyone based on caste. It enhanced one's capability to serve society based on this caste system. Our society can benefit from a proper understanding of this system, instead of trying to eliminate it. Even if you eliminate this there will be another form of differentiation that will be neither different nor better.

4. 17 The complexities of action are very difficult to understand.

Understand fully the nature of proper action by understanding the nature of wrong action and inaction.

4.18 He who sees inaction in action and action in inaction, is wise and a yogi,

Even if engaged in all activities.

4.19 He who is determined and devoid of all desires for sense gratification, he is of perfect knowledge.

The sages declare such a person wise whose actions are burnt by the fire of knowledge.

4.20 Having given up all attachment to the results of his action, always satisfied and independent,

The wise man does not act, though he is engaged in all kinds of action.

Here, Krishna says that the person who sees inaction in action and action in inaction has attained transcendence. When you see that it is not the 'I' in you that is doing the activities but it is the senses following their nature, when you see that it is the mind that is creating the false sense of identification of you with the action, then you have realized; you have attained transcendence because you are now no longer in the clutches of the mind.

It is the mind that makes you attached to something and repulsed by something else. When you are not in the clutches of the mind, you are free. You do actions because the senses by nature have to perform their functions. For example, the eyes see, the ears hear, the tongue tastes, the nose smells and the skin feels. Yet, you are free from the bondage of action because you do not have any identification with the action; you do not have any emotional attachment to anything. So naturally, you are free and you are liberated and you can do what you are doing most beautifully without expecting any particular result or being bothered by the results of the action.

This is what it means to be 'un-clutched'. Being 'unclutched' is the state where you are free and liberated. Let me expand on the word 'un-clutching' and what I mean by it.

Constantly you are connecting all your thoughts and creating connecting links in your mind. For example, the headache that happened ten years ago, the headache that happened five years ago, the headache that happened three years ago, the headache that happened yesterday, are all independent experiences that happened in your life.

For the sake of easy reference, you categorize all these experiences in your mind into one category of 'headache'. It is archived just for utility purpose, to serve as reference. It is just like how you file documents in your office in various categories, in various files. But what happens? By and by, you start believing that all these experiences are connected.

The suffering that happened ten years ago happened for a different reason, in a different place. It was a totally unique experience. The suffering that happened five years ago happened for a totally different reason. It was a completely different experience. The suffering that happened three years ago was again for a different reason.

Initially for the sake of ease, you archive them in the same place, for easy reference. By and by you start believing they are connected. When you start believing they are connected you create a shaft.

If you connect all the painful memories, you create a pain shaft and conclude, 'My life is suffering, my life is pain.' You start believing your whole life is a chain of suffering, a long chain of suffering. When you start believing that your whole life is suffering you have created a pain shaft and you are waiting in your life only for painful incidents, so that you can elongate that shaft.

One more thing you should understand, whatever you believe, that is what you expand also within you. If you believe something, you will again and again see that in your life. That is why Vedic rishis, sages, say that you create what you want. You create what you desire. By seeing you create. What ever you believe you will create and expand.

Once you start believing that your life is a pain, you are waiting unconsciously for painful incidents to strengthen that belief, to strengthen that judgment. We don't usually collect arguments to pass judgments; we collect arguments to support our judgments. The judgment is ready. We only collect arguments to support it. When you are clear that your life is a pain shaft, a big chain of pains, you are waiting for more judgments to support your faith, more judgments to support your belief.

Second thing, whenever you are adding the painful incidents unconsciously, constantly, you will be elongating that shaft, even though you may want to consciously end the pain by breaking it. If you believe your whole life is a shaft of joyful experiences, which we do very rarely, constantly you are in fear about whether the joy will continue. You wonder, 'Will it continue in the same way?'

If you believe life is a shaft of painful incidents, you do two things: unconsciously you gather more and more incidents and strengthen your faith about how your life is painful and consciously you also try to break the pain shaft! If you believe life is a chain of joyful incidents, unconsciously you will be in fear that it will end and consciously you will try to prolong it. Understand that these two big dramas we are continuously enacting with ourselves.

But the big difficulty, the important thing that we forget is that you can neither break the shaft nor elongate it, because the shaft itself does not exist. The shaft does not exist. You can neither elongate it nor break it. When you started archiving all the incidents in your life for the sake of easy reference, by and by you started believing that they are really existentially connected.

When you start believing that they are existentially connected, you believe your life as a pain shaft or a joy shaft. When you start believing life as a pain shaft you try to break it; when you believe it as a joy shaft, you try to elongate it. But one important thing you forget, you can neither break it nor elongate it because the shaft itself does not exist.

Just try this experiment:

Sit down for ten minutes with a pen and paper. Now, just start jotting down whatever thoughts come to your mind. Please do not edit your thoughts; write them down as they are. Do not judge yourself and do not try to control what comes to your mind. If you try to judge, you are playing a hypocritical game with yourself, that's all. Just write down whatever comes.

Now, read whatever you have written. You can see for yourself how unconnected and illogical your thoughts are! You will be sitting here and thinking, 'I think I should go to my office tomorrow', then the next minute, 'No, no no, I should just wake up and decide then', then, 'What should I do about dinner tonight?'

Have you seen a fish tank? Have you seen how the bubbles rise up in a fish tank? There is a gap between one bubble and the next. But the gap is so small that it looks like a continuous stream. Just like the bubbles in a fish tank, there is a gap between one thought and another thought in your mind as well. If you look a little deeply you will realize that your thoughts are independent thoughts like the independent bubbles. By their very nature, your thoughts are independent.

For example, if you see a dog in the street, suddenly you remember the pet you used to play with as a child. Then you will remember the teacher you studied with as a child, then, where your teacher used to stay, and so on! If you look at it logically, you will see that the dog in the street and the teacher are not connected in any way. There is no logical connection, but your mind simply flows. If you look a little deep you will understand that your thoughts are illogical, independent and unconnected.

When you believe that your mind is logical, when you believe that your mind has got its own logic, you have created the first original sin for yourself. That is the original sin. Believing your mind is logical is the first sin.

Understand, by your very nature you are un-clutched. By your very nature you are unconnected.

Connecting thoughts and seeing is like trashing all your emails and picking up some emails from the trash back again. When I say trash mails, I mean the thoughts that have left you already. Every moment you are renouncing the thoughts by your very nature. A new thought can appear only when the old thought has been renounced. But even after renouncing you try to pick up the thoughts from the dustbin and try to create a shaft with it. You feel that some valuable thoughts have been dropped in the dustbin, so you pick up some thoughts here and there. You pick up these thoughts from the dustbin, put them near your bed, spray a little perfume on them and keep them nice and pretty!

All you need to do is a few things. First, have a clear understanding that you are creating a shaft, shaft of pain, or shaft of joy and trying to fight with it, by either trying to elongate it or by trying to break it. Second thing, you don't even have to un-clutch yourself from the shaft because the shaft is imaginary. By your very nature, if you stop creating a shaft, you are un-clutched. You don't need to un-clutch.

Then we start asking, 'If I un-clutch, how will I do my job? How will I take care of my things? Will I not just lie down in my bed and waste my life? If I am un-clutched, why should I go to my job?' I ask you, why should you not go to your job?

The moment you say you will not go for your job, it means you have a little hatred or a little vengeance against the job. That is why the moment you get some excuse you want to escape from your job. By saying all these things, you are expressing your anger, your violence against your routine, nothing else.

I always tell people, 'Fine, don't do anything; just be un-clutched; for how many days will you be lying in your bed?' Maybe ten days, until your inactivity (tamas) gets exhausted. See, you have a certain amount of tamas in you. Tamas is one of the three attributes of purity, activity or inactivity. Until your tamas gets exhausted you will lie there, but after that what will you do? Naturally, you will start working and you will start moving! So do not be afraid; do not be afraid that if you are un-clutched, you will not do your daily routine.

That is what Krishna means by action and inaction. You cannot by nature be inactive. You will day dream if nothing else. You will clutch on to fantasies. You will try to escape from reality by deluding yourself, because your mind is clutched onto a soft and easy dream shaft.

When you truly un-clutch, when you are in the present moment, without any attachment to the past and future, you will realize that you are full of energy. You just cannot keep quiet. You will have to do something. That 'something' will be dictated by your present moment awareness, not by fantasies. I tell you, what you think as 'you' is not necessary to run your day-to-day life. This is the basic truth. What you think as you is not necessary to run your day-to-day life. This truth hurts us.

See, if somebody is happily independent of us, we can't tolerate it, it is too much. Constantly we need to feel we are needed. That is why we expect people to project their sufferings on us and we too project our sufferings on them, so that we feel important. What you think as 'you' is not necessary to run your day-to-day life.

