To Know Me Is To Be Liberated 2

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.