The Dog And The Dog-Eater

5.18 One who is full of knowledge and compassion sees equally

The learned brahmana, the cow, the elephant, the dog and the dogeater.

5.19 In this life, surely, those whose minds are situated in equanimity have conquered birth and death.

They are flawless like the Supreme and therefore, are situated in the Supreme.

5.20 One who does not rejoice at achieving something he likes nor gets agitated on getting something he does not like,

Who is of steady intelligence, who is not deluded, one who knows the Supreme, is situated in the Supreme.

5.21 One who is not attached to the outer world sense pleasures, who enjoys in the Self, in that happiness,

He is self-connected and engaged in the Supreme and enjoys unlimited happiness.

Krishna succinctly explains the neutrality and equanimity of Existence. Existence has no favorites. All comparative and hierarchical definitions are manmade.

Krishna says there is no difference between a human and an animal, and that there is no difference between those we consider to be saints and sinners. A learned scholar, the priest and the Brahmana should be seen as an equal to an animal or a person who eats dogs.

Even more dramatically, He says that the dog and the eater of the dog are the same.

This is what Shankara means when he sings the six verses of his Atma Shatakam. 'I am not the enjoyer. I am not the enjoyed. I am not the enjoying. I am beyond all that; I am just the embodiment of Shiva.'

This is one of the most beautiful messages from one who is arguably the greatest philosopher ever to have been born on this planet. 'I am not the doer, I am not the deed, I am not the doing,' he says. 'I am just the witness, beyond all these.'

When we go beyond all three, not being the subject, object and verb, all connotations disappear. The eater and the eaten merge. All meanings disappear. We reach the source. There are no thoughts and there is no mind. There is just you, your being. That is the true you, the Supreme.

Animals and plants do not differentiate and discriminate. Except in man-made fables, animals do not think of one animal as superior to others or another as inferior to others. Lion is a king only to us, not to other animals. There are many animals that are not afraid of the lion.

A king was depressed with all his responsibilities and went to Buddha seeking advice. Buddha sent him with a disciple into the nearby garden and told him to look at the citrus tree and the rose bush that were growing next to each other.

The king came back puzzled. He asked what was there to see. 'I saw the tree and bush, that's all. What else?'

Buddha said, 'Neither the citrus tree is jealous of the rose bush whose flowers every one admires, nor is the rose bush complaining that people pluck all its flowers while the tree is left unharmed. Each of them is centered in its own uniqueness. There is no comparison. There is no envy. There is no unhappiness.

The king realized how foolish he was for complaining about his responsibilities. He thanked Buddha and left in peace.

Existence continuously showers bliss upon each of us. Only, we are not open to receive it. Existence sees everyone as equal. It does not discriminate. Everyone is a part of the same Existence.

Similarly, Masters see the whole world as one with their own selves. That is why they can only show compassion to anyone and everyone.

External appearances are ephemeral. When we see the eternal, blissful being as the core of each and every one of us, we will realize the inherent divine nature of each of us. This knowledge, gained through the experience of Self, results automatically in swelling compassion to the whole of Existence.

Understand that the classifications of lower species and higher species, good and bad are all made by society, by our minds, our egos. Existence itself does not make any distinction in the name of high and low. Only the human beings think that they are an advanced species and that they are more intelligent than the rest of nature. We think our intellect is greater than the intelligence of Existence.

A small story:

One night, a thief knocked on the door of a monastery located in the middle of a forest. The

Master opened the door and allowed the man to spend the night in the ashram.

The next morning, the thief thanked his host and asked for his permission to leave. He also confessed to the Master that he was a thief and had burgled the palace the previous night. The Master was aghast.

He started weeping loudly, 'What a great sin I have committed by allowing a thief to spend a night in my ashram! I gave him food too. What can I do to atone for my sin?'

At that time, he heard a voice from the sky, weeping even louder than him, 'You are upset and weeping because you have looked after him for one night. What about me? I have been looking after him everyday for all these years!'

The Master had actually become egoistic. He started feeling holier than others. God never differentiates between a sinner and a saint. These are all societal. In a forest, who is a sinner and who is a saint?

Every atom on earth is divine. When we take things for granted, when we take life for granted, we do not realize this and create boundaries for ourselves. When we just realize that this very life is a divine gift to us, our attitude changes from taking things for granted to one of gratitude to Existence for everything.