People come and ask me, 'Constantly I repeat positive affirmations, 'I should stop smoking, I should stop smoking,' but it is not working. Why, Master?'

All these creative visualizations create more and more trouble. Because in the very words, 'I should stop smoking', the word 'smoking' is contradicting the 'I should stop'. You land up empowering the word 'smoking' as much as you are empowering the words 'I should stop'! Instead you should say, 'Let me have only healthy habits' or something totally positive without even the word 'smoking' in it.

Similarly, if you have a headache, instead of empowering the thought of the headache, you can do a very simple thing like deciding to have a glass of water. The moment you decide to have a glass of water, it becomes a fresh thought. The old thought of the headache has to disappear because the new thought that is water has to come into play, right? Once you keep replacing the thoughts, you break free from the headache based thought patterns and eventually expel the headache from your system itself.

You ask me, 'How can it be so simple, Master?' It is simple. Constantly you are taught that it is not so simple. It is simple. If you really understand, it is so simple. But soon after doing this, the thought of headache may come back, then what do you do? Understand: your faith in it is what brings it back. This is the basic problem. You are so faithful towards the thought about the headache, that you forcefully drag it back into your system; you being back a trashed file, that's all.

And one more thing: if it comes back, it can go also, is it not? Why don't you celebrate those moments in which it left you? Why do you constantly remember the moments it came back?

People ask me again and again, 'I fail when I try to unclutch Master.'

I ask them, 'Why are you connecting your past failure with your present failure?' When you connect all the past failures, you create one more word, 'failure'. The failure that happened nine years ago, the failure that happened eight years ago, the failure that happened yesterday are all independent incidents. Why do you connect all of them and create the next experience also as a failure?

Just relax and stop connecting and suddenly you will see such a deep inner healing happening in you; such deep peace happening in you. Suddenly you will see that you have dropped out of the war, the constant running. Just relax. I tell you when you become a drop out, when you drop out of this war, when you drop from this whole game, suddenly you will realize that the whole thing is just a psycho drama happening. Because you are constantly supporting it, you are creating these shafts, that's all!

Try this simple meditation:

Just close your eyes and sit. Whatever words are rising in you, just let them rise. Just do not connect them with any other thought, that's all. Just don't create a shaft; simply un-clutch.

If you feel bored, or if your mind asks what to do, just un-clutch from that thought as well. Do not even connect with that thought. Just sit, be un-clutched. If your mind connects with a thought, just un-clutch. Do not create, maintain, or destroy any thought.

Try this for a few minutes and you will see the effect for yourself. Krishna says that to understand what action is, you need to understand what inaction is. In my programs, this is what I tell people. To understand what meditation is, you need to understand what meditation is not.

I spend a day and a half explaining what meditation is not and less than half a day about what meditation is. It is the same thing with healing too. For two full days people are taught what healing is not with the help of a detailed manual! Then I come in and ordain the healers, which takes only half an hour!

When you un-clutch, you are seemingly in inaction. However, the removal of the various shafts of pain, pleasure, fantasies etc, releases so much of energy within you that you are now actively passive. You are at the height of potential energy, ready to release that energy for whatever purpose you decide in that present moment.

If instead, you are actively daydreaming, caught in the web of your shafts of fantasies and pleasures intermingled with sorrow and pain, you are seemingly active, very busy, but totally and uselessly busy. In fact, you are counterproductively busy as you are then digging yourself into more suffering.

In the process of un-clutching, you transcend both action and inaction. You successfully destroy the false notion of connectivity of thoughts and reach the state of the present moment, the state of no mind, and the state of dropping thoughts. In this present moment of unclutched condition, you are active and yet not attached to any activity. You are truly in Krishna consciousness.

All suffering and pain arise when we associate ourselves with the senses and the mind. The real Self in you is eternal, timeless, never changing. It is like this: when you see the clouds drifting in the clear sky, is the sky actually changing? No! The sky is like the canvas over which clouds of different forms and shapes drift across, sometimes completely covering the sky behind and sometimes drifting apart to reveal the sky behind.

When you travel in a train, have you looked out through the window? All the objects outside - the trees, the rocks, the buildings - everything seems to be in motion. It is relative motion that gives you this effect, this feeling that everything around you is moving. Just like this is a maya, delusion, because of the effect of maya also, it appears as if the Self is being affected by the emotions and the perceptions of the senses.

Just like when the clouds go over the clear blue sky it appears that the sky is being covered by different types and colors of clouds, so also the Self is like the clear sky over which the clouds of different emotions go over.

If you see yourself in a clear lake or a mirror, what you see is a reflection of what is being projected, right? Just like that, in the lake of the Self, of the being, whatever quality is projected on, it is what you will see reflected in the lake. Does it mean that the lake has become dirty? No! The reflection has no reality, no solid existence.

Actually, the Self is permanent. The Self in you, in me, in the person next to you is all the same. When everything is you, what is there to fear? Where is the question of conflict, jealousy, fear or greed?

Everything is you. Enjoy this world in its many forms and manifestations. Enjoy it in all these forms. However, enjoy without getting caught in attachment. Our senses are treacherous. They create addictions that overwhelm us. The more we have, the less we enjoy, and yet we cannot do without them. True wisdom is to step back from what the senses tell you, for they never tell you the truth.

Have you seen a person sell something, say a painting? You can see the seller would be busy trying to convince people, trying to get the best bargain. But see someone who is standing witnessing this whole scene, someone, who is neither interested in buying the painting nor in selling it. Only he can completely enjoy the painting!

This world is like a poem written by the Great Poet and all that comes in the poem are verses of infinite bliss. A small story:

There was once a father stag that was standing with the young stag in front of a lake. The stag was looking at its own reflection in the water of the lake and telling the young stag, 'Son, see how powerful we are! Look at what we have been endowed with long horns, strong feet, and sharp eyes. We are truly powerful.'

Just as the stag was talking, a dog jumped in front of the stag. The stag, in a split second, just leapt and ran instinctively out of fear.

Then the child stag asked its father, 'Father, what is the use of being powerful if we have to run away from the dog?'

When we are faced with a testing situation, we forget all our truths that we have taught ourselves as philosophy. Now, that does not mean that we do not accept the truth. It is just that we feel we are not strong enough to experience it. We need to persevere, fill the mind with the highest thoughts, the highest truths. Then, it can become an experiential reality in our lives.

See, without the right ideals, you may reach the goal but it will take much longer. But, if you have the right ideals, you will reach the truth much faster. When you take the help of those who have seen the truth, it is more intelligent to experiment with the techniques that they advocate.

We are taught that we are weak human beings, sinners. But the Vedic rishis have time and again declared, 'We are the children of immortality.' Let us be open to positive, affirmative thoughts rather than continuously repeating negative and self-defeating thoughts to ourselves. These are not just positive thoughts or statements. Understand that these are great truths that our rishis have experienced, which they declare to us, encouraging us to experiment and experience as well. They are not mere words trying to convey an idea. With them come the energy and power of the experience that is possible for every one of us.

Here is a very simple example of how our perception is what decides everything including our attachment: if there is a baby and a pot of gold lying next to it, suppose a thief comes and steals the pot of gold, would the baby be bothered about it? Do you think it will be upset about it?

No! The baby would not even know that the thief has done the act of stealing the pot of gold. The baby wouldn't be upset about any loss of wealth. But suppose an adult were to be in the place of the baby. Surely he would be upset and angry with the thief stealing the pot of gold, is it not? What we have inside decides what we see outside. The child, being blissful and centered within itself, would never see anything disturbing outside, whereas an adult sees things in a different light because of his conditioned attachments and greed.

That is what Krishna says here: be involved completely in the action yet be detached, independent and satisfied within. Then you can function beautifully, spontaneously, flowing in tune with the ultimate energy of Existence. Life then becomes a celebration. Every breath that you take, every single thing that you do is an act of joy and an expression of the loving energy in you. Your joy is no longer dependent on what society says or thinks about you or your actions, because you are completely centered in yourself.

Whatever we do, whatever we think, we are subconsciously seeking concurrence and approval from the people around us in some subtle way. We are very keen that we should earn a good name from everyone. You may not accept this but if you analyze deeply, you will not be at ease without the appreciation and endorsement of the people around you. If you just sit and note down, in a day, how many things you do to get a good name, to maintain your reputation in society, you will realize what I am saying.

It is like a signature campaign that you are involved in for your whole life. All your activities, all your efforts are to get the signature of the others around you. In a big register, you make a column, 'Good Father' and then you do whatever is expected of you from your children and you ask for their signature under the column of 'Good Father'. Then you go to your wife, to your boss, to your friends, you make the respective columns like 'Good Husband', 'Good Employee, 'Good Friend', and then you do all the things that they expect you to do and ask for their signature under their columns. Of course, all these people also come to you for your signature in their registers under the columns meant for you.

