Introduction 2

greater things than life. Life continuously teaches us; it gives us lessons. But we never mark the points and learn them. We never mark the place from where we stopped our journey. When we stop our journey, at least if we mark the place in this life, saying; 'I covered this much distance, I learnt all these things, In the next birth I will continue from where I left last,' if we do that much, that is enough. When I say birth, I do not mean just the totality of our life. I am referring to each day. Each day and night is a birth*.* It is a life cycle*.* We do die and get reborn.

Everyday, consciously decide, 'Let me learn one lesson today.' Or if one lesson a day is too much, do this once a week. Tell yourself, 'I will allow one understanding to enter into my consciousness.' I tell you, if you had allowed one understanding to enter into your consciousness every week, you would have been enlightened by now. Your life would have been blissful, without any worries.

If you decide every weekend, 'I will observe my life completely during this full week. I have traveled this much of distance. Let me stop here and mark it.' Next week, you refer back to where you had left and say, 'Yes, this week I will start from here.' If you do this much sincerely, it is more than enough. Your whole life will be transformed.

But the problem is that we always mark in the wrong places.

A small story:

Two friends rented a boat and went fishing. One day, to their great fortune, they managed to catch a hundred fish. One of them instructed his friend, 'Mark this place. Next time we will come straight here and directly start fishing here.'

Next time they were about to set out for fishing again, This person asked his friend, 'Did you mark that place?' The friend said, 'I put the cross mark in the boat.'

The other person said, 'What a fool you are! If we don't get the same boat, what will we do?'

We also mark, but on the boats, not in life. Our markings disappear; our mind is like water. We never mark where we should, in the bigger picture of our lives. We are so caught up with marking our desires and goals. These markings of desires and worldly goals continuously get washed away and new markings are made. They update themselves based on inputs from the world around us, based on what society has to say. We forget that these markings are temporary and do not reflect the growth within. One might have all the riches in the world and might still be a wreck inside.

What truly matters is the inner transformation, which we never bother to think about. We never allow any understanding to work on us. If we consciously are aware of what we are doing and what our pitfalls are, we can start to learn from them and grow to be better individuals. But again and again we make the same mistakes. May be the scale differs. We make the mistake on a larger scale each time we repeat it, that's all.

The person who commits the same mistake on a larger scale becomes a leader. If we commit the same mistake on a smaller scale, we become a follower, that's all. A leader is a person who commits mistakes on a large scale and who can hide them, whereas a follower justifies the same mistakes, maybe in smaller scales, in the name of the leader. The only difference between a leader and a follower is the scale.

I tell you, if you allow even a single lesson to enter into your life, penetrate into it and work on it, your whole life will be transformed. I always tell our ashram brahmacharis (celibate disciples) and our ashramites (other ashram residents) to at least do new mistakes. To tell you honestly, we are not so intelligent to commit new mistakes. We are not even that creative and innovative to make new mistakes, that is the problem.

Even if you decide not do the same mistake once more, your life will be transformed. But again and again, we do only the same kind of mistakes because our mind works in the same route. That route is only called saṃskāra: a recorded route, an engraved memory. If we take up the life of karma or sanyas based on a recorded memory, we will never achieve bliss. We will never be able to reach the eternal consciousness.

Karma or sanyas both will not help us to achieve realization if it is practiced out of engraved memories, our saṃskāras. Through neither of them will we be able to realize the Truth.

Let us analyze these paths of karma and sanyas.

Let us look a little deeply into these two concepts of karma and sanyas. Karma is normally done out of greed and desires. Sanyas is always invariably out of fear, bhaya. There is a fear of life. When you are not ready to take the risk, you renounce everything. The fear of being hurt is the first reason. Fear of getting hurt is the first reason for sanyas.

Please be very clear: all the so-called traditional sanyas is nothing but running away from the fear of life. Sanyas is a way of escapism, turning away from the responsibilities that life presents. When a person is not able to face the hardships of life and is bogged down by it, he takes sanyas as an easy escape exit. He is scared of being swallowed by the tides of life. In the name of renunciation, he covers the deep laden fears.

Then we have people running behind material wealth, greedily, in the name of karma. On one side are the people who are running behind their greed. On the other side are those who are running away from fear. Both categories of people are not going to achieve the eternal bliss, the eternal consciousness. Both are not on the right track.

On the whole planet earth, only three types of human beings exist: one who has surrendered to greed, one who has surrendered to fear, and third, and one who has surrendered to intelligence, divine consciousness or eternal consciousness, to the ātman.

The person who has surrendered to greed gets lost. He is caught in mūlādhāra chakra (root energy center at the base of the spine). He runs greedily behind many things in life to possess them, which in turn leads to more greed and is then caught in this vicious cycle. He has literally become a slave to greed.