Have you worked hard to earn this life? With every breath that you take every moment, the life energy flows into you and keeps you alive. Can you say you created the life energy that sustains you? We take for granted the life energy that goes in through our breath. We take for granted the mechanism and energy that converts bread into blood. Anything that we have in life we take for granted. The mind continuously runs behind 'more and more'.

If we make a list of what we have, what Existence has showered upon us and compile a list of what we really want to feel happier, we will quickly realize how much longer the first list is. Have we ever strongly considered what our life would be like if we did not have even a small limb that we take so much for granted? Can you imagine the limitations we would have without a toe or thumb, not to speak of our eyes or ears?

We take so much for granted. We assume that what we have been given is our rightful due and then crave for more. We are here as gifts of nature. Instead of being grateful to Existence for what we have been showered with, we complain about what we do not have.

Remember that when Existence, when God does not grant us what we seek, He is doing it out of deep compassion and wisdom. We think God has the power to give us what we ask for. Of course, He has. But we don't think he also has the wisdom to decide what we should be given and when.

He does not grant many of our prayers because, in His compassion and wisdom, He knows what we need. He knows that far better than us. That is why it is said to be careful what you wish for, because you may get it. It is true. We have no wisdom when it comes to asking. We

ask because we see someone else apparently enjoying something. We do not even know if that person is really enjoying; we just think he or she is. That creates envy and desire in us and we too seek the same.

The Divine is far wiser. The divine knows what we really need. The Divine knows that what we want is all borrowed. There is a huge difference between what we need and what we want. We do not realize the difference. The Divine does.

For the next couple of days, just try living with the attitude of gratitude, with love for everyone and everything around you, with a deep awareness and automatically, you will see that you can experience each and every person and thing as a unique creation of Existence, as a reflection of the Divine. Just decide consciously that you will respond with love for the next couple of days, whatever may be the situation. Just for two days decide not to react the way you have been reacting all these years; instead, respond with love.

Just the very attitude change will bring a tremendous peace and relaxation to you.

Krishna says, when you look at all things without differentiation, without favoritism, without attachment, then you are a true renunciate, a true sanyasi, a true monk.

Can you look at death and birth in the same manner? We celebrate birth, we condole death. Why?

Both are passages. Neither is a beginning nor an end. The cycle of life is continuous. We move seamlessly from birth through living into death and again into birth. It is just that, in this life, we do not remember what happened in the period between our death last time around and our birth this time. That loss of memory is for our own safety.

We are perturbed by that loss of knowledge, by the loss of memory. What we do not know frightens us. If we understand that death is no different from birth and the life after death may be no different from our current life, there will be no fear. This can happen when we have the experience of death while we are still live. This is what we teach in our programs.

An important thing: how we look at death reflects a lot about how we look at life. I can say, our perception of death changes our way of life.

Death is feared by most of us because it is considered a discontinuity. When we realize that death is just a continuation in some other form, we will not fear death. Then the joy of birth and the sadness at death will both be seen as the same.

A small story about Socrates:

The Greek society killed Socrates by forcing him to drink the poisonous juice of the hemlock herb. Just before he drank the poison, one of his disciples asked him, 'Master, are you not afraid of dying? You appear to be so calm.'

Socrates replied, 'Why should I be afraid? I know that only two things can happen after death. Either I

will continue to exist in some other form or name, or I will cease to exist after death. If I continue to exist in some other form, there is nothing to worry about; if I cease to exist, nothing remains to worry! So either way, there is nothing to fear!'

Our idea of birth and death is very direct evidence, a clear mirror of how we look at various situations in life. That is why understanding about birth and death is actually fundamental to leading a life of realization.

Ashtavakra, the great Master says, 'Seeing this world as pure illusion, and devoid of any interest in it, how should the strong-minded person feel fear, even at the approach of death? Equal in pain and in pleasure, equal in hope and in disappointment, equal in life and in death, and complete as you are, you can find peace.'

Understand, one who knows that what he sees is illusion, just a play of mind and if he is completely detached from this illusion, he will not fear death. As long as we hold on to this illusion created by the mind that we call reality, we have a feeling of losing it when we think of death. When we see pain and pleasure as the same and are not affected by either of them, we will be free from the fear of death. Because then we realize that nothing is taken away from us when death comes. There is no disappointment when death comes to us.

