Introduction

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

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

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

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

Sankara, the great master philosopher said:

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

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

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

Live All Your Dimensions

If we look closely at our lifestyle, what we accept as normal is actually chaotic and crazy. But we have been conditioned to it since childhood so we are not even aware of this.

From an early age we are taught certain beliefs and habits that cut deep grooves in our mind. The rest of our lives we follow these furrows and tracks of thinking. In Hindu villages, even today, they grind oil seeds in a traditional expeller, powered by bullocks. These bullocks are tied in such a way that they walk round and round in circles to crush the seeds inside the expeller. If we analyze the way we live, we are very much like these bullocks! We get caught in a rut and we go round and round driven by our senses and memories. Just as the bullocks chew the cud as they walk around, we too chew the cud of our memories and sensual perceptions as we unconsciously follow our same routine day after day, year after year.

Even when we think we are breaking the routine and doing things creatively and rationally, it is just an illusion of our mind. We are still driven by our unconscious mind and the memories stored in the unconscious mind. Any scientist worth his salt will tell us that nearly ninety percent of our mind exists in the 'unconscious' zone, where all our deep memories are stored. This is the hard disk of our mind. What we think of as our conscious and rational mind is just a flash memory drive that is transient.

These engraved memories stored in the deep unconscious mind make decisions on our behalf, even though we are completely unaware of it. What we think of as an intuitive decision is actually an instinctive decision that arises from our unconscious.

Even educated people do not understand the difference between intuition and instinct. Instinct is the unconscious. Instinct is what drives animals. Instinct is the deeply grooved habit patterns that are encoded in the genes and DNA.

Since the unconscious brain acts much faster than the conscious brain, the instinctive action of the unconscious is of crucial value to our survival.

Intuition on the other hand is a super conscious state of the mind. It is a state of mind that is developed through meditation. It is where we reach when we move inwards through our senses. It is a state of living and being in the present moment.

Intuition transcends time and space. Intuition allows us to explode in all directions while instinct restricts us to the furrowed path of our conditioned, unconscious memories.

Time and again people tell me, 'Master, it is easy for you to do what you do. You have no family ties. You have renounced wealth. We are bonded to relationships and material possessions. How can we become spiritual?'

Let me tell you clearly that this is your instinct speaking. You are caught in the conditioning of your unconscious mind, believing that you can do only one thing. You have sold yourself into the bondage of believing you are uni-dimensional.

By nature we are multi-dimensional. By nature we are intuitive. By nature we are enlightened. All that we lack is the awareness of our potential.

In the verses that follow and in the rest of the Gita, the great Master tells us how to break away from our bondages and become multi-dimensional. He teaches us how to reach our true state. This is what the word samādhi means, to go back to our true nature.

Time and again Jesus uses the word 'repent' as in 'repent or you shall perish'. This word is mistakenly taken to mean that He wants us to regret or feel guilty. This is not at all what it means. This word 'repent', native Aramaic, is used by Jesus to instruct us 'to go back to the original state'! It had exactly the same meaning as the word 'samādhi'.

Throughout the Gita, Krishna talks about yoga. Each chapter refers to one type of yoga or another. Yoga is the same as samādhi. Yoga means 'uniting'. It means uniting with our true nature.

When we unite with our true Self, we become multidimensional. We can be material and spiritual. There are no constraints and no limitations. We are free. We had great kings like Janaka, who were realized spirits. Material wealth does not limit anyone from being spiritual. Attachment to wealth through greed, and the fear of losing that wealth stops one from being free.

5.1 Arjuna said:

Oh Krishna, you asked me to renounce work first and then you ask me to work with devotion.

Will you now please tell me, one way or the other, which of the two will work for me?

5.2 Krishna says: The renunciation of work and work in devotion are both good for liberation.

But of the two, work in devotional service is better than renunciation of work.

5.3 He who neither hates nor desires the fruits of his activities has renounced.

Such a person, free from all dualities, easily overcomes material bondage and is completely liberated, Oh Arjuna!

5.4 Only the ignorant speaks of the path of action to be different from the path of renunciation.

Those who are actually learned say that both action and renunciation lead to the same truth.

In all the previous four chapters, Krishna talks with such clarity and authority that it would dissolve the doubts of anybody listening to Him. Krishna has been explaining again and again so clearly in every verse, and yet Arjuna has come back to the same point.