There is a beautiful Upaniṣad story:

There are two birds on the same tree. One bird is sitting calmly, enjoying the silence, its own inner space. It is completely satisfied, a fulfilled being. Another bird is sitting a little below, busily pecking at the fruits. It goes to one side of the tree, selects a fruit and eats it. It then returns to where it started, goes to the other side and eats another fruit.

When the fruit is tasty, it enjoys. When the fruit is not tasty, it suffers. It goes to one side and feels the joy and goes to the other side and feels the suffering. It continuously goes from this side to that side. Suddenly, this bird looks up and sees the bird that is sitting silently and thinks, 'How is this bird so calm and completely satisfied? Let me go and see. Let me talk to this bird.' Slowly, slowly, this small bird goes to the bird that has been sitting peacefully.

When it goes near to that bird, suddenly, this small bird realizes that it is itself nothing but a reflection of that bird which is sitting silently and becomes one with it.

A beautiful story! In the same way, as long as you are a jīvātman, ordinary soul, you struggle between the fear and greed. You go from this extreme to that extreme. You are pulled and pushed. The moment you realize that inside your being, there is something which is never touched, which is undisturbed by your greed and fear, you start traveling towards it. When you go more and more near to it, you realize you are that. You are that Consciousness.

Here, Krishna explains the same thing: we are caught between this fear and greed. Either we surrender our self to fear or we surrender our self to greed. There are very rare individuals, very rare beings who surrender to intelligence, to divine consciousness.

Always people come and ask me, especially these socalled intelligent people, come and ask me, 'Why should I surrender to the Divine?' You are continuously seeing the accounts of life, but life is not a business.

Arjuna asks here 'Which is more beneficial for me?' Keeping track of accounts is good in business but not in life. Be very clear, in life, accountants will be the worst failures. Accountants will be the worst failures in life. They can't live. They can't live because they will be continuously calculating.

People come and ask me, 'Why should I surrender to the Divine? If I surrender, what will I get? If I surrender, what will I get?'

If you don't surrender to the Divine, you will be surrendering to your fear or greed, that's all.

Please be very clear: I am not asking you to surrender to the Divine just to get something. I am not giving any promises and I am not giving any assurance. But one thing you need to understand, if you don't surrender to the Divine, you will be surrendering to your fear or greed.

People who deal with accounts, the accountants, never ever live life happily. You can never see an accountant who is happy. They start living their whole life with accounts.

If at all he is happy, he must be intelligent.

Small story:

One man wants to have an accountant. He is interviewing a candidate for employment as his accountant and asks, 'Can you do double entry?' The accountant says, 'I can do even triple entry, sir.' The man asks, 'Triple entry. What is that?'

The accountant says, 'The first entry is the original accounts showing the actual income, showing the actual profit. This is for the person who has put more money in the company. The second entry is for showing a small profit for the person who doesn't come to the company regularly, who is somewhere else.'

He continued, 'The third entry is for showing loss for income tax purposes. I can do triple entry!'

Accountants are really good at making triple entries. That may be good for business, but when it comes to life, they are always losing. Never live the accountant's life. Life is beyond calculation.

The moment we ask, 'What will I get by surrendering to the Divine?' we miss the whole idea of surrender. Otherwise, we will be surrendering to our greed and our fear, nothing else. Either we surrender to the Divine or we surrender to fear or greed.

Venkateshwara (a Hindu deity) holds the chakra (discus) in one hand that represents fear. In the other hand He has the shankh (conch), success. The conch is blown when you achieve success. This represents greed because man is constantly seeking success in everything and is never satisfied.

If you don't surrender to His pāda (feet) and His pāduka, the footwear, you will surrender to the conch and discus, that's all. In other words, you will surrender to fear or greed if you don't surrender to His energy. This goes to say that those who constantly approach God for fulfillment of their desires or for refuge for their problems are actually surrendering to greed and fear, symbolized by Venkateshwara's conch and discus. Only very few surrender to the feet of Venkateshwara, the ultimate surrender.

Our whole life is running behind greed or fear. The path of karma yoga, seeking liberation through action or duty, happens because of greed. The path of sannyāsa yoga, seeking liberation through renunciation, happens because of fear. This is how we live our lives.

Neither the path of karma (action) nor the path of sannyās (renunciation) will help us unless we change the attitude. If we change the attitude, karma, sannyās, or anything can help us. All we need to know is this: don't bother about whether we are a karma yogi or a sannyās yogi. It is the attitude with which we approach and live life that is most important.