Why do we bother so much about others' opinions about us? Why are we trying to derive strength from others all the time? The reason is, one, we don't know anything about ourselves. We know ourselves only through others' opinions of us. Second, when others give us their approval and attention, they are actually giving us energy. Attention is energy.

Be very clear, when you are dependent on external sources for energy, it only means that you are psychologically handicapped*.* When you need physical support, you are physically handicapped. When you need psychological support, you are psychologically handicapped, that's all. With physical handicaps, you know that you are handicapped because you can see it clearly, but with psychological handicaps, you don't even know that you are handicapped.

If you have seen children at play you might have seen them build castles with cards. They will place the cards at a certain angle to each other and build several layers of such patterns in a pyramid shape. They happily build the pyramid and equally happily remove one card from the castle and watch the whole thing collapse! In fact, they will delight in that aspect just as much as the building up of the card castle.

Just like this, we build our own self-image like a castle out of people's opinions of us and arrange all these certificates and signatures and build a castle to form our self-image. The image looks beautiful until even one person withdraws their certificate. Then what happens? The castle simply collapses! You start feeling miserable and unfit. You see, at least in the case of the children, they build their castles with their own cards. But we build our castles with others' certificates. So what do we do? We start working hard to maintain our 'castle'. We start behaving in a way such so that people don't remove their certificates, so that people will think well of us. This is how we get enslaved.

Because you don't know anything about yourself, you turn to society for an answer. And society happily puts its labels on you, 'you are good-looking', 'you are a failure', and so on. It is like how a parcel without a proper address is pushed from place to place. We move around, collecting all the stamps that society puts on us. By and by we forget our true nature, and the fact that we are not the labels but the stuff inside the parcel.

Never invest so much in others' opinions to the point that they become the center of your life. Don't make others the source of your energy. Don't depend on others for your psychological survival. Be your own source of energy and inspiration!

Ashtavakra says beautifully, 'Bondage is when the mind longs for something, grieves about something, rejects something, holds on to something, is pleased about something or displeased about something. Liberation is when the mind does not long for anything, does not grieve about anything, does not reject anything, does not hold on to anything and is not pleased about anything or displeased about anything. Bondage is when the mind is tangled in one of the senses and liberation is when the mind is not tangled in any of the senses. When there is no 'me', that is liberation, and when there is 'me' there is bondage. Consider this carefully and don't hold on to anything nor reject anything.'

Q: Master, what you say is very difficult to practice even if we accept it. For instance, if we are injured and feel the pain now, it is the reality for us in this present moment. I do not need to link it to the past experiences. So how will I break out of the connectivity with pain?

Treat the pain of the present as the pain of the here and now. Do not link it to pains that you had in the past and with the sufferings that you experienced then. They have no relevance to the present pain.

In Quantum Physics theories of today, they say that we collapse events that happen separated in space and in time into a current experience. These events are separate events. They may or may not have been sequential. That does not matter. But the logical connection is somehow established in your mind.

If you feel pain, you normally would like to wish that pain away. You keep thinking again and again, 'I do not want this pain.' This does not work because your mind gets caught in the word 'pain'. It does not let go. So the pain does not go.

If you wish the pain to dissolve you need to focus on wellness. Do not associate the experience with the word 'pain' which has negative connotations in your mind. Instead, think about being well.

Better still, focus your attention on the pain. Watch the pain intensely but without ascribing the word 'pain' and the meaning 'suffering' to it. For a brief moment the pain may seem to intensify but then it will dissolve. Try it the next time you have any pain.

Pain is caused by the absence of attention to your body-mind system. It is your system telling you that it needs to be looked after. Pay attention, close attention to it. It will feel better and the pain will go away.

Another thing is that pain and suffering are two different things. Pain affects the body. Suffering affects the mind. You can have pain in your body and yet have no suffering. Body pain cannot be avoided, as it is physical, but mental suffering is your own creation.

When you un-clutch, when you stop linking with the past, what disappears is the suffering. Each experience is viewed as a new one with no past association. You will find that this is not so difficult to do. You need some practice, that's all.

4.21 The person who acts without desire for the result; with his consciousness controlling the mind,

Giving up all sense of ownership over his possessions and body and only working, incurs no sin.

4.22 He who is satisfied with profit which comes of its own accord and who has gone beyond duality, who is free from envy,

Who is in equanimity both in success and failure, such a person though doing action, is never affected.

4.23 The work of a liberated man who is unattached to the modes of material nature and who is fully centered in the ultimate knowledge,

Who works totally for the sake of sacrifice, merges entirely into the knowledge.

4.24 The offering, the offered butter to the supreme in the fire of the supreme is offered by the supreme.

Certainly, the supreme can be reached by him who is absorbed completely in action.

4.25 Some yogis worship the gods by offering various sacrifices to them,

While others worship by offering sacrifices in the fire of the supreme.

A sense of ownership over possessions and over your body is the same thing. What can you say are your possessions? You came with nothing at all. Can you claim that you were born with anything that is your own property? In the same way, you are going to leave this world also empty-handed. Can any of you say that all your possessions and wealth and luxuries will go with you when you leave this body? No!

People ask me, 'Master, why do you wear sherwani (North Hindu dress) and jewelry?' I normally wear this two-piece saffron clothes and the only jewelry I wear is these rudraksha (sacred seed) beads. But when I am going for some discourses or for a specific event, maybe a corporate event, to adjust to the occasion, I wear sherwani. I tell them, 'This body itself is a covering, a cloth for me; how does this second covering of clothes matter?'

This very prana, the very life breath that is going inside your body through the air that you breathe itself is not your property. It is the property of Existence. Your very life is a sheer gift to you from Existence. When you realize this, you will immediately see that all your fears and worries and greed are so baseless. You are running behind something, thinking it is yours but of what relevance is it really? When your very life is a gift to you, how can you claim that anything else is your possession?

One more thing: real knowledge comes by experience, not through words; not just by talking about it. Let me tell you, the moment you imbibe a single point of truth or any single dimension of truth in any way, if you catch a single idea and imbibe it honestly, truthfully, it can do wonders to you.

Vivekananda says beautifully, 'Even if you memorize all the books in all the libraries of this world, it will not help you in any way other than increasing your ego over the bookish knowledge that you have. Instead of having a whole library in your head, just know five concepts in your heart.'

I tell you, use only one idea and try to imbibe it in your being, experience it in your life. Your life will be transformed by even a single idea, just one idea.

In Tamilnadu, South Bharat, they describe beautifully the lives of 63 enlightened Masters in a book. The name of the book is Periapuranam. If you study the lives of these Masters in this book you will find that there are some Masters who did not really do anything; nothing really happened in their lives. They would have just plucked flowers and offered them to God, nothing else. Yet they achieved enlightenment! It is not what you do that is important. How honest you are with the act is what really matters. When they did the act of offering flowers, they were true and honest to the action.

We also offer flowers everyday and do all possible things, but we are not enlightened. The only thing we get is the extra expense of maintaining the garden or buying the flowers! The problem is, we are not honest. When these Masters plucked flowers to offer to God, they were thinking of Him to whom they were offering the flowers. They were totally devoted to the thought of the Lord and there was nothing else that was distracting them.

When we pluck flowers, even if it is to offer to a favorite deity, we are thinking of something else, somebody else. I have seen these people who do rituals regularly. Whenever they are doing any rituals, they would be thinking of something else. Their thoughts are in either their office or in their home. I have seen these people who regularly chant the 1000 names of the Gods and Goddesses, the Vishnu sahasranama and Lalitha sahasranama. The moment they start chanting, they start looking at the index number of the verse that they have reached. They are desperate to see how far they have read and how much else remains to complete the chanting.

The attitude, the intention, and the thoughts behind the action actually decide the energy behind the action, however it may look externally. The power of thought is immense. In fact, some of the latest research shows how our DNA can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies. It has actually been studied that when a number of people focus their thoughts on something similar, like during Christmas or the football World Cup, certain random number generators in computers start to deliver ordered numbers instead of the random ones.

I tell you, all the so-called natural calamities are nothing but the effects of global negative thoughts. Your thoughts and energy directly affect your body, your cell structure, your decisions, your capacity to fulfill your decisions, the outer world incidents, even accidents. You create a mental setup that creates and attracts similar incidents to you.

If you can change your mental setup from greed and fear, which is what we have normally, to one of bliss, or ananda, then your energy flow will start brimming and your thoughts will be much clearer and more in the present. When you do this, you have every power to control the outer world incidents because you and Existence have a very deep connection at the energy level. When you are blissful, when your mental setup is not one of worry, fear and greed but one that is in the present, always joyful, you will automatically attract all good things to yourself.