If you look at it, it will seem like Arjuna was playing a game. A person who was a king could never have been so dumb. Either both of them were playing a game so that the Gita could be delivered to the world or Arjuna was really desperate with no other way to save himself. There is no other book that is so clear, so direct. There is no other Master who is so straight in giving instructions.

After all the explanation given by Krishna previously, Arjuna continues to ask, 'Oh Krishna, first of all, you asked me to renounce work and then again you recommend work with devotion. Now, will you kindly tell me, definitely, which of the two is more beneficial?'

We will never be able to solve that problem if we start thinking about which would be more beneficial. Please be

very clear: we can never solve a problem if we start thinking in terms of its benefits.

First of all, 'benefit' is a very subjective term because the scale with which this is measured can vary from person to person. Before we evaluate the benefits of something, we should be clear about the scale we want to use to measure the benefits. What is beneficial for one person may be completely useless for another. The scale that we use for measuring success is a very important thing.

Before jumping to a conclusion and branding ourselves as 'successful' or 'unsuccessful', we need to know the scale with which we are going to measure our life. Unless we know the scale, it does not make sense to conclude anything. Even jumping to a conclusion should be done with clear intelligence. Jumping to a conclusion without intelligence is like falling out of an airplane without a parachute. We just won't know where we will land.

Before measuring life in terms of success or failure, one should know how this success is to be measured in the first place. If we are going to measure our life with a scale of dollars, then we have to work only for dollars. So, from morning to evening, we would work only for that goal. At the end of the day, we know, 'Yes, this is the scale with which I am going to measure my life.' Based on this, we can come to the conclusion about whether we are succeeding or failing in our life.

But you see, by the time we reach evening, the very scale changes. Then what do we do? We start our life using one scale and after a few years we measure again using a totally different scale. The very yardstick used for measuring our success or failure will have changed.

I can say one thing: it is fortunate that the scale changes. The scale changes with maturity. If we learn our lessons from Existence, if we grow with every mistake in life, then the scale with which we measure success in life should also change.

If it does not change, please be very clear, we will start the next life from ground zero. We would start our life again from the same point where we last left. It is an endless game unless we learn lessons and move on. We will play the same game again and again and again. If the scale with which we measure our success changes, it shows we are getting mature.

If it stays in the same scale of dollars and wealth, please be very clear, not only will we not be able to measure our life clearly but we will also be sure of failure. This is because there is no end to accumulating money or any material wealth. First of all, we set high standards for ourselves in terms of luxuries and material comforts. Even if we achieve these, we are not successful in our own eyes because we would have extended our target by comparing with others. Out of greed we keep saying, 'What next, what next'. There is no end to this.

At the end of our lives, we feel we have not done enough. What happens next? We again start our whole game of life from day one, from square one with the same limited maturity.

A very important thing: if only money is our scale, if only worldly comfort is our scale, be very clear: again and again we will feel we could have done a little more. We would always feel that we did not do enough and that we missed out in life. There is no absolute scale that defines success in monetary terms. For any amount of money that we have, we would be happier with a dollar more.

Let me tell you a small story:

A king's barber used to live a very happy life. Every morning he would go to the palace to shave the king's face. The king would give him ten gold coins and the barber would return home. He used to live his life happily with the ten gold coins given to him everyday after shaving the king's face. His life was really beautiful and blissful. There was nothing to bother about; there was nothing about which he was worried. He was happy.

One day when he was coming back from the king's palace, suddenly, he heard a booming voice. 'Dear Son, do you want forty gold coins?'

The barber said, 'Forty gold coins? What am I going to do with them? I have no use for that. My expense is ten gold coins and that is enough. I don't need anything more.'

The booming voice said, 'I will give you twentyfour hours to think. You can go home, discuss with your wife, come back tomorrow and tell me. If you decide yes, I shall give you a magical jar full of gold coins.'

This poor soul, he should have at least kept quiet about this! He went and opened his mouth to his wife.

She started to scream, 'You fool! Don't you have any sense? You should have brought that jar. She raved and ranted, 'You never did this for me, you never did that for me.' Throughout my life, I am wearing the same sarees (traditional attire of Hindu women). You have never gifted me any jewelry. You have never indulged me. You have never taken me on a vacation. What have I enjoyed after marrying you?'

I tell you, marriage is a three-ring circus: one is the engagement ring, next is the wedding ring and the third is suffe-ring!