Again and again, Krishna is placing the emphasis on the attitude, on the being. If we don't know the root cause of our actions, why we are living with karma or why we pick up sannyās, we will not be able to solve the problem.

A small story:

A person goes to a bar, drinks too much and drops right there. The bartender comes and kicks him in the back to wake him up. The next day, the same story repeats. This same person comes, drinks, and again falls down. Again the bartender comes and kicks him in the back to wake him up. On the third day, again this same person comes and says, 'Just give me soda. I don't want anything else.' The bartender asks, 'Why?'

The guy replies, 'I've realized that drinking gives me back pain.'

Be very clear, when we don't know why we are having that back pain, we can never solve it. We should know clearly that the back pain is not because of drinking. It is because we were kicked, we were beaten.

In the same way, our suffering is neither because of karma nor because of sannyās. Suffering is because of our wrong attitude. And I tell you, with this wrong attitude, be it karma or sannyās, it feels like a punishment. With the right attitude, be it karma or sannyās, it is a blessing.

With the wrong attitude, if you take sannyās, be sure you are going to struggle and suffer. In the same way, with the wrong attitude, if you are taking the path of karma, again you are going to struggle and suffer.

It is the attitude with which we take life that matters. If we decide to enter into karma, drop the goal. Just enjoy doing the karma and don't worry about the goal. Living itself is beautiful. Realize that life itself is beautiful. On the other hand, if we decide to take up sannyās, again drop the goal. Don't think sannyās is going to have a goal. The goal of a sanyasi (monk) is also a goal, which must be dropped. He may have some goal to achieve - this or that. Again, that is a goal and it has to be dropped.

The karma yogi runs towards the goal, the sanyasi runs away from the goal. He runs away from something. Running away from something is also going to give us more suffering. Whether we are a sanyasi or a karma yogi, it is the attitude that needs to be changed.

Sānkhya yogou prithagbālāha pravadanti na paṇḍitāha, Krishna says. Indirectly He tells Arjuna that he has yet to learn, that still he is ignorant.

Only the ignorant man speaks that this thing or that thing is important. Only the ignorant man says that karma yoga is different from sankhya, the sannyās. Here, the words karma and sannyās, these two words are equated to karma yoga and sānkhya yoga.

Those who are actually learned, I can say those who are actually experienced, say that both karma and sannyās lead to the same truth. Through both these paths, one achieves the results of both. If we change the attitude of greed in karma yoga, we will drop into the eternal consciousness. If we change the attitude of fear in sannyās, again we will drop into the eternal consciousness. Through both, what we are supposed to achieve, we will achieve when we take the right attitude.

So here Krishna says, 'Only the ignorant person says that one is superior to the other or that they are two different paths. Both the paths are one and the same.' A person who can travel alone, who is courageous enough, takes the life of sannyās. A person who needs somebody's help or who wants to share his life takes the life of karma. It is up to us; both the paths are one and the same. All we need to do is to have the right attitude, have the right attitude. It is attitude that is really the important thing, not what we are doing.

What is important is having the right reason and the right intent.

What we are doing is not important. It is our being that is important. These three words should be understood: being, doing and having.

If we are continuously doing, doing only for having, we will never have it. Even when we are having, we will be doing. The man who is doing just for having will never be able to experience or enjoy life because even when he is having, he will be doing.

The man who is established in his being will enjoy both doing and having at the same time. By just being, he will enjoy doing and having. All we need to do is only one thing, a simple technique. The whole thing is now reduced to a one-line message.

Let all our mental thoughts, let all our physical deeds be directed towards gratitude to the Divine.

Don't work out of fear or greed, because with whatever we achieve out of greed, we are not going to be fulfilled. It is like pouring ghee (clarified butter) into the fire. Can we quench the fire by pouring oil into it? Never! Similarly, we will never get to feel the fulfillment. So all our actions that are done out of greed will only make our senses weak and tired.

In the same way, all our laziness born out of fear will only make our mind restless. We may not be doing it physically, but our mind will be worrying.

If we have become a karma yogi out of greed, our senses will only be weakened. How much can we run? All the running will only make our senses weak. If we become a sanyasi out of fear, again, because of our vows we may not do anything physically but the whole day we will be sitting and worrying.

Part 2: Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM - Chapter 5 - Live all your Dimensions

A simple truth:

When a man doesn't have money, the problem is money. When he has got money, the problem is sex. When he has got sex, the problem is comforts. When he has got comforts, when everything goes well, he starts worrying about death.

He has started bothering about death. He has started thinking about death. Something or the other will always be going on in his mind.