Enlightened Masters' experience about death really teaches us a lot. Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi got his enlightenment through a conscious experience of death.

When Bhagavan was a young boy, one day he was just lying on his bed in his uncle's house in Madurai in Bharat. Suddenly he got the feeling that he was going to die! He felt that death was coming upon him.

He had two choices: to resist the feeling or to accept it and go through it. He chose the second, to accept death as it is and go through it. He became enlightened after he experienced the process of death.

Usually people resist, so they pass into a coma and leave the body in a state of unconsciousness. Ninety nine percent of us leave the body in a state of unconsciousness.

In our second level program, the THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Spurana Program (NSP) now called Life Bliss Program Level 2 or LBP 2, we go into the complete understanding of death, what happens exactly when we die. We teach you to experience the process of death and to understand how and what happens, so that there is no mystery. Therefore, there is no fear.

Though we know from the moment of birth that our life will culminate in death, we never try to visualize it; we never try to welcome it. At least once if we go through death, through our fear with consciousness, we will lose our fear for death automatically.

Bhagavan was courageous enough to choose the second path. He co-operated with the feeling. He allowed death to happen. He decided to see what would happen during death. He saw clearly one by one, the parts of his body dying. Slowly, his whole body was dead. He saw his body turn into ashes.

Suddenly, he realized that something remained even after that; something that cannot be destroyed. At that moment, it hit him that he was pure Consciousness, beyond the body and mind. He was simply a witness to the whole thing.

That knowledge was tremendous and it never left him. When he came back into his body, he was Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi, an enlightened Master.

When we conquer the fear of death, we conquer death itself, because death is just one more imagination!

When we get over the cycle of greed and fear, we can be in equanimity in all situations in life; then we are situated in the Supreme Consciousness. It is then we have touched our core, our real Being.

Krishna goes on to explain the characteristics of one who is Supreme.

He says that one who is of steady intelligence, one who does not get caught in the play of opposing emotions like pleasure and pain, happiness and misery, is truly not deluded and is established in the truth, and in the Supreme. He is Supreme himself.

What do we need to know to get out of the whirlpool of emotions?

If we look deeply, we will see that for all our emotional blocks like fear, greed or worry, at the root are born of an expectation for a certain thing to happen in a certain way, a certain situation to present itself in a certain way. We always have a fantasy about how things should happen and how they should be.

We live in a virtual world and when there is a gap between reality and imagination, the trouble starts. The greater the gap, the more tension, disappointment and frustration we experience. We start to like or dislike something based on this gap. We create all negative emotions and forget about our innate blissful nature because we constantly fantasize about how things should be. The likes and dislikes are a product of the mind, not of the being. The being is just bliss and not related to any external incident.

Beautifully, Krishna says, 'An object of enjoyment that comes of itself is neither painful nor pleasurable for someone who has eliminated attachment, and who is free from the dualism of self and the other and therefore, from desire.'

This is actually a sutra, a technique that Krishna gives. If we put our attention neither on pleasure nor on pain, but between the two, we actually go beyond both and we can transcend the play of the mind. What do we normally do? If we are in pain, we try to run away from it. If we are in pleasure, we try to cling onto it. Understand that both pleasure and pain are of the mind. They are based on our samskaras. They are not of the being. Instead of trying to hold onto pleasure or running away from pain, just be with it, just witness it. The nature of the mind is to move to the opposites. By its very nature, the mind will move from one extreme to the other. Using this technique, we can transcend this nature of the mind.

For example, if we have a headache, don't try to resist it. Just witness it. Accept it. As the tree is there, as the night is there, so also the headache is there. On the other hand, if we are very happy, don't try to cling onto it. Whether it is happiness or pain, just be a witness to it. It is like standing in front of the sun in the morning. The sun just rises and we just watch it. The sun will set in the evening, we watch that also, with no attachment to the sun rising or setting.

In fact, this is the whole principle behind the 'middle path' of Buddha. Buddha endorses neither indulging in pleasure nor abstaining from it. Be involved but be aware. When we are aware, we can never be unconsciously pulled into it. Then desire cannot overcome us. We are always the Master. Whenever we want, we can get out of it.