One more thing: all our minds are not individually separated pieces of the universe. They are all one and the same. All our minds are interlinked. Not only interlinked, they directly affect each other. This is what I call the 'collective consciousness'. Though each one is independent in his consciousness, when one is truly conscious of one's true nature, one feels as if one is part of the whole universe.

Each one's thoughts straightaway affect the others around. Your thoughts are more infectious than your cold. If you catch a cold from someone, you may suffer physically for a few days and then get over it. But when you catch thoughts from people, not only do you suffer mentally but you suffer forever also; not just once.

Not only are those who are staying around you touched by your thoughts, everyone who is living on the planet Earth is touched by your thoughts.

The next truth: not only in the mental level are you connected; even in the deeper conscious level you are connected to every other being. See, your body is not just one body. Actually, there are seven layers of bodies.

The first layer is the physical body. The second is the pranic body. There are seven such energy layers of the body. These energy layers can be represented as concentric circles with the physical layer as the outermost circle and the seventh layer, the nirvanic body as the innermost.

We go into complete detail of these seven layers of bodies during the THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Spurana Program (NSP), our second level meditation program, now called Life Bliss Program Level 2 or LBP 2.

Now, in a physical layer, you, God and I can be represented as three different points in the outermost concentric circle. In the physical level, the distance is so much. If you come down a little, to the pranic level, the distance is reduced. If you come down deeper, to the mental level, the distance between you and I is still reduced and so is the distance between you, God and I. When you go deeper and deeper, these three entities finally merge into one at the inner most nirvanic layer. Please be very clear that at the deep end of all these layers, God, you and I are one. There is no distance between the thre.

Once you become aware and realize that you are a part of collective consciousness, that you don't have an individual identity, you realize that you do not have a separate ego.

You think you own your individual identity. In Existence, there is no such thing as a separate individual identity. Once you know this truth, you go beyond pain, sufferings, depressions and diseases.

Understand this: as long as you are individually conscious, you will be continuously suffering. Why do you think you are continuously resisting nature? Whatever nature offers, you resist.

There is a beautiful saying:

Mind as a rule is a fool When it is hot, asking for cool When it is cool, asking for hot Always asking what is not!

When it is cool, you resist. You think you are different from Existence. I have seen sanyasis, monks, living in the Himalayas, living almost nude in the cold, in the snow. I have myself lived in such conditions, but the body was never disturbed. I never had a problem. I never thought that I was different from the atmosphere, never had the feeling of separation from nature. When you start thinking that you are different from the atmosphere, from the air that is around you, you start resisting it.

The other day I read an interesting interview of this man who survived his jump into the Niagara Falls. If you have been to the Niagara Falls, you can understand the enormity of the fact that someone survived jumping down the Niagara Falls. I cannot imagine someone surviving that Niagara Falls. He says beautifully, 'When I jumped, I became a part of that Niagara Falls. I felt like I was a part of it. I never felt that I was different from the falls.'

When you are in tune with the collective consciousness, when you become a part of the collective consciousness, nature is with you, nature is your friend and nature will protect you. Nature will not harm you. As long as you think that you are an individual consciousness different from nature, nature will protest. As long as you are in tune with collective consciousness, nature protects you.

A very simple thing that you can practice now.

If you are feeling cold, just relax, identify the area where you are feeling cold, witness that area. In that area, don't resist the atmosphere, don't resist the air, don't resist the temperature, don't resist nature and don't resist Existence. Just say to yourself, 'I am not going to resist nature, I am not going to resist the temperature. I am not going to resist Existence. Let me relax.' Be conscious and decide. With this you will see the body relaxing and the idea of cold disappearing from that part and you become completely comfortable. When you think you are something different from nature, you are disturbed by nature.

The Whole, the universe, is a hologram of which you are a part. Just as in a hologram every single part reflects the totality of that hologram even if it is a split. You reflect the totality of the Whole that is the universe.

Another example; when a living person falls in a well and dies, the dead body floats. The dead body is heavier than water. Yet, it floats. But a living body, which may be lighter, does not float. It drowns. Why do you think this is so? As long as you are living, you are not able to relate with water. Your ego prevents that. Your mind prevents that. In a dead body there is no mind and no ego and so it floats.

Wherever you want to achieve success, in a social or in an economic context, only when you feel in tune with the whole group and fall in tune with the collective consciousness, will you be able to achieve what you want to achieve. As long as you feel you are an individual, as long as you want to have an idea that you are somebody, an identity, be very clear that you will be resisted and you will be resisting. Whether it is in the home or at the office or workplace or industry, this will happen.

If you disappear into the collective consciousness, you will be again and again protected and taken care of. You will attain complete success, not only socially and economically, but you will experience it as a deep feeling of fulfillment.

As long as you resist the current, whether it is your workplace or your house or your company or any place for that matter, as long as you do not disappear into the collective consciousness, you will be continuously creating hell for yourself and for others.

Even if in the physical layer, if you think you are something separate, be very clear, you will be inviting diseases. One more thing, in the mental layer, if you think you are something separate, if you think you are an individual, again and again you will be sowing the seeds of violence. The seeds of violence will be created when you feel you are an individual. With collective consciousness, you unify but with individual consciousness, you dissect, you cut things into pieces.

Logic always breaks while intuition always unites. At the soul level, if you think you are an individual, there is no possibility for any spiritual growth.

First thing, at the physical level, you are not an individual. Your body and the body of the Sun are straightaway connected. Any small change in the body of the Sun can make changes in your body. Any small change in your body can change the body of the Moon. Even if you are not able to logically relate to this, it is true.

In the mental layer also, you are not alone. Any thought which is put in anyone else's head comes and touches you and any thought created in your mind goes and touches someone else. Any thought sowed by someone can touch you and affect you.

It is like ripples created in the water in a lake. If you are creating a strong wave, you will be creating an impression with your thought. You will be leading and inspiring others with your thought. If your thoughts are not solid enough, other waves will impress you.

Either you live like a leader or you will be a follower. There is no in between. You always think, I will not be a leader, I cannot do that much; I will not be a follower either; I shall maintain my own stand. This is simply impractical. There is no such thing as my own stand. Either you lead or you follow.

In the mental level also, again and again, if you think you are an individual, you will be resisted. The moment you understand that you are a part of the collective consciousness, you will not be resisted but will be actually welcomed and accepted.

In the ultimate way, at the spiritual level, the moment you understand that you are deeply connected, totally connected, intensely connected to the whole universe, not only do you start experiencing bliss, but you start really living, opening many dimensions of your being.

See, with just this one body, you can think so much, enjoy so much. If you disappear into the collective consciousness, you will experience so many dimensions, so many possibilities, you cannot imagine.

Now that you feel you have just one body, you are enjoying this much. Imagine what you can do if you have two bodies. And just imagine what you can do when you have so many bodies! Imagine three different bodies in different countries enjoying different cultures. Similarly if the multitudes of bodies increase, so would the joy, the bliss. This same thing you will experience when you are a part of collective consciousness.

During the Hindu festival day of Holi, raas purnima, Radha and the gopis (women devotees of Krishna) experienced the collective consciousness of Krishna. This is referred to as raas leela when Krishna gave them the experience of collective consciousness. We have a very wrong idea about this raas leela. We think that this raas leela is something where Krishna had a relationship with so many women. This is a wrong concept. Krishna was just ten years old then!

We have not read the original scriptures and have come up with our own conclusions. We pick up and support what we want. We just want some support from some scripture and some Master so that we can do something behind his back. So we just start blaming Krishna. What happened actually was that He gave the experience of collective consciousness to the whole group of gopikas and Radha. This collective consciousness is what I call God.

Throughout LBP 2 course, you will realize that you are a part of the collective consciousness. Not only that you are a part, but that you are the collective consciousness. You are not an individual consciousness as you think. Layer by layer when we go deeper and deeper, you will realize that you are just one with everything. So automatically the diseases disappear. You start feeling the wellbeing in the mental layer, the pranic layer, the etheric layer, the physical layer and all the other layers.

You are like an onion. If you peel the onion layer by layer, what is inside? Just emptiness! The onion thinks it has got something solid but when it is opened layer by layer, it is empty. Similarly, you think that you are an individual consciousness, but if you peel the individual layers, you will experience you are nothing but the cosmic consciousness, the collective consciousness!

In LBP 2, that is what we do, opening of your minds. You are asked to write for yourself, about your pains, desires, guilt and pleasures. You will not be showing your notes to anyone else. People ask me why I ask them to write all this when they already know it. I tell people that by writing them down, they are opening their minds in my presence. When they open their minds, I can heal their minds.

