Cleansing Ignorance with Knowledge🔗

5.16 Whose ignorance is destroyed by the knowledge?

Their knowledge, like the rising sun, throws light on the Supreme Consciousness.

5.17 One whose intelligence, mind, and faith are in the Supreme and one who has surrendered to the Supreme,

His misunderstandings are cleansed through knowledge and he goes towards liberation.

A very deep understanding is embedded in this teaching of Krishna. He says, ‘I do not create activities or make people do or connect with the fruits of the actions. All this is done by the material nature of humans.’

Krishna is talking not just about the actions of an individual devotee or disciple but at a much larger scale. He is talking about the creation of the Universe itself. Understand, nothing in this universe can be created or destroyed. When I say, nothing, I mean NOTHING. Everything that exists has always existed in some form or the other. It will continue to exist in some form or the other. Whether it is an object or a living being, it has always existed. Only the form may vary.

To the intellectual mind, science also says the exact same thing that matter and energy are inter-convertible and energy can never be destroyed. The beauty of the Veda is it says what science has now understood. What is the last line of science was the first line of the Upanishads.

The Isavasya Upanishad opens with, ‘Isa vasyam idam sarvam’, meaning, ‘all that exists arises from energy’. Now after so much scientific research, quantum physics has concluded that matter and energy are one and the same. This is the latest scientific advancement or invention. But this was the first statement in the Isavasya Upanishad, which says everything is energy.

People ask me, ‘Who created this Universe?’ I tell you, the Universe itself is the creator, the created and the creation. If the creator and the creation were different, it means that the creator is more intelligent than the creation. But the creation and the creator are one and the same; they are both Divine.

We consider what we see in front of us as the universe and ask who created this universe that has a form. We believe that there has to be some stronger energy that created what we perceive as universe. We fail to understand that everything, every matter is energy. So when everything is energy, where is the difference between the creator and the creation? Both creator and the creation are energy. Both of them are divine. The difference is because of the way that we perceive them. We associate a form to the creation.

That is what is meant by leela, the Divine play. The un-manifest, formless Energy made itself manifest in the creation. The creator is formless energy and it manifests in the creation that we perceive as having form. When we realize that the creation is also the same energy that created it, we will see that both are one and the same. We will understand that the universe created itself.

We cannot answer the question 'why' for this in the logical plane. If we get caught in 'why' in the beginning, we will be stuck with it forever. Instead, explore the 'what'. Try to understand what we really are, what is this universe and when we get the answer to just that question of what we are, who we are, we will see that along with the answer, the question 'why' itself disappears; it simply dissolves.

Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi's meditation technique was to probe with the question, 'Who am I?' This is also the basis of Zen koans like 'imagine your form before your birth' or 'focus on the sound of one hand clapping'. These questions cannot be answered by the mind since we cannot answer these questions logically. Our mind cannot comprehend these things at all.

God created man in His own mould so that He could experience Divinity. You see, God as God, as the un-manifest, as pure energy cannot see the Divinity outside of Himself. When He is everything, how can He see Himself separate? Everything exists as a part of Him; so He cannot look to see the Divine outside.

It is like this: can you say how you experience, how you feel your hand from inside your body? Can you describe how you feel your hand from inside? No! On the other hand, can you describe how you feel when you touch your own hand with the other hand? You will have some feeling; is it not? Even though it is your own hand touching the other, you can feel it because from outside, your two hands are separate; you can perceive them as different parts of your body.

In just the same way, God can experience and express Himself through man. Man is a part of God just like both the hands are a part of the same body and can be felt separately. Now, just like one hand in itself cannot understand that the hand it is touching is a part of the same body, similarly, man cannot understand that he is a part of God.

What does it take for the hand to understand that the other hand is actually a part of the bigger whole called the body? It takes the understanding, the perception that the entire body is a single entity with the different parts of the body being integrated in it, connected together.

Similarly, it takes the understanding of our consciousness to see that we are a part of the Whole and that the individual consciousness is an integral and connected part of the collective consciousness. Just like the individual hand in itself can never understand the truth that it is a part of the whole body, the individual ego can never understand the truth that it exists as a part of the Whole. The ego has to dissolve for the truth to be revealed and understood.

