Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16

INTRODUCTION

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Kṛṣṇa is compassion Incarnate. Anyone who surrenders to Him is liberated. The problem is that we only pretend to surrender. What we have are mere words with no integrity and no authenticity. Our thoughts do not match our words, and our words do not match our actions. People ask whether they are controlled by destiny or free will. I tell them that no destiny binds them; they are free to exercise their will. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad puts it so well: As are your thoughts, so is your will; as is your will, so your action, as are your actions, so is your destiny. Destiny is nothing but the end result of how we exercise our free will.

The problem is, we have no will; in the morning we want to do one thing, by noon it is something different, by night it is totally different. So, if our will keeps changing, how can it ever be converted into action?

Create the Space of Surrender. When we surrender to Kṛṣṇa, our surrender must be total. We must take the responsibility to fulfill the space of surrender. There can be nothing between Him and us. Then, He surely liberates us. Because then we are already liberated, we are in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Here, He talks about people who feel no need to surrender to Him. They are so full of ego, that they feel He is their competitor. He says He will cast them into the material world. In this material world, they can follow their senses, sense objects and what they consider to be sensual pleasures till death. As I said before, it is our decision. Even Kṛṣṇa is helpless to change it, because He has given us the power to decide. He has handed over the decision to us; to decide whether we want to be ‘me’ or ‘You’ focused: demonic or divine.

'YOU' - THE FOUNDATION OF SURRENDER

Saying again and again, 'I believe in what Kṛṣṇa says,' has no meaning. It does not help. Faith does not mean belief. Belief is not trust. Belief is a pseudo-trust, imposed, cultivated out of fear. It is not something that has grown from within us. Rather, it is something that has been implanted by others: society, religion, the state. Believers remain stupid; they never grow in intelligence. And society does not want people to be intelligent. The 'yes' of a man who cannot say 'no' is always powerless. First a man must learn to say 'no,' only then does his 'yes' have meaning. Faith is different from belief. With faith we grow. We grow in love to a Master and to God. Most of us look to God as a person to pray to, to worship.

We feel God is a third person. He is not us. Prayer and worship become important pathways to reach this form. The moment we drop the idea of a person, prayer disappears; instead, meditation becomes significant. Meditation is going inwards. So, it is more difficult for many who are educated rationally. That's why meditation never became the central core of religion in the West. In the East all the great masters founded their teachings on meditation. They taught followers to turn inwards. They taught them to be God, not to worship God. Meditation leads us to surrender. Meditation is the process of creation of the space of completion. Completion is the knowledge that we are one with the Universe. It is then about 'you' instead of 'me'. The feeling of 'you' and the absence of 'me' dissolve the idea of 'I' as identity. This is the foundation of surrender.

Become a servant of love. You
then become a master of
humanity. One begins as a servant.
However, one ends as a master. In
this world, you often begin as a
master and you end up as a
servant. That is the law of the
external world. In the inner world
there is a totally different law. You
begin as a servant and you can end
up as a master. You surrender to
love, you surrender and love and
you shall certainly conquer the
world.

Buddha has said: In the outer
world everything is sweet in the
beginning and bitter in the end; in
the inner world, everything is
bitter in the beginning and sweet
in the end. Only the end matters.
When you start loving those
around you, you start loving
yourself more. Strangely, you start
thinking less about yourself. In
your defeat, you win others. This is
what surrender is about: It is
asking for your defeat.

Let me repeat: Surrender, renunciation of the self, or sannyāsa is a defeat, a defeat of the ego. God is realized the moment the ego is dissolved. Surrender is the search for the Divine principle. Call it God, truth, freedom, or nirvāṇa. They mean the same thing. The search is for something that is missing in life. We are alive but unaware of what life is about. We exist, but we are completely oblivious to the fact of who we are. This is what Kṛṣṇa talks about in this chapter. The courage to move from ‘me’ to ‘You’ is the courage to trust, love and surrender. When that happens there is nothing else but Him. We become Kṛṣṇa. When we are one with the Universe, one with Kṛṣṇa, there is nothing else we need to look up to. There is nothing else to look for. We have reached eternal bliss — Nityānanda.

GOALS:

1. Teach the students to
internalize that it is
important to move from
'me' to 'You'. With trust,
love and surrender our ego
gets dissolved and we
become one with the
Universe.

ASSESSMENTS

Are we controlled by destiny or free will?

Can creating a space by visualizing it in the present make the visualization a reality?

How does self doubt stop our visualization from becoming a reality?

What is belief and how is it different from faith?

Why is meditation central to all eastern religions?

What is surrender?

ART OF THE DAY

ART OF THE DAY:

MATERIALS NEEDED: 200 Popsicle sticks (per child) Glue Scissors Paper Clamp/paper clips (to hold structures together while they dry)

PROCEDURE: Use your creativity to create a miniature boat. Feel free to create variations of the design shown below

INFERENCE Our little boat of life is caught in a whirlpool inside the ocean of life and death. Round and round we go deeper and deeper into this world of illusions. We must pray to Krishna to take on the role of our boatman, who would steer our life boat out of this whirlpool and take it to the seashore on the other side.

ACTIVITY OF

THE DAY

ACTIVITY OF THE DAY:

Procedure

Meditate upon the Power of Visualization. Close your eyes and sit in a comfortable position. Let us create the space within to make something into reality. Let us visualize that what we desire has already happened. Several thoughts in the form of doubts regarding the impossibility of the desire or doubt about your ability to create such a state, depression of past failures or complete distrust, may arise within you. Bringing your past hangover into the present is incompletion. Complete with all these thoughts and incompletions. Stay firm on your resolve to create the space within by bringing your future possibility into the present is Space. For Example. If we wish to get rid of back pain, and we keep saying, ‘Let this back pain go,’ it will never go. Every time we utter the words back pain, our mind latches more firmly onto the past hangover of pain. If we want to get rid of pain, we must complete with all self-doubts and create the space for health by visualizing that we are feeling healthy now.

INFERENCE:

Creating the space by visualizing it in the present, helps make things happen in reality. However self-contradiction, self-doubt, self-hatred and impossibilities disrupts the realization of the visualization. Complete with all these incompletions by bringing your future possibility into the present and deciding that you will not challenge the power of the space, but you will take the responsibility to fulfill that space