First of all you should understand that I do not heal. My presence heals. When the Sun rises, the lotus blooms by itself. The Sun need not go and open the petals of the lotus. Similarly, in the presence of the Master, healing happens. Healing is not done, it simply happens. I can heal your body as it is in my presence.

In the same way, if you open your mind, it can be healed. If you open it, the Sun can heal it; the energy heals all the wounds. LBP 2 is about opening up your energy layers one by one. Your pains, pleasures, guilt and desires are opened up. When they open up, you experience God. Not only do you search for God, but you experience God as well. Pure mind is God itself and not something separate from it.

We are all taught from childhood that there is a purpose to life. We are guided that we should all work towards goals in life, which are almost always material goals. We are expected to live up to the expectations of our parents, later our teachers, much later our spouses and finally our children.

Understand, there is no purpose to life, except to live. The purpose of life is to enjoy life. How can we enjoy life if we get saddled with a bagful of goals that bind us down to duties, responsibilities and obligations? We are too stressed out by all that is expected of us that we have no time to enjoy what we are doing. This should be our goal instead.

Life is not about purpose; life is not about goals. Life is not lifestyle. Life is not about impressing people about how rich or how clever, or how beautiful or how skilled you are. Life is about enjoying the journey of life. It is not about the stress of looking for the destination. When the path is right, when you enjoy the path, the destination is always right, it will always be enjoyable.

Only the person who realizes the purposelessness of life can be satisfied in any action with whatever profit comes of that action and of its own accord. Understand: life has no purpose but it has a meaning. All the time, we are taught that life has a goal, a purpose, and we run behind various goals hoping to achieve satisfaction in life. But life has no goal; the very life, the very path itself is the goal. When you realize this, you relax into the present and are not affected by success or failure.

All this jealousy and envy also comes when you think that life has a goal and somebody else has been given something more than you to reach the goal. When you understand that you are unique and Existence has equipped you with all that you need to fulfill all your desires, you will actually be able to live life. Otherwise, you will only be running behind some goal or the other. You will envy others who you think are closer to that goal towards which you are running. You will be caught in this roller coaster of success and failure.

Understand that the goal of life is like a mirage. It does not exist in reality, but it continuously creates illusions of its existence. Live life every moment in bliss; enjoy it from moment to moment and you can see the tremendous difference it makes to the very quality of your life.

A small story:

This has happened according to the mythological stories in my native place, Tiruvannamalai, a spiritual nerve center in Bharat. I call that place a spiritual incubator. Just like how premature babies need an incubator to supply air and all the basic things, for an enlightened being to land on planet Earth, you need a spiritual incubator to protect and help them.

The story says that Brahma, the Creator had to find the Lord Shiva's head and Vishnu, the Sustainer, was asked to find Shiva's feet. The story is beautiful and it has a beautiful meaning. Who is Brahma? He is the husband of Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge. Who is Vishnu? He is the husband of Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth. The story says that Brahma started searching for the head. Vishnu started searching for the feet. Vishnu came back after some time and accepted, 'I am not able to find Your feet; please forgive me.' Brahma also realized he would not be able to find Shiva's head. But instead of accepting the fact, he decided to cheat. He took a flower as a false witness to testify that he had touched and brought it from Shiva's head.

You need to understand the story: Vishnu is the embodiment of wealth. Brahma is the embodiment of intellect. Neither by wealth or intellect can you achieve enlightenment. That is the truth of the story. Neither by wealth nor by intellect can you achieve enlightenment.

One more important thing: if you dig in the line of wealth, you will get frustrated, you will understand, you will face depression of success and you will really become humble. You will fall and you will understand. But if you dig in the line of intellect you will never accept you are defeated.

If you travel in the line of ahankara or externally focused ego, or the path of material success in the outer world, at least at one point you will understand. You will experience depression of success. You will say, 'Enough! Let me rest. I understand that enlightenment can never be achieved in this line.'

But the person who travels in the line of mamakara, internally focused ego or the line of intellect, not only does he never achieve, he will not even be able to understand that he cannot achieve. The intellect, the ego becomes so sharp, so subtle; he brings false claims and false techniques to say that he has achieved it. Those false claims are only those false flowers, the false witness.

The ultimate knowledge can be reached only through sincerity, not through intellect or wealth. Then you are not caught in running behind the senses, behind the inner world or outer world.

Now, Krishna talks about the different kinds of sacrifices:

This is a beautiful sloka similar to the Upanishad verse:

Om Poornamada poornamidam Poornad poornamudachyate Poornasya poornamadaya Poornameva vasishyate

The Whole is full. From the Whole, if the Whole is removed, what remains is still the Whole.

In mathematics, there is a similar analogy: from infinity, if you remove infinity, what remains? What remains is still infinity!

People ask me often, 'Who created the universe?' I tell you, the universe itself is the creator. The creation, creator and created are not three separate things. The universe itself is the creator, the created and the creation.

See, if there is somebody creating the universe, then that means the creator is intelligent and the created and the creation are not. But the universe is intelligence. The universe, the cosmic energy is intelligence and that itself pervades the universe.

You and I are manifestations of this cosmic energy. We are creations of the cosmic energy. But what does 'manifestations of the cosmic energy' mean? The intelligent cosmic energy pervades our very beings. The cosmic energy is the creator, so, we are the creator as well. The creator, the creation and the created are all the same; they are not separate identities.

Earlier I had talked about this Tamil scripture called Periapuranam. Periapuranam describes the lives of 63 nayanmars. These nayanmars were great Shiva devotees. They were more than devotees; they were disciples of Shiva, though Shiva was not physically present to teach them. The energy of Shiva was enough to teach and fulfill them.

One of these nayanmars did nothing in his life except to pluck flowers and offer to Shiva. Another sang songs. In whatever they did they offered themselves to Shiva completely. They sacrificed themselves and their actions to their beloved Shiva. They were so completely absorbed in that activity, whether it was gathering flowers or singing songs or whatever else it was, that nothing else remained in their mind and thoughts.

Even the physicality of Shiva was not relevant to these nayanmars. They were consumed by the energy of Shiva. They sacrificed themselves in the fire of Shiva. They were one with Shiva. For them, the creator, creation and created were one and the same.

In the same manner, the gopis of Brindavan immersed themselves in Krishna. Nothing but Krishna was visible to them. Radha, the epitome of all gopis, asks a friend. 'Why is it that wherever I look, and what ever I look at, I see only Krishna?'

Says the friend so beautifully, 'Radha, that is because you wear Krishna as your eye shadow. What ever you see is only that eye shadow that is Krishna.' A true devotee not only sees God in everything, but is also ready to sacrifice anything for His sake. We shall see the various kinds of sacrifices in the next few verses.

Q: Master, you said that at the inner most energy layer, the nirvanic layer, God, you and I are all one, and that one realizes one's divinity. In the LBP 2 course, you teach this as a part of one's death process. Can one achieve this state while still alive?

A very good question and the answer is, of course, you can.

In the LBP 2 course - the THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Spurana Program, we do teach techniques to go through each of these seven energy layers. These are the layers that the spirit passes at the time of death. The first four layers are still within this life span. Even part of the fifth is. Every day you move from the gross body through your subtle body into your causal body.

The gross body is the physical body in the waking state. The subtle body is your dream body, where you are when you dream at night. The causal body is where you are when you are in deep sleep. The Causal body layer is close to death. Every day you do travel to death and come back. This is the process that refreshes you, rejuvenates you and revitalizes you. In fact, if you lose this for a few days you will die of tiredness.

When the spirit crosses the causal layer, it cannot return. Causal layer is a dark passage that is the transition point between this world and the reality beyond. This darkness of the causal body corresponds to the darkness of the mother's womb, which is where the departing spirit travels as it seeks and assumes a new body.

We take you through this journey to rid you of the feeling of fear of death and to dissolve all your engraved memories that condition you. At the end of the LBP 2 course, you are rid of all your samskaras, the engraved memories that cause you all the suffering. You lose all your negativities. You are born anew. So you may opt for a new spiritual name at the end of the program as well.

At the next level, when you come for the Healer's Initiation program, I teach you how to reach the layers beyond the causal layer while you are still alive!

All our Nithya Healers, when they go into their meditation, the Ananda Gandha meditation, reach the highest level of energy, the seventh layer of nirvanic energy. They do this every time they meditate. They can be in meditation all the time. So they can be in the nirvanic layer of energy all the time!

At the time of initiation, I open an energy point called the ananda gandha, the fragrance of bliss. This is the

Part 4: Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM - Chapter 4 - Path of Knowledge

convergence point of all the seven energy centers, the chakras, in your mind-body system. When you focus on this point after initiation, it leads to a deep experience that holds you in the present moment. You can be in this state and function normally. Many of our Nithya Spiritual Healers stay in this state at work as well, not merely while healing.