It is as if we want to see our own beauty, but how can we do that unless we see our own reflection in a mirror? The mirror in which God sees Himself is man. Can the reflection be a separate entity from what it is reflecting? No!

Man can experience and express the divine in him. The game of life is all about man trying to realize the Divine in him and the Divine trying to express itself through man.

What Krishna teaches here is actually a sutra, a technique. The Western Master, Gurdjieff used this technique very often. In his ashram, he would create situations to master this technique of being unperturbed by external incidents. You would enter a room where a group of people would be sitting and something would be done to make you angry. It would be done so naturally that you would not realize the situation was being set up.

Others would join in to enhance the disturbance and right at the point where you are about to explode, Gurdjieff would shout, 'Remember, remain undisturbed!' The disturbance cannot disappear suddenly because it is a physiological happening. Your hormones have been released into your system; the body has been poisoned.

Even though the anger cannot go away immediately, there is the awareness in you that will dissipate the effect of the anger that remains in the periphery. The center, the core is untouched. You are now aware of these two points, the core and the periphery as two distinct identities co-existing.

In our ashram also, in my programs as well, there have been many such incidents and situations that I create to make people go beyond their mind to realize their core that is a silent witness to all external events. That is the real being.

I tell you, the ashram is actually a spiritual laboratory. Constantly, situations arise and you will go through the entire gamut of emotions in response to various situations. But when you go through these with awareness instead of judging the situations or the people and getting disturbed and upset, you will have the tremendous, deep experiential realization of an undisturbed, silent core within you that is unaffected by everything outside of you.

This one glimpse will become the strong bulwark, support for you and the next time you see that you are being swayed by emotions, you will remember this and such awareness will make you conscious. Only when you are unconscious and ignorant can you be under the sway of emotions.

A small story from the life of Buddha:

Buddha was passing by a village. The villagers were against the teachings of Buddha and a few of them insulted him. Buddha just listened and then said, ‘I have to reach the next village. Can I go now? If you have finished with whatever you had to say to me, I can move. Or if you have something more to say, while returning, I can stop here. You can come and tell me.’

The villagers were surprised. They could not understand why Buddha did not react the way they had expected him to in an angry or defensive manner. They said, ‘But we have not been saying anything; we have been shouting and insulting you!’

Buddha said, ‘You can do that. But if you are looking for any reaction from me, you have come too late. Ten years before, if you had come with these words, I would have reacted. But now I have become a Master of myself. You cannot force me to do anything.'

This is what is meant by the term 'being centered'. This is what is meant by the term 'becoming a Master'. Then you are no longer a slave to your emotions, or to others. Otherwise, anybody can shake you. They can push and pull you in different directions and you won't be integrated and whole.

Krishna separates morality from spirituality in these verses.

I tell you, heaven and hell are not physical; they are psychological. The concept of heaven and hell is completely in our heads. I always tell people, you don't commit sin and then go to hell. You commit sin because you are in hell. When you are not aware, when you do things unconsciously, when you are disturbed and not at peace with yourself, you are in hell. The quality of your inner space is what decides the quality of your life.

Somebody asked Buddha, 'If you don't have compassion in your life, what kind of hell do you get?' Buddha replied, 'No punishment can be given to such a man who has no compassion because he is already in hell.'

I tell you, don't live with your conscience; live with consciousness. Live with understanding and awareness and you can never make a mistake. Morality is just skin-deep. The so-called moralists have their rules and regulations for the whole society because they lack the understanding. They are either afraid to face reality or feel guilty about themselves. They go about preaching morality to other people because they lack the intelligence to live life spontaneously.

Understand, there is no such thing as virtue or sin. Everything is energy. What exists is energy. Energy cannot be categorized as good and bad. Emotions such as lust and anger are also energy. These are actually a tremendous energy but we don't know how to handle them, how to respect them and that is where the trouble starts. These so-called base emotions arise due to our own ignorance. When our awareness and understanding transform the base emotions, they become the higher emotions, just as lust gets transformed to love when the understanding happens. This is the ultimate alchemy.