Only when we are not aware can the sense pleasures control us. When we are not aware, not conscious, then we get caught in the cycle of guilt and desires because after the desire gets fulfilled, we go through guilt for having succumbed to the desire. But we did not live the desire fully with awareness, so we can't get out of it either. The next time, again, the desire happens and again we go through it incompletely and then feel guilty. The only way to get out of this vicious cycle of desire and guilt is to go through the desire with awareness.

Normally we go through only two modes with all our desires. We either suppress or express. If, because of past experience and samskara, we think the experience would be painful if we suppress the desire. Sometimes we may suppress a desire even if the experience may seem like it won't be painful. This is because of negative associations imposed on us by society. If it is seen to be pleasurable, we go into the experience willingly and we express our desire.

Suppression does not lead to elimination of that desire. It temporarily blocks access, but that desire will rise with renewed vigor again. Expression also does not mean fulfillment. Again and again the desire will rise even after repeated expression because we rarely experience anything with awareness.

In expression of a desire, we have the choice to experience with awareness. Once we experience a desire with full awareness, whether related to food, sex or material desires, we will find that the desire is fulfilled and we will not be bothered by it anymore. We will transcend the desire. It is actually that simple.

This is what I term karma. Karma is nothing but unfulfilled desire that makes us repeat the same experience again and again, mindlessly, simply because we do not have the intelligence to enter into that experience with complete awareness. Once we experience the situation with awareness, in that present moment, we will experience what Shankara experienced. We will not be the doer, the deed or the doing. We will transcend all three. We will transcend our karma. We will be Supreme.

Krishna advises us to turn inwards. Move away from your senses, move into your Source, He says.

By nature, by our very being we are tuned inwards. By conditioning, by the absorption of experiences of the outer world, we lose this capability to turn inwards. We will see that most children are blissful, just curious and happy to be what they are. They are happy to do what they do. They are in bliss.

Then unfortunately, they grow up to be adults! They lose that bliss. They lose that natural response to turn inwards. Society and adults teach them to trust their senses. They tell them that what they see, hear, touch, smell and taste are the truthful reality. Over time children, like adults before them, become slaves to their senses. They fall into the trap of sensual pleasures, or what they imagine and fantasize to be pleasures. Once in, it is difficult to get out.

One who indulges in sense pleasures is just caught in the push and pull of desires and guilt. He is just under hormonal torture. Our mind is like a monkey. It flirts from one desire to the next as soon as one is fulfilled. Till that desire is fulfilled, it will make it look like the most important thing and after it is fulfilled, it will seem the most insignificant. Then the new desire will appear allimportant. This is how we get caught in the rat race and the web of sense pleasures.

Again and again, we look outside for solutions that keep us happy. Everything that happens around us and outside us gives us sense pleasures. If we see our list of desires, most of them are not even ours. They are borrowed from others. We will be totally happy with our car until our neighbor gets a new car. We will be totally happy with our job until our colleague gets promoted to a higher post.

We constantly update our list of desires by looking at what is going on outside and we start believing that fulfilling these desires will give us what we define as happiness or pleasure. Whatever happens outside, it completely controls our level of satisfaction and our state of happiness. So to fulfill these desires, we keep on running the rat race, not knowing what exactly we want.

Now, you see, even if we fulfill these desires, we generally develop a deep sense of guilt and dissatisfaction in the end. This is because these desires were never really ours. We ran behind them because we saw someone doing something and we believed that doing something like that would make us happy. So as long as our mind is stuck in the sense pleasures from outside, we will always be running behind more and more desires that will ultimately lead to guilt and dissatisfaction.

In our second level meditation program, LBP 2 or THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Spurana Program, I make people write down their desires. Some people write just a few desires and close their books. I tell them, 'If you have only so many desires, then you must be enlightened.' You should see how people fill pages with their list of desires. After a deep meditation, when they are asked to remember their desires, they can remember only a handful.

You see, they wrote probably fifty desires but after the meditation they can remember only a few of them, less than ten. Why is it like that?

It is because what they remember are their true desires. These are the desires that they truly want. The rest of the forty desires are borrowed desires. These borrowed desires are the play of the mind. We can see how dangerous it can be to run behind desires that build due to outside pleasures.

When we look for fulfillment outside, we are looking for solutions outside. However, the real solution lies inside. We need to be able to connect to our true self and not be driven by the mind. The true source of pleasure is not outside us. The true source of pleasure is not because of things outside us. We should realize that we are blissful by nature. Our being is always blissful. Our core is always blissful.