At this state, the Healer is at the level of the cosmic energy and at the energy level of their Master. That is why they are able to heal. The healing energy of the cosmos flows through them and heals. All that is needed is that they drop their mind, which they do when they go into meditation.

So you don't have to die to reach the nirvanic layer of energy. All that you need to do is to open your mindbody system to allow the energy to come into you.

So don't die! Just become a Nithya Spiritual Healer and reach the nirvanic energy, that's all.

4.26 Some sacrifice the hearing process and other senses in the fire of equanimity

And others offer as sacrifice the objects of the senses, such as sound, in the fire of the sacrifice.

4.27 One who is interested in knowledge offers all the actions due to the senses,

Including the action of taking in the

life breath into the fire of yoga and is engaged in the yoga of the equanimity of the mind.

4.28 There is the sacrifice of material wealth, sacrifice through penance, sacrifice through yoga

And other sacrifices while there is sacrifice through self-study and through strict vows.

4.29 There are others who sacrifice the life energy in the form of incoming breath and outgoing breath,

Thus checking the movement of the incoming and outgoing breaths and controlling the breath.

4.30 There are others who sacrifice through controlled eating and offering the outgoing breath, life energy.

All these people know the meaning of sacrifice and are purified of sin or karma.

4.31 Having tasted the nectar of the results of such sacrifices, they go to the supreme eternal consciousness.

This world is not for those who have not sacrificed. How can the other be, Arjuna?

4.32 Thus, there are many kinds of sacrifices born of work mentioned in the Vedas*.*

Thus, knowing these, one will be liberated.

In all these verses, Krishna talks about the various types of sacrifices. You should know that when we say 'sacrifice', it is not just the act of giving, but the attitude of giving. This understanding is important. Otherwise, you may do everything, following all the rituals according to the scriptures, but you will miss out on the real intent for which the ritual or the act had to be done.

A beautiful story from the Bhagavatam:

Once, Krishna was playing with his friends. After playing, his friends were tired and they asked Krishna, 'O Krishna, we are feeling hungry. Please tell us where we can go for food.' Krishna replied, 'Go to the nearby hall where learned brahmanas (priests) are performing a great ritual to attain heaven. Tell them that you have been sent by me and request them to give you some cooked rice.'

Krishna's friends went as directed by Krishna to the brahmanas and asked them, 'Krishna sent us here. We are hungry and Krishna asked us to seek food from you.'

The brahmanas were all caught up in the rituals and sacrifices according to the prescribed procedures. They did not, however, know the intent of the sacrifice. The very divine energy for which the sacrifice was being made was asking for an offering, but the brahmanas could not see that.

Krishna's friends returned disappointed and came back and told Krishna what happened. Krishna, on hearing about the foolish brahmanas, just laughed and said, 'Now, go to the innocent wives of these brahmanas and ask them the same thing.'

The friends now went to the wives of the brahmanas and told them, 'O ladies, we have been sent here by Krishna who is playing with us nearby. We are hungry and have come to you for food.' The ladies, on hearing that they had been given such a wonderful opportunity to serve, gathered all the food from their houses and rushed to feed Krishna and his friends.

The very act of service, the welcoming attitude is what is important.

There is a beautiful verse in the Mahabharata that says, 'A guest comes with all the Gods. If the guest is honored, so are the Gods; if he goes away disappointed, the Gods are disappointed too.'

That is why in Sanskrit, we say, 'atithi devo bhava', the guest is God. 'Tithi' means date and the prefix 'a' negates it. Therefore, one who arrives unexpectedly without prior date or appointment is the guest.

When somebody comes unexpected also, serve him. That is a real welcoming attitude. The word used for ritual giving in Sanskrit is 'dana', which means sharing, imparting.

Ayurveda speaks of four kinds of defects which can afflict cooked food: the defect of time (kala dosha) which affects it when the food has been kept for too long, the defect of flavor (rasa dosha) which causes the food to lose its taste, the defect of company (samsarga dosha) when it is touched by unclean hands, or in which some insect has fallen and the defect of sentiment (bhava dosha) which affects the food when it is offered with ill grace or without affection. Such food is not food; it is poison and is the worst out of the four categories.

The true meaning of sacrifice lies in the meaning with which it is done. Look at the trees. They live for the welfare of others, themselves facing the stormy winds, heavy showers, heat and snow, all the while protecting us from them. They never turn away anyone coming to them. They don't turn their back even on the man who is coming to fell them down. They still give shade and fruits and flowers to that man as well. All of their many parts, leaves, flowers, fruits, shadow, roots, bark, wood and fragrance, are useful to others.

In the Mahabharata, after Yudhishtra had won the Great War, he celebrated it by performing the Aswameda yagna (horse sacrifice). A reigning monarch would let his champion horse loose to wander as it pleased, and all the land it covered would become his. If any other king tried to stop the horse, there would be a war. In Yudhishtra's case after the defeat of the Kauravas, he was the unchallenged monarch.

After the rituals were over, a mongoose came into the ritual space and rolled around on the ashes of the sacrificial fire. All those who watched were perplexed. This mongoose seemed to be no ordinary mongoose. One side of it was all golden. The other side was normal brown. Having rolled around, the

mongoose looked up with a disappointed look and announced, 'This sacrifice is nothing compared to that of the Brahmana!'

Yudhishtra, the Pandava prince was startled. Being a gentle soul, he enquired of the mongoose, 'what do you mean?'

The mongoose recited its experience.

Once there was a brahmana, his wife, his son and his daughter-in-law who lived in Kurukshetra. This brahmana was very poor and subsisted on alms he obtained every day. He would never stock any food, and would live on what he got each day. One day all that he managed to get was some corn flour. Over the previous few days he had received nothing, and the family has not eaten at all. His wife cooked this flour and made four portions. As they sat down to eat, a stranger knocked on the door seeking food.

The brahmana invited him in, gave him water to wash and drink, and requested him to sit with them. He gave the guest his own portion. The guest ate that portion and looked unsatisfied. Immediately, the brahmana's wife gave her portion to the guest. The guest ate that too with relish and seemed hungry still. In turn the son gave his portion too, though he too was famished.

The guest ate all that was offered to him. He then blessed the brahmana and his family. 'You had nothing for yourself except this little cooked flour. You had not eaten for days, yet you sacrificed it to a stranger when he walked in hungry. Hunger destroys a man's awareness, and leads him astray. You, despite your hunger, maintained your awareness and dharma. Yours is the greatest of all sacrifices. Your sacrifice has earned you all and all your ancestors the right to heaven.'

So saying this, the guest disappeared. A chariot came down to take the brahmana and his family to heaven. I was in that house when this happened. There was a beautiful fragrance that arose from the flour that the brahmana's wife had cooked. Attracted by that fragrance, I rolled on a bit of the flour that was scattered. Immediately, my body that touched the flour turned golden. But, alas, there was not enough flour left to cover my entire body.

Since then I have been to all the great sacrifices of all the great kings, and I have failed to convert my other half to golden. Not even one amongst these great sacrifices matched the sacrifice of the brahmana's family.

So saying, the mongoose disappeared.

No sacrifice is truly a sacrifice, if one could 'afford' to give away what is being sacrificed. A wealthy man giving away alms is not sacrificing anything. He may be doing a good deed; that is all.

Krishna mentions many forms of sacrifice here. He talks of sacrifices of material wealth, yoga and penance - a combination of material, physical, mental and spiritual sacrifices. When a person does these at some cost and pain to himself, they would be genuine sacrifices. Otherwise they would merely be meaningless rituals.

However, even that which is given away by someone who can afford what he is giving, if done with good intentions, would result in gains to that person. His very intention would alter his mindset and liberate him. A person who does not believe in sharing his wealth will not only not enjoy his wealth in this life, but will also suffer in future births as a result of his mental make up.

When one sacrifices whatever is dear and whatever is difficult to give away, that one enters a completely different plane of sacrifice, one that liberates the person. Such a person enters a plane of true non-attachment leading to liberation.

Q: Master, many rich people may give with selfish intents, but those who benefit do not see the intent. They see just the benefit. If one insists on noble intentions while giving, very little may then be given. This will only affect those who need it most. What to do then?

Whether now or in Krishna's time, what you say has been true. Most givers give to boost their ego, or give so that they can receive more than what they give. All the great kings of Krishna's age conducted sacrifices as rituals, more to enhance their status than from any deep sense of selflessness.

Nothing can be done about this. That is the way the world is. Before he gives away any money to any charitable purpose, the CEO would like to make sure that the photographer is ready and waiting and that the picture is published in the next day's papers.