Just live every moment in bliss. Consciously decide that you will face every moment with a deep awareness, with a deep ecstasy. The very decision will transform your life. We will see life with a completely different attitude. Not only will we feel total and complete, we will radiate the bliss to others as well.

A beautiful story:

Naropa, an enlightened Master, was asked by someone when he became enlightened, 'Have you achieved liberation now?'

Naropa replied, 'Yes and no both. Yes, because I am not in bondage. No, because the liberation was also a reflection of the bondage.'

The liberation existed as long as the concept of bondage existed. Both are just individual concepts that exist as long as the other exists. We experience that liberation only when we were in the clutches of bondage. They are opposites and they will remain as long as the mind, which dwells and survives in the opposites, exists. As long as the mind comes into play, liberation and bondage cannot exist independently. They depend on each other.

For example, when you have a headache, why do you want to get rid of it? Think about it. Why do you yearn for a state in which the headache is absent? That is because you have experienced a state of headache-less-ness before. If you never had a headache, will you ever yearn to be in a state of no headache? How can you? You don't even know, you won't even perceive a state as having or not having a headache because you don't even know such a thing as headache exists. Anything can be felt by the mind only in contrast, in opposites.

That is why Naropa says, 'Yes and no both. Yes, I am not in bondage. No, because the liberation was also a reflection of the bondage.' He says that now he is beyond bondage and liberation both because the mind that perceives these opposites is no longer there to judge these, to categorize these.

We are in ignorance when we think that liberation is some state that we need to achieve. The moment we want to achieve, we want to possess something, we want to hold on to something, it will simply slip from our hands like sand or water simply slips from our hands the moment we close our fist tightly.

The light of knowledge dispels the ignorance and we realize the state in which we have always been.

Understand, ignorance, just like darkness, has a negative existence.

If I want to take this microphone in front of me out of the room, I can easily remove it, is it not? I can just take it and keep it outside to remove it from the room. But if there is darkness inside the room, can I remove it? Can I physically remove the darkness out of the room? No! I can bring light into the room and the darkness disappears. But I cannot remove the darkness directly. This is what I mean by something having a negative existence.

Ignorance also can be removed by just shining the light of knowledge on it. Just like the rising sun removes the darkness of the night, the light of knowledge dispels the darkness of ignorance.

What is that ignorance that we need to remove by bringing in the light of knowledge? Just think what we are looking for in life. Whatever we do, what do we want to get out of it? Simply put, we want to be happy, right? We want to feel happy in whatever we do.

But the strange truth is, we are already pure bliss. Please understand, I am not saying we have achieved bliss. I am saying we are bliss. Each one of us is pure bliss. The problem is we are not ready to accept this ultimate truth and relax, because the moment we accept this, we no longer have a separate personality; the ego has no basis to exist. What identity can it have if you are already what you ultimately want to be? There exists no more desire then; there exists no more fear. Without greed and fear, how can the ego exist and drive you?

It is our ego that makes us feel incomplete. The ego needs us to be a solid entity for it to exist. The mind always yearns to be occupied, to be engaged in doing something, in running behind something. Only then can it survive.

When we are pure bliss, we have nothing to run after because we are complete unto ourselves. But in this zone, we are nothing. We have no identity because we have merged into Existence, the ultimate and only reality. This is too much for the ego to handle. The mind, therefore, plays a very cunning and subtle game to keep us engaged in some pursuit, material or spiritual.

We may not accept this truth but if we look deeply, we can see clearly that it is us who choose to stay in suffering. We think that we want bliss and that we want to drop our ego. But deep down, we choose to stay with our ego.

Krishna gives us another technique to liberate ourselves.

He says surrender leads to liberation, and happens when one's intelligence is focused on Him.

When we believe there is a life force that is conducting this universe and is taking care of us, we relax. When we relax and are not stressed or worried, we can live and function at our optimum potential. We can express our creativity and live spontaneously. We experience a great freedom and liberation. This is true knowledge. This is the knowledge that cannot be taught or picked up. The Master can simply transmit it when our being is ready to receive it.