When she started shouting at him, the barber said, 'Alright, fine. Don't worry. The booming voice has given me time till tomorrow morning. I have time to decide. Tomorrow morning, I will talk to him and get the jar.'

The next day morning, he asked the voice, 'Please give me that jar.' Immediately, a yaksha (an astral being) appeared before him and said, 'Have this jar. This jar has got 990 gold coins, just 10 gold coins less than 1000.'

The guy brought the gold jar back to the house. He was very happy that he could spend it for at least 99 days if he spent ten coins per day. But the moment his wife got the jar, she said, 'What is this? The jar is not overflowing. There is something missing.' He said, 'I don't know. This is the way I got the jar. The yaksha told me that it is a little less.'

She started worrying, 'Had it been full, how nice it would have been! It would have been so good.' The next day, when the barber came back, she hurriedly grabbed all the ten gold coins that he had got from the king that day and put them in the jar. She wanted the jar to overflow. But to her surprise, again the level in the jar was below the brim. It was not full.

The barber's wife now started becoming restless. She waited anxiously for the next day's wages to fill the jar. The next evening, again, she took the money from the barber and put them into the jar. Again, it was a little short from being full. It was almost full but it was not completely full. This went on continuously for a week. She stopped giving food to the barber and cut all expenses. She took away all the money and desperately waited to see the jar overflow.

In one week's time the barber had become tired and dull. It showed on his face that he was drained out. The king started enquiring, 'What happened? You used to look so fresh. What happened to you? For the last one week I have been observing. You are tired. You have started thinking about something. You have started worrying. What happened to you? Did you accept the yaksha's jar?'

The king asked the barber, 'Did you accept any gold pot from anybody?'

The barber was shocked at this remark. He said, 'Oh King, how do you know?' The king said, 'Whoever is suffering in this country, whoever is unhappy in this country, all of them have one thing in common. They accepted the yaksha's jar.

The king said, 'When you go back home, get rid of the yaksha's jar if you wish to be happy again.'

The man did so and lived happily again from that day on.

What the king said applies to all of us. Go back home and see if you have yaksha's jar or not, and if you do, get rid of it. If you are worrying, if you are suffering, there is every chance that in your house you have the yaksha's jar. The yaksha's jar never gets filled.

Of course, when I say yaksha's jar, it may not literally be there in your house. But it will surely be there in your head. Be very clear: sometimes yaksha hands over the jar in the form of a bank balance! Don't think it will be only in the form of a jar. It may be in your mind. Yaksha's jar is made out of kapāla, meaning the head, which always makes us feel we are not enough, we are not complete, and we are not full. Our head makes us feel continuously

that we are not enough unto ourselves and we are not complete. That is yaksha's jar.

Yaksha's jar means our mind. However much we may have, whatever we may get, in ten days we will feel it is not sufficient. In ten days our mind will take everything for granted. Yaksha refers to a person who has got wealth but neither does he enjoy it nor does he share it with the world. In Bharat, there are many agricultural fields where they keep two or three dogs. The dogs will neither eat nor will they allow other animals to come and eat. In the same way, if we have wealth and neither enjoy nor share it with others, we are called a yaksha.

When accumulation of wealth is done greedily, there is never an end, like the yaksha's jar, because there is always scope for more. And secondly, when one is so preoccupied about accumulating, enjoyment never happens. The greed of wanting more and more and the fear that the saved balance will deplete, hinders true enjoyment of the wealth. Why are we accumulating possessions if we do not stop and enjoy them?

I always tell people, 'Either you do dāna (charity) or you achieve mahādāna' (the final and grand sacrifice or death). If you do dāna you share a little along with enjoying yourself. You will enjoy, others also will enjoy. If you don't do small dāna, you will become mahādāna, which means you will leave everything and go away once and for all when you die.

All our material goals are updated once we reach them. Let's say you want a Mercedes Benz and work relentlessly for it and finally buy it. Once you achieve it you start wanting a Ferrari. Suddenly the Mercedes Benz looks like nothing.

Ramana Maharishi says beautifully, 'Before achieving it, even a mustard seed will look like a mountain.' Without that, it will seem as if your life will not move. It will seem as if that is the basic and most important thing for your life. 'Once you achieve it, even a mountain will look like a mustard seed.'