Don't think that people who have become sanyasi, who are sitting in the Himalayas, are in bliss and that they are in ecstasy. No! Unless they change their attitude, they cannot experience joy. Unless the attitude changes, they cannot experience bliss.

Bliss is directly related to our attitude. Being, doing and having: our whole life will be in doing and having if we are caught in fear and greed. If we surrender ourselves into the being, doing and having both will happen to us with tremendous ecstasy.

Never work out of greed, because that is wasteful. Never work out of fear. Again it is wasteful.

Never become silent out of fear because there is nothing to lose. Why should you be afraid? Whether we are afraid or not, everything is going to be taken away. Why not be blissful?

In the same way, never work out of greed because whatever we achieve is going to be taken away. Then why should we waste our life in working?

This is a beautiful story:

One man went to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and asked for money as a blessing. Ramakrishna never blessed for money. This man went to Ramakrishna and asked, 'Master, please bless me that I should have wealth.' Finally, Ramakrishna said, 'Alright; may you have wealth.'

This man used to collect paper from the roads. He would go from house to house and collect old newspapers. He used to make his money and living out of it.

The way Ramakrishna blessed, something happened. Within ten years, he became the owner of a very big newspaper called Ananda Bazaar Patrika. If you are from Calcutta, you will know. The founder of Ananda Bazaar Patrika is a disciple of Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna blessed him, 'You will have wealth.' Till today, this newspaper is in circulation.

You will be surprised, he didn't have children. At the end of his life, he said, 'Oh God! Now I realize my mistake! I asked for wealth from my Master. Throughout my life, I did only one thing. I worked like a donkey, that's all. Nothing else was achieved. I created the whole thing and I will be now leaving it and going away. I just worked, worked, worked for somebody who will enjoy this wealth.'

So, if we work out of greed, please be very clear, one day we will repent. One day we will surely repent.

Why do you think parents are so possessive of their children? Parents have some vengeance inside. They think, 'I worked and created so much wealth. I am leaving it for this child. Why doesn't this fellow obey my words, listen to my words?' All the possessiveness comes because you suffered and created the wealth. That is why you have so much of possessiveness. You try to control them so much.

If the wealth is created without suffering, when we give, it will be graceful too. We will give it gracefully as a gift. We will not bind the recipient in so many ways. We will not torture him. We will not expect him to do so many things. We will not play with our wealth. We will write our will clearly in an open way.

Why do you think people always write their will secretly? It is so that they can dangle the carrot. It is nothing but dangling the carrot so that the son or daughter should be continuously behind them.

When a person who has created wealth out of suffering gives that wealth to someone, he gives the suffering also. People come and ask me, 'Master, I hear that the parents' karma will come to the children. Is it true?'

The sins or the merits of the parents will not come to you. But their mental setup will influence you; it will come to you. This is because they will try to force that on you. They will try to force their mental setup on you.

They will expect that you should live the way they want you to.

We always try to fulfill our ambitions through our kids. If we want to become a doctor and if we have not achieved, fulfilled, if we have not become a doctor, we try to fulfill our ambition through our kids. We try to fulfill our ambitions through our kids, through the next generation. Never do that. If we do that, we will be destroying their life. We will be sharing not only our wealth but our suffering also.

The man who created wealth out of suffering will give the suffering to the person to whom he gives the wealth.

Next thing: if he is not able to torture his son or the daughter who has received the wealth, he will start suffering. If he knows that his son is not going to listen to him, the son is not going to live as he wants, he will start suffering. He will suffer thinking, 'I am leaving all these things, believing my son and I don't know what will happen. I don't know what he will do.' When he dies, he will have the worst death. He will be like a yaksha. He will come back and sit on that property. Be very clear: he will not let even his son enjoy that property. He will come back and sit on that property.

I have seen many litigation cases where the parents give their wealth to their kids, somehow or other, even after thirty or forty years, the kids will not be able to enjoy that wealth. Be very clear: it means the property is with yaksha. The man has come back and he is sitting as a yaksha in that property. Neither he will enjoy nor will he allow others to enjoy.

The property will be in Hindu litigation, in Hindu courts. In Hindu courts, we know when judgments come: the last judgment day! Only on that day, all the judgments are given. And when exactly the last judgment day is, neither you know nor I know! I don't know even whether God knows or not!

There is a small story:

The American president goes and asks God, 'God, when will our country become number one?' God says, 'Fifty years.' Then, he thinks, 'Fifty years! I don't know whether I will be alive or not.' He starts weeping.

Next, the Russian president goes and asks, 'God, when will our country become number one?' God says, '100 years'. The Russian president thinks, 'Oh! Neither will I be alive nor will my son be alive.' He starts weeping.

The Hindu President goes then and asks God, 'God, when will Bharat become number one?'