All we need is the faith to allow the supreme intelligence to guide us, to surrender our mind that oscillates between the extremes. The knowledge removes the ignorance and misunderstandings. All our problems are due to the lack of knowledge, due to ignorance on various subjects. Whether it is fear or greed or worry or anger, all these emotions are able to control us because we are not aware. We allow them to unconsciously control us.

When we bring a deep awareness into anything, the solution simply stands out. When we go deeply into any emotion with deep awareness, we can flower out of it. This is true knowledge.

I tell you, at the times of real testing, of extreme doubt, doubt your ego. Never doubt the Master. The Master is the only truth you can cling to when all else gives way. The Master is the only one who can guide you when everything seems to be confusing. At the start of the war Arjuna is utterly confused but has the intelligence to listen to Krishna in that time of extreme doubt.

Surrender can happen at different levels. Bodhidharma said,

This means,

People have misunderstood this to mean that the Master, his teachings and mission are three different entities. No! The Master lives in all three, the body, his teachings and mission. The Master has no vested interests, no desires to fulfill in life. Masters come out of sheer compassion for the whole of mankind, to dispel the ignorance of seekers, to show them the light. Only a third of the Master's energy is in the physical body. The other third is in the teachings and another third is in the mission.

Nithyananda is Nithya-Dhyana-Ananda all in one. Nithya, the Master in the body as Nithyananda, Dhyana, my teaching and blessing of meditation, and Ananda, my mission of bringing forth the fountain of bliss that is lying latent in you. All the three together constitute the energy called Nithyananda.

When you surrender to the Master, you surrender to his mission and to his teachings as well. When you surrender at the physical level, you surrender your physical self, your comforts to the Master, to imbibe and spread his teachings and mission.

For example, when you are involved completely in the work of the mission, you sacrifice your comforts, your sleep, and your desires in order to do that work. Actually, I cannot call it sacrifice because you will feel from your very being that this is the best thing you can do. You will feel that it is the best use of your time and energy at the moment, rather than doing anything else like taking rest. Automatically, your comforts take a lower priority and your laziness just vanishes. Everything else becomes a lower priority. The work of the mission is of supreme priority.

And I tell you, when you take up the responsibility of the mission, you will realize that what seemed to you as a load, as too much responsibility, is actually a blissful experience. How can the mission of the Master give anything other than pure bliss? The moment you surrender to the Master and his mission and you stand up to take up the responsibility, you will find that simply the Divine Energy flows through you and you just flow effortlessly and express yourself most beautifully.

All you need to do is to be stable and available and the Divine Energy will make you able!

On the mental level, surrender means surrendering your intellect to serve the Master and the mission. For example, you may be knowledgeable and interested in a particular subject but you sacrifice that interest for the sake of the mission's priorities and needs. You surrender your mental faculties, mental pursuits to serve the mission according to the needs of the mission. You turn into liquid, flowing into the shapes and moulds created by the Master.

The Master knows best the ideal way in which we each can grow. He creates the moulds for each of us according to our needs and abilities. All we need to do is trust Him for this, drop our solid ego and become fluid so we can fill in the spaces He creates for us. Then, we can see we are a unique part of this wonderful Existence.

The third level is the being level surrender. When our very being surrenders to the Master, we have reached. At this level our being clearly recognizes the call of the Master. We become a part of the Master. We just merge into the Existence that the Master is an embodiment of. We no longer carry any separate identity. The process of transformation has converted water, the liquid, into formless steam. Like steam, we explode in all directions. No limitations exist because all boundaries and limitations exist only in the mind.

We now transcend the mind and express our potential, which is truly limitless. This is the ultimate state in which a Master lives every moment and to which He tirelessly and compassionately pushes us in different ways so we that we can also experience and be in the same state of eternal bliss.

Q: Master, of all the qualities that humans possess and can express, what would be the greatest virtue, the one that would be close to divinity?

Beautiful!

Compassion is that quality which defines divinity. It is not your dictionary meaning of compassion. An enlightened Master's compassion extends to all the beings in this universe, not directed at any one, not caused by any thing. It is as I mentioned earlier, the causeless auspiciousness of Shiva.