The mind is such, that before achieving, even a trivial thing seems so important and huge in our lives like the mustard seed that initially looks like a mountain. Suddenly, once it is achieved, even a mountain will look like a mustard seed. This is because something else looks like a mountain now. We get caught in the trap of achieving, and lose any ability to relax and enjoy what we have achieved.

The person who continuously feels, that he is not fulfilled or the man who measures his whole life with the scale of wealth will never feel fulfilled, because he has got the yaksha's jar in his house. He will have only more and more suffering. The Yaksha's jar will never be fulfilled. The Yaksha's jar will never be filled.

First, we need to understand the scale with which we are going to measure our life before concluding whether what we do in our life is beneficial to us or not. That is the baseline that we have to establish first.

Here, Arjuna asks:

'Now, will you please tell me surely, which of the two: karma, action or sanyās, renunciation is more beneficial?'

All of us, again and again continue to ask this question to ourselves. Mind is dilemma! Please be very clear, our mind is nothing but dilemma. Our mind will be alive as long as we are caught between the extremes. The moment we come to any single conclusion we will be liberated. We will be ignorant as long as we are moving from one extreme to the other.

Don't say, 'Ignorance is bliss.' If ignorance is bliss why are so many people suffering on this planet Earth? Why do you think so many are suffering? Ignorance is not bliss. Innocence is bliss. That is the difference. Innocence means we will not carry a scale with which we are continuously measuring our life.

Ignorance means we will have a scale but we will not able to fulfill our life according to our scale. If we neither have a scale nor have a goal, then there is no problem. But if we have enough intellect to have a scale but we are not able to fulfill it, then that is what I call ignorance.

The first thing we need to understand is that mind as such is a disease. The first and last disease is dilemma, the play of the mind. Dilemma is the disease with which man starts his life and ends his life too. I can't even say 'ends'. He will even be in a dilemma about whether or not to end it! But death comes and his life is just taken away from him. It is just taken away. Worry is nothing but dilemma.

Here, Arjuna is in a dilemma as to which of the two is more beneficial for him. If we look into the entire life as a utility, as some means to a benefit, please be very clear, we are creating our own hell. If we reduce life to this, we will be in hell.

Life has no separate benefit. Life itself is a benefit. We cannot brand our life as a success or failure with a scale. If we have a scale, please be very clear that we will never be satisfied. This is because if we don't achieve whatever we set out to do, we will feel life is a failure. If at all we do achieve it, we will face the depression of success. That's all.

There are people, especially in the West, who have achieved all that they wanted in life. They have realized their own dreams, the dreams borrowed from others, the dreams imposed on them, everything. But they feel a deep void in them. This is what I mean by the term 'depression of success'.

They start wondering about what it was that they ran after. When they were running, their desires drove them. They were a part of the rat race. One desire would have led to a bigger one. Once they achieve all that they thought would give them happiness, they suddenly find that they have no drive to acquire more and they are dissatisfied as well. Eventually, they are confused about themselves. They do not know what more to desire. They feel something is lacking and cannot comprehend what it could possibly be.

This is because they ran without awareness, without stopping to give an appointment to themselves, without any self-inquiry. They ran because everyone around was running. They never stopped for a minute to question why or what they really wanted in the first place. They never stopped long enough to see if what they achieved brought long lasting results. So when they stop running or when suddenly they can't run anymore, they fall back into themselves and suddenly find that they are out of sync or dis-eased with their own being. This is what becomes depression or disease.

So be very clear: if we don't achieve, we feel life is a failure. If we achieve, we face the depression of success. Either way we are in trouble.

Life itself is a benefit. If we ask which of the two is more beneficial, it means we have a business mind, a pure business mind. With life we cannot do business. Our whole life cannot be managed as a business. At some point we need to relax from the business mind. We need to relax from the business mentality.

I always tell people, 'For at least half an hour per day, for at least 30 minutes per day, do something which will not get dollars for you - some painting, some writing, some poetry, something.' When you start painting, don't start thinking of a big gallery with your paintings. Don't start thinking, 'I will make all these paintings and put up a gallery in New York and make money.' For at least 30 minutes, do some painting or creative work without bothering about where to have a gallery or how to show off your art work to people.

Even before starting to paint, we would have started to think, 'My friend will come home. I will show this to him and explain how I started these paintings and how I developed this concept.'

Think about my plight. I have to go to thousands of houses. In some of the houses, when I go, they start giving me a commentary on the whole house. They start from the entrance and say, 'Master, this photo is from this temple from this city and I bought it in 1962…' People just love talking about such things.