God starts weeping, 'I don't know whether I will be alive or not!'

So, whenever the judgment comes, it takes its own, sweet time. If the file has to be taken from one table to another table, if the file grows its own legs and moves, only then it is possible! Otherwise, it takes its own sweet time.

What to do? Nothing else can be done! We have to share this truth.

Again and again, we share what we create. That's what I always tell people: if the wealth is created out of a pain-body, you will transfer the pain body also to the next generation along with the wealth. It should be created out of just a relaxed mood, out of a voluntary decision or I can say without any strong motivation.

One important thing we should understand: working without motivation is completely unheard of in the West.

All the people who are working in the field of mind, the psychologists, psychiatrists, the people who work and do research in the field of mind, all the scientists always emphasize that without motivation we cannot work. That is why there are so many motivational gurus in the West. Motivational gurus haunt the West. So many motivational gurus wanting to make money by telling others how to be motivated!

Please be very clear: these scientists, these psychologists, these doctors have come to this conclusion that work without motivation is not possible after doing analysis on diseased patients, not on enlightened beings.

They never had a specimen of Buddha. They never encountered an enlightened person. That is why they say work without motivation is impossible.

I tell you, work without motivation is the only work.

Work without motivation will never make us tired! Every moment we will be ecstatic. We will be working out of bliss. Understand this one concept, this one technique.

Further, for the first time, Krishna gives a meditation technique in this chapter. Today, we will practice that technique to achieve the bliss consciousness. Until the fifth chapter, He was giving only intellectual advice, shastra. Krishna now thinks that Arjuna has become mature or realizes that without some technique, it is now impossible to relate with Arjuna.

Krishna realizes, 'If I don't give him a technique, I cannot escape from him.' Masters give meditation techniques in two situations: one is when they see the person is mature enough, the other is when it is better to give some technique, otherwise the person would constantly bug the master. The person will continue to question, and he will not keep quiet.

So I don't know what Krishna has decided, whether he thought that Arjuna has become mature or he thinks 'let him at least sit for a few minutes with closed eyes'. He gives a technique. Now we will practice that. We will enter into that technique.

Before the technique, He gives a beautiful explanation about the technique in the next verses. Yes, you have a question…?

Q: Is going into an ashram or being a sanyasi a form of running away? Many people seem to be moving into ashrams only to get away from what they seem to see as the suffering they face in the material world. Will they not face a different kind of suffering in the ashram or the forest too?

Beautiful question!

A small story:

Three guys had been in an asylum for a long time. The doctors felt they had improved and can be released. But just to make sure, the resident doctor gave them a test.

He took them to an empty swimming pool, made them climb the diving platform and asked them to jump into the water.

The first guy jumped and broke his arms. Screaming, he was led away. The second guy jumped and broke his legs. He too left crying. The third went up, looked down and came down. Doctors asked, 'What happened?'

He said, 'No, I cannot jump'. The doctor was very happy. He signed the patient's release forms. As the man was leaving the asylum, the doctor asked him, 'Why was it that you could not jump?'

The man said, 'I don't know how to swim!'

Right action, wrong reason! Right decision, wrong cause!

This is far worse than doing the wrong thing of making the wrong decision or committing the wrong action. At least then we will be told we are doing something wrong. Someone: our spouse, parents, children or friends will make it their business to tell us.

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason, no one will know because we are not doing something wrong. Even we will not know, unless we question. So nothing can stop us.

If we move into an ashram for the wrong reasons, we are in deep trouble. That is why I give a trial period of about a year. If you come there because my form attracts you or because you think you are doing it to achieve something, I will make sure you realize your folly. I shall drop you if your reason is ego. I shall drop you because you need to drop your ego. I shall drop you out of compassion for you.

Only when you come in for the right reason, for reasons of inner awareness, with no agenda, just to be, will ashram life be the right decision for the right reason for you. You will settle into yourself peacefully, without effort, with no suffering.

In the past many people have tried to be peaceful for the wrong reasons, those were the monks. The monasteries all over the world were full of such people. But they were dead even while being alive. They could

not laugh, they could not love, they could not sing, and they could not dance. They attained peace at the cost of their life. They became utterly cold. Their peace was not a cool phenomenon. It was ice-cold. It was the peace of the cemetery.

And there have been people who tried to attain bliss: painters, poets, dancers, musicians, and all kinds of artists, who lived in the world as passionately as possible. They were alive but very feverish. They were passionate, but the passion was such a fire that it only burned them. Many artists, many poets, went mad. Many have committed suicide for the simple reason that they had no idea how to be peaceful. Their bliss consumed them, and they could not contain it.