So the correct place to look for pleasure is not outside. It is very much inside us. If we realize this, we will always be centered in ourselves. We will not be bothered by what goes on outside because we know exactly that we are inherently blissful. He who is free from being and non-being, who is contented, desire-less, and wise, even if in the world's eyes he does act, does nothing.

We must have seen, on the surface, to the external world, that a mad man with tremendous laziness will look very similar to a mystic in deep bliss. On the surface, to the outer world, they may seem very similar but inside, they are the complete opposites.

A madman is lazy and is lying around. There are so many things that are going on in his mind. However, a mystic is sitting completely relaxed because he is centered in his being. We might find the mystic sitting and doing nothing. To us he may seem the same as a madman. But the mind of the mystic is not doing anything. There are lesser thoughts and he is complete unto himself.

When we are situated in the core of our being, when we are one with the Self, we are not shaken by the emotions that happen on the periphery. It is like a rock that is standing in the ocean. The waves of the emotions are continuously lashing against the rock but the rock still stands unperturbed.

The happiness arises from our very being, from our Self. It is unlimited because it cannot be stopped by any external agent. The ananda spurana (fountain of bliss) is eternal, nithya.

This is what we teach in our first level program, Ananda Spurana Program ASP, also called Life Bliss Program, LBP. We teach you how to re-experience the bliss that you constantly felt when you were a child; the bliss that you lost as you grew up, as you became educated.

With societal conditioning, we block the energy centers in our body-mind system that connects us to the Existential energy. As long as these centers are fully open and unblocked, we are in constant contact with our primary source of energy. We are at ease, we are in comfort, and we are in bliss.

When these centers get blocked through conditioning, with the growth of negativities in us, with accumulation of

samskaras in us, we lose that bliss, that comfort, and that ease. We become dis-eased.

These energy blocks are the root cause of all our illnesses, be they of the mind or body. Through the use of meditation techniques, we teach you how to unblock and energize these energy centers, chakras, so that we can experience that bliss again. That is why this program is called Ananda Spurana; Ananda is bliss, Spurana is to gush. The bliss we blocked out starts gushing again. We stopped the bliss flow. We teach you how to stop the stopping and let bliss flow within you again.

Q: Master, how can we see everything equally, without differentiation? We ourselves are not created equally; we are all different and diverse. How then is it possible to see every one else the same way as Krishna suggests?

This is a wonderful question.

We are created equally. The Divine does not discriminate or differentiate. Our basic structure is the same. We all have a mind, body and spirit system, to make us functional. However, we carry a mindset from our previous birth, a tinge, an intent, a subtle essence that is called vasana, which makes us different.

It is as if we are all spherical balls in space. What is inside us is the same as what is outside in the space; both are exactly the same energy. The skin of the ball is our body. At death the skin dissolves. It is like a the rubber covering of a rubber ball with air inside or the rubber covering of a balloon filled with air suddenly disappearing. What happens then? The air inside merges with the air outside, is it not?

That is what happens at death too. We merge with the outer energy, after giving up this body. Only difference is this: during our life we have accumulated experiences and memories and have therefore formed a mindset, vasana. It is as though each ball has a different-colored air, one pink, one blue, one green and so on, its own vasana. So when the rubber disappears, the air inside stays separate from the air outside. Though it is the same energy it has a tinge that separates.

The different colored air spaces now have to find other balls, new balls, which have similar characteristics with their color to accommodate them. The spirit, which is tinged with vasana has to find bodies suitable for that vasana. It looks for the right parents, right environment, right time and right space to be reborn so that its carryover vasana can be accommodated and fulfilled.

We are created equally, but with some differences based on our past experiences and attitudes, which define our bodies, mind and other conditions in this lifetime. Remember though, essentially we are all the same energy and therefore we are the same. It is this equality that we need to be aware of and seek. Though we may start unequally because of our mindset, we can all reach the same equal state. That is the state of our true nature.

This is what Krishna refers to when He talks about equanimity. We call it samadrishti, equanimity of

perception, to see everyone and everything equally without discrimination and differentiation. We are all creatures of the same Existence, children of the same energy. Once we understand that commonality, there is no difficulty in practicing equanimity.