When you start writing a few poems, don't start thinking of a Pulitzer Prize. Don't start thinking, 'I will publish this. It will be recognized like the famous Gitanjali. I will then win the Nobel Prize.' No! Without thinking about any result or benefit, just do something. Don't start thinking of how you will go about explaining what you are doing to your friends. Don't start planning, 'Next party, I think I should read out this poem aloud.' Do something just for the sake of doing it; not for any purpose at all. During that half hour, you will fall into your very being!

Go to some place of worship, clean and wipe the place. Don't think, 'I will be the leader of a volunteer batch.' The moment you take a broomstick in your hand, start swabbing, start cleaning the place without any big expectations in return. Engage yourself in any form of selfless activity at a place of public service, like cleaning the place, serving food, anything. But do it without expectations, without thinking of how to make a big deal out of it. Do it without thinking how to derive some benefit from it.

Normally we start planning, 'How can I have a volunteer batch and how can I become the leader of that batch? How can I have control over the others in the group and put forth my agenda? How can I have a say in that place?' Even doing volunteering is an ego boost for many of us. Many of us like to volunteer mainly so that we can go and tell others about it and get applauded for it. Now at least for 30 minutes do something that will not give any benefit to you or what you think of as some benefit to you.

No money or name and fame should come to you from that half an hour. If you can just use 30 minutes from your life for this, you will start tasting the real essence of life. As long as you are sitting in the head, continuously calculating, you will only be having a bargain with your life, 'What is more beneficial? What am I going to achieve by this? What am I going to achieve by that?'

I tell you: you will see a different dimension of your being if you follow this technique. I promise that these 30 minutes will lead you to Krishna Consciousness. These 30 minutes will be the only useful time in your life. After a few days, these 30 minutes will be the most useful time in your life. With at least 30 minutes you will drop from your head, which is continuously calculating, 'What will I get. What will I get. What will I get.'

Continuously we are doing business with life. Continuously we are expecting and calculating, 'What will I achieve through this? What will I achieve through that? How can I achieve more?' Continuously we are expecting further results. We are always thinking of 'what next?' and 'what is in it for me?'

There are many people who come and sit and listen to these discourses so that they can go and repeat it to others, so that they can go and tell all these things to others. Please don't do that. Let it sink in to you first.

When you stop calculating, when you stop evaluating your actions in terms of visible benefits, you will start tasting life. You will come alive.

Life is not business and it cannot be business. Here, again and again, Arjuna is stuck because of this one point. He thinks that life is business. Of course, Krishna is so patient. He is so compassionate; He is the embodiment of mercy! Literally, inch by inch, He brings Arjuna up. He does not lose His patience. He does not say, 'I told you earlier…'

I can say that Krishna uses at least 100 verses to explain this one concept of karma sanyāsa yoga, the paths of Duty and Renunciation. Throughout the Gita, He has used at least 100 verses to explain the concepts of karma and sanyās that we are about to discuss. But He does this without losing His patience at any point. Not once does He shout at Arjuna. He is an embodiment of compassion. He comes down to the plane of Arjuna and gradually transforms him by reiterating the same teachings.

The question concerning karma and sanyās, duty and renunciation, has been asked again and again from time

immemorial, and each time, it has been answered. Yet this question remains.

Somebody asked me the other day, 'Why is the Gita still relevant today?' I said, 'Because we never learned.' Why is the Gita still relevant for modern day people? Although it was uttered at least 5000 years ago it is still relevant today. Why? It is simply because man has not learnt his lesson yet. History repeats itself.

The unconscious process never comes to the conscious energy. Man as such is governed to a large extent by the unconscious. He is not even aware of what he is going after most of the time. That is why he goes on and on but never achieves. He thinks he wants something and runs after it. But by the time he gets his hands on it, he wants something else. So there is a constant restlessness within.

This puts man in constant dissatisfaction and depression. Let me tell you that by merely flooding awareness into this depression you can get out of it. I always tell people, if you just allow a single instance of depression to work on you and you get rid of it with awareness, in the process you will become enlightened. Nothing else is necessary. A single instance of depression is enough. It will completely burn you; you will become enlightened. But we never allow anything to work on us. We are scared to confront our own selves. We just allow the unconscious to take over and rule us instead of boldly facing it and seeing it run away.

Life is the greatest master. Nobody can teach us