Within human emotions, love is the only virtue, the only spirituality, the only morality. If love is missing then one can have all the morality and still one will be dead. Still deep down one will be immoral. Without love one can have all the virtues but they will be superficial. They will be just like a painted smile, a mask, maybe good to become respectable, but God cannot be deceived in such superficial ways. In fact, He cannot be deceived in any way. He looks at the very center of your being, not at your circumference. He looks not at what you do but at what you are.

Love transforms your being and then your acts are transformed automatically. A loving person cannot be immoral. He cannot hurt anybody. He cannot cheat, and he cannot lie. It is impossible for him to be cruel. Compassion will be simply his way of life.

The priests and the politicians are not interested in love; they are interested in imposing rules and regulations upon us. They don't want real human beings; they want phony, controlled people. Real people are dangerous to the establishment.

They are so phony; how can they be dangerous? They have no fire in them, no passion for life, no passion for truth. Without love, one never knows what life is and to know life in its total beauty is to live beautifully, gracefully. That is virtue.

There are two sources of knowing; one is logic, another is love. Through logic we arrive at knowledge; through love we arrive at wisdom. Knowledge only gives us superficial information. Wisdom gives us a deep, profound insight into things. Knowledge is only accumulation. One can accumulate as much as one wants: the human brain is a computer and it can contain all the libraries of the world. But still, we remain the same. It is like a donkey carrying the load of many scriptures. That's what scholars are: donkeys loaded with scriptures. They know much but they don't know themselves. All their knowledge is borrowed.

Love gives us true knowledge. It makes our life a scripture. It awakens us to the beauty of Existence, to the tremendous grace of life and all that it contains. It awakens us to the presence of God. Logic cannot do it and those who depend on knowledge remain poor.

Depend on love and all the riches of the world are yours. Depend on love and the kingdom of God is yours. That is exactly the meaning of love: surrendering the ego, dropping it, becoming egoless. And whenever we are

egoless love starts flowing through us. We can call that love God or light or bliss or wisdom.

Life can either be prose or it can be poetry. Science makes it prose and spirituality transforms it into poetry. Love can be expressed only in poetry, never in prose.

To live life as prose is to live in a mundane way, and to live life as poetry is to live in a sacred way.

All these religions are different ways of approaching life not through logic, but through love, of looking at Existence not with fear, but with wonder. And it is only the eyes that are full of wonder and awe that are capable of knowing the truth.

We are dewdrops, dropping into the ocean. Fear arises; one hesitates because one can see that one is going to disappear. But what is death on one side is life, eternal life, on another. The dewdrop disappears as a dewdrop but reappears as the ocean itself. It is worth it.

One can forget all about God if one can only remember to be in love and be blissful. Then God is bound to happen. God is inevitable.

Destination means slavery. Destination means that we are predetermined. Love has no destination. It is a journey. It is not work; it is not duty. It is never a means to anything else; it is the very end itself.

Wind has no fixed form. It constantly changes; it is never the same for two consecutive moments. So is the case with love. And we will try to give it a certain form and shape. We are trying to do the impossible. When we fail, frustration is the result. Love never frustrates anybody. It is our expectations, our impossible expectations of love, which creates frustration.

Never try to give a form and a shape to your love. Allow it to remain shapeless, formless; because it is not a thing, it is an experience. It cannot be defined, and it is not gross; it is very subtle, the subtlest experience of life.

Wind is always in a state of let-go. If Existence says ‘Come along, I am going to the north’, it moves. It has no resistance, it doesn’t know ‘no’. It is always saying ‘yes’. It does not ask why, it does not insist on knowing the reason. It does not say, ‘I have other plans. I want to go to the south, not to the north.’ The wind has no plans, no purposes for the future. It is available to Existence. It is so totally available that in the very total availability it knows the ultimate taste of liberation.

So is the case with love: it is a state of liberation. It is the state of surrender. It allows the whole Existence to do whatsoever it wants to do, to take one wherever it wants to. It has no idea of how things should be. It moves moment-to-moment, with no idea, no prejudice, it moves without any concepts.