The entire meaning of sacrifice is lost in the process. What is there to sacrifice then? What is happening is a business deal. Let us say you practice yoga purely for health reasons, for being fit. It is not the sacrifice of breath or life force that Krishna is talking about here. When each breath is surrendered to the cosmic energy, from where it actually originates, with a complete awareness and understanding of this truth, it becomes a sacrifice.

Krishna is guiding those who wish to advance in their path to Self-realization on what to do. He is not stopping those who give with selfish reasons. He outlines how those who give selflessly benefit in moving towards eternal consciousness.

Ramakrishna has said that if you keep repeating the word Gita you end up saying taag or tyaag, which means sacrifice. The entire focus of Gita is sacrifice or nonattachment. This is the key issue here. Giving without expecting something in return leads to doing everything that you do without expecting anything in return. In turn this leads to doing what you have to do without worrying about issues like what you can get out of it, what will happen if you don't do it, and how I can get more out of it.

By learning to give without expectation, you break a bondage; the bondage of expectations. This liberates you.

Do not worry about other people or how the rest of the world will survive. This universe has survived for eternity, not just some billions of years as scientists estimate it. It will survive such people also. When you understand Krishna's words, try to follow them. Give without asking, sacrifice without intent. This will uplift you. It will take you into nithyananda, eternal bliss.

You Are No Sinner

4.33 O conqueror of foes, the sacrifice of wisdom is superior to the sacrifice of material wealth.

After all, all activities totally end in wisdom.

4.34 Understand these truths by approaching a spiritual Master, by asking him your questions, by offering service.

The enlightened person can initiate the wisdom unto you because he has seen the truth.

4.35 O Pandava, knowing this you will never suffer from desire or illusion,

You will know that all living beings are in the supreme, in me.

4.36 Even if you are the most sinful of all sinners,

You will certainly cross completely the ocean of miseries through the boat of knowledge.

We spoke about the story of Brahma and Vishnu trying to reach Shiva's crown or head. Vishnu was able to accept that he failed, whereas Brahma could not. This symbolically indicates that a wealthy person (symbolized by Vishnu) realizes the limitations of wealth, whereas a person of knowledge (symbolized by Brahma) becomes arrogant and refuses to acknowledge the limitations of knowledge. Sacrificing knowledge is far more difficult than sacrificing wealth. For a scholar to admit that he does not know is similar to committing suicide. He is losing his identity.

Krishna advises the seeker to sacrifice one's knowledge and one's intellect at His feet, at the feet of the Master to experience the ultimate truth.

A Master is one who has experienced the truth. A teacher, on the other hand, is one who teaches knowledge by just communication. A Master is one who can simply transfer his experience of truth to you. He communes with you.

In Sanskrit, there are three beautiful words to describe this. You are born in the bhu garbha, the womb of the mother; this signifies your physical birth. The teacher with his love and teachings gives birth to you in the hrid garbha, the womb of the heart. The Master gives birth to a completely new you, a transformed being in the gnana garbha, the womb of knowledge. You then become re-born, dvija.

All you need to do is be open to the guru, the Master. When you open yourself to the Master, his presence simply heals you. He can elevate you to the same experience as his. This is what the vishwarupa darshan is. Vishwarupa darshan refers to Krishna revealing His cosmic form to Arjuna in order to show him who He really is. Krishna elevated Arjuna to the same level of consciousness in which He himself was.

Understand, Masters have no vested interest for themselves; they have no karma to exhaust. They descend into this planet Earth out of sheer compassion for humanity.

Just like a low pressure region attracts the winds, so also when a depression is created in this world, when people desire for a Master to descend, the formless energy of Existence descends in a form. This energy is what is known in different forms as Krishna, Christ, Buddha etc.

Buddha says,

Buddham sharanam gacchami Dhammam sharanam gacchami Sangam sharanam gacchami

This means,

4.37 Just as a blazing fire turns firewood to ashes, o Arjuna,

So does the fire of wisdom burn to ashes all actions, all your karma.

4.38 Truly, in this world, there is nothing as pure as wisdom.

One who has matured to know this enjoys in himself in due course of time.

4.39 A person with shraddha (courageous faith) achieves wisdom and has control over the senses.

Achieving wisdom, without delay, he attains supreme peace.

4.40 Those who have no wisdom and faith, who always have doubts, are destroyed.

There is no happiness in this world or the next.

4.41 O winner of riches, one who has renounced the fruits of his actions, whose doubts are destroyed, who is well situated in the self, is not bound by his actions.

4.42 O descendant of Bharata, therefore, stand up, be situated in yoga.

Armed with the sword of knowledge; cut the doubt born of ignorance that exists in your heart.

A beautiful story that you may have read as a child:

Once, there were four blind men. They were traveling through a forest. They came across an elephant. But none of them had ever seen an elephant in their lives. All that they had known in their lives was through the four senses of hearing, touch, taste and smell. So, when they came across the elephant, each of them started touching and feeling it and tried to figure out what it was.

The first man touched the elephant's trunk and said, 'Oh, this is a tree trunk in front of us.' The second person touched the legs and said, 'No, this is a stump of wood!'

The third person touched the tail and said, 'No way! This is a rope!' The fourth person who was touching the body said, 'This is a boat!'

When you follow sensory inputs and come to conclusions, you are no different from the blind men. Even if you are not blind, almost all of what your senses feed into you can be false and interpreted based on your inclination. The filter of your ego interprets whatever you perceive through your senses. Your ego decides as to how you understand what you see, hear, touch, taste or smell, and thereafter how you act.

There is only so much you can see through the lens of your ego. Whatever you see will be tinted because you are seeing it through your mind, through your biased perceptions based on past memories. To see the truth, you need to really 'see' beyond your ego, mind and senses. When you do that, you can see the infinite dimensions of the ultimate.

The words that you gather cannot give you the ultimate knowledge. When you just gather words without digesting the meaning, either indigestion sets in or you start vomiting out those words on others.

A small story:

Once, a blind man went to a doctor to see if he had any hope in getting back his eyesight. The doctor checked him and said, 'Yes, I can do an operation and you can get back your eyesight. Then, you can drop your stick and start walking.'

The man replied, 'Doctor, I understand I will get back my eyesight, but how can I walk without the stick?'

The blind man could not understand that he can walk without a stick! He does not even know what it means to be able to see. The doctor has to do the operation to give him back his eyesight, then automatically he will drop the stick.

When I tell people to drop their mind, they look at me as if I am a mad man. 'How can we drop the mind?' they ask. 'It is easy for you, you have renounced everything, you have no wife, no responsibilities, and on top of it you are enlightened. So, you can talk. How can we, living in this ocean of bondage, the samsara sagara, be in no-mind and yet survive?'

It is only when you drop the mind, it is only when you stop connecting your thoughts to form a shaft, that you really start 'seeing'. Your ego stops interfering with the truth of what you see. It stops filtering and adding tones to what your senses experience. Your baggage of value systems and beliefs, your embedded memories, your samskaras, dissolve, and the new 'you' is born. You are reborn.

All your actions then arise out of intuition, from the super conscious state, the state of truth, where no mind can exist.

In the next verse, Krishna uses the word 'shraddha' again. Actually, shraddha cannot be translated as faith. Shraddha does not mean faith, it means faith plus courage to execute the idea; courage to experiment with the idea is shraddha. Courage to experiment with the idea is what is referred to as shraddha.

When you have the knowledge and at the same time, you have courage to follow the teachings, then you can achieve the ultimate.

Many people do not have the courage to follow their results through. When Galileo declared that it is the Earth that goes around the Sun, while the Christian belief at that time was that everything revolves around the Earth, he was persecuted. In his writings, he actually has a footnote: 'We can deny this but since the Earth and Sun are not Christians, they will continue to move the way they do, irrespective of Christian beliefs!'

If you see our eastern rishis, they did so much inner world research. Millions of rishis have done full-time research for thousands of years using their bodies and minds as laboratories. This knowledge of the inner world is the result of their courageous experiments and studies. They were true inner scientists who had not only the curiosity and the perseverance to know but also the courage to follow their findings.

Look at Patanjali: he boldly declares all that he says in the Yoga Sutras is completely open to experimentation and verification. He says, 'You are free to try this and if you find anything more to be added or edited, you are free to do so.' He has experimented and presented his research report. He invites you to try out these in your life and if you learn something more from that, his work is open to editing. That is the beauty of our system; it is a living system open to being updated.

Our Masters have declared that it is the truth that matters, so they present their research reports based on what they have learnt from experience. If by practicing the truth one loses something, it is better to lose it. Whatever cannot stand the test of truth, let it get washed away. It is better for our being that it gets lost as early as possible.

Of all religious and spiritual doctrines, it is only the scriptures of the Sanatana Dharma, the eternal path of righteousness, as the Hindu philosophy is called, that allow themselves to be updated. The Vedas and the Upanishads, which we believe are the voices of Nature, are not rules and regulations. They are truths to be understood and followed only in awareness. There are no punishments if one does not follow them, nor is one condemned a sinner if one doesn't follow them.

The rules and regulations, which followed in later days, came clearly with the injunction that they can be modified if there was need. Nothing was sacred just because it was uttered. All what we follow blindly today as traditions, came through societal interpretation. It is for us to sift through these truths with conscious awareness.

Once tested, proven and accepted, we need to have the courage to practice these truths. Mere knowledge is insufficient. That is what shraddha is about. With shraddha, faith combined with courage, you make the effort to conquer your senses, and direct your mind towards the truth, instead of your mind and senses leading you wherever they wish to.

Many people in this world are blessed by Lakshmi (Goddess of Wealth), Saraswati (Goddess of Knowledge) but very few people are blessed by Kali (Goddess of Courage). When Lakshmi and Saraswati join with Kali, your liberation is assured!

In the next few beautiful verses, Krishna says that there is no happiness for those who always have doubts and who have no knowledge and faith. He uses the word 'always'. He does not say that from the beginning itself you should not have any doubts. Having doubts is natural; as long as you have the mind, doubts will be there. But you can go beyond it.

In the Shiva Sutra, Devi asks, 'Oh Shiva, what is your reality? What is this wonder-filled universe? What constitutes the seed? Who centers the universal wheel? What is this life beyond form, pervading forms? How may we enter it fully beyond space and time, names and descriptions? Let my doubts be cleared.'

Beautifully she expresses her whole state of mind through these few words. The last words are, 'Let my doubts be cleared.' She never says, 'Please answer my questions.' If she had made that mistake by asking 'answer my question', she would have produced one more Gita through Shiva.

See, in the Gita, Arjuna is not ready to surrender to Krishna completely. That is why in the beginning Krishna has to give him all the intellectual answers. Arjuna thinks he can solve his confusion through these answers; he doesn't know that these are much deeper doubts that need to be cleared through experience of the truth. That is why Krishna has to give more than 700 verses to first convince Arjuna that he does not know. When Arjuna finally gives up saying 'I don't know' then Krishna reveals Himself! He reveals the truth and makes Arjuna experience it because that is the only way he will realize the truth.

If you say 'let my questions be answered', you want only intellectual answers. But Devi says, 'Let my doubts be cleared, whether you give words or energy or techniques, I am not bothered, but let me be free from doubts.'

When questions become a quest, you start speaking in this language. When the urge becomes urgent, you start speaking in this language.

Devi starts with beautiful words, 'Let my doubts be cleared.' This shows a deep surrender of Devi. A deep, passive, waiting, without knowing what is going to happen, is passive surrender. That is what I call total surrender.

Actually, the moment you decide 'I will wait forever', things will simply start happening for you! As long as you are in a hurry and agitated, you stop things from happening in you. It is like you trying your best for the lotus to blossom. What will you do? You open out the petals by hand. Will it be a flower? It will never be a lotus flower. A lotus can be called a lotus flower only when it blossoms by itself. Give it a little space and time.

The moment you decide to wait, things will simply start happening, and you don't have to wait anymore. You have to wait till you decide to wait. The moment you decide to wait, you don't have to wait anymore.

When you ask 'why', you cannot reach the truth, because you are not even ready to see 'what' and you ask the 'why' before that. Just allow the Master to do the operation and give you back your true Self, and automatically you will drop what you are not.

Krishna refers here to the stages in the Master-disciple relationship. There are many levels. The first level is purely intellectual, doubt-based. 'Doubt-based' refers to the negative doubts, which are purely intellectual. It is like you are telling yourself on seeing the Master, 'Eh! What is this guy going to sit and do? Let us see. How is this fellow able to mobilize such a big crowd at such a young age? He seems to be hardly 30. He doesn't seem to be trained in marketing and doesn't seem to be very intelligent either. How is this fellow mobilizing such a big crowd around him? What is going on here?'

The next step is intelligence; from intellect to intelligence. You tell yourself, 'Why not attend this program and see what this fellow is really doing?' By this time, it has changed from, 'What this fellow is doing!' to 'Oh I think he means something. But I neither believe nor disbelieve. Ok let us see.' The intellect is becoming intelligence. You are giving a little space for the Master.

Then, next, if you continue to start looking in, first from intellect to intelligence, then from intelligence to intelligence combined with emotion, like 60% intelligence, 40% emotion, that is the time you will feel like a friend towards the Master.

After that, it becomes 60% emotion and 40% intelligence. That is the time you will feel like the Master is like an elder, like a father or mother or lord or teacher. You feel respectful towards him. And then, the relation becomes pure emotion. You will feel a deep connection like a mother and son.

Then, after that, it is neither emotion nor intellect nor intelligence. It is a being level relationship. It is the deep connection of a beloved, the madhura bhava.

And suddenly, you will see, he is not even the beloved, he is beyond the beloved. You start experiencing the mahabhaava, what I call the guru-disciple experience, experiencing yourself as the Master. That is what I call 'Tat tvam asi'. 'Tat tvam asi' means 'That art thou'. It means you are the Master.

First it is just intellect, where you have doubts. But you have to go beyond that. If you are stuck in this level of negative doubts, naturally you will suffer with the doubts and misery. The next level is intelligence, then 60% intelligence and 40% emotion, then 60% emotion and 40% intelligence, then pure emotion, then 60% emotional and 40% being level, then pure being level and then all these and something more.

When you go beyond doubts and beyond faith, into the realization of the formless energy that is you, then you find yourself.

I am presenting this secret science as a hypothesis. Now you are welcome to analyze this with your questions.

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

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

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

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

Vasudeva Sutam Devam Kamsa Chaanura Mardanam Devakee Paramaanandam Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum

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

श्री भगवानुवाच

इमं विवस्वते योगं प्रोक्तवानहमव्ययम् । विवस्वान मनवे प्राह मनुरिक्ष्वाकवेऽब्रवीत । 18.9 | I

Shri Bhaqavaan uvaacha:

Imam vivasvate yogam proktavaan aham avyayam Vivasvaan manave praaha manur ikshvaakave abraveet 4.1

Shri Bhagavaan uvaacha : the Lord said; imam: this; vivasvate: to the Sun God; yogam: the science of yoga; proktavaan: instructed; aham: I; avyayam: imperishable; vivasvaan: Sun God; manave: to Manu, the father of mankind; praaha: told; manuh: Manu; ikshvaakave: to King Ikshvaaku; abraveet: said

4.1 The Lord said:

'I taught the sun god, Vivasvan, the imperishable science of yoga and Vivasvan taught Manu, the father of mankind and Manu in turn taught Ikshvaku.'

एवं परम्पराप्राप्तमिमं राजर्षयो विदः । स कालेनेह महता योगो नष्टः परन्तप।।४.२।।

Evam paramparaa praaptam imam raajarshayo viduhu sa kaaleneha mahataa yogo nashtaha parantapa 4.2

evam: thus; paramparaa: Master-disciple succession; praaptam: received; imam: this science; raajarshayah: the saintly kings; viduhu: understood; sa: that knowledge; kaalena: in the course of time; iha: in this world; mahataa: by great; yogaha: the science of yoga; nashta: lost; parantapa: subduer of the enemies

4.2 The supreme science was thus received through the chain of master-disciple succession and the saintly kings understood it in that way.

In the course of time, the succession was broken and therefore the science as it was appears to have been lost.

स एवायं मया तेऽद्य योगः प्रोक्तः पुरातनः। भक्तोऽसि मे सखा चेति रहस्यं ह्येतद्र्तमम्।।४.३।।

Sa eva ayam mayaa tedya yogaha protkaha puraatanaha Bhakto asi me sakhaa cheti rahasyam hy etat uttamam 4.3

Sa: that; eva: only; ayam: this; maya: by Me; te: to you; adya: today; yogaha: the science of yoga; proktaha: spoken; puraatanaha: very old; bhaktaha: devotee; asi: you are; me: My; sakhaa: friend; cha: also; iti: therefore; rahasyam: mystery; hi: because etat: this; uttamam: supreme

4.3 That ancient science of enlightenment, or entering into eternal bliss, is today taught by me to you because you are my devotee as well as my friend.

You will certainly understand the supreme mystery of this science.

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Arjuna uvaacha :

Aparam bhavato janma param janma vivasvataha Katham etat vijaaneeyam tvam aadou proktavaan iti 4.4

Arjuna uvaacha : Arjuna said; aparam: of recent origin; bhavatah: Your; janma: birth; param: very old; janma: birth; vivasvatah: of the Sun God; katham: how; etat: this; vijaaneeyam : can I understand; tvam: You; aadau: in the beginning; proktavaan: instructed; iti: thus