Live All Your🔗

Dimensions

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 samadhi 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 ‘samadhi’.

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

When we unite with our true Self, we become multi-dimensional. 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 twenty-four 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 Indian 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 kapala, 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 India, 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 dana (charity) or you achieve mahadana’ (the final and grand sacrifice or death). If you do dana you share a little along with enjoying yourself. You will enjoy, others also will enjoy. If you don’t do small dana, you will become mahadana, 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 sanyas, 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 sanyasa yoga, the paths of Duty and Renunciation. Throughout the Gita, He has used at least 100 verses to explain the concepts of karma and sanyas 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 sanyas, 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 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 samskara: 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 samskaras. 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 atman.

The person who has surrendered to greed gets lost. He is caught in muladhara 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 Upanishad 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 jivatman, 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 so-called 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 (an Indian 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 pada (feet) and His paduka, 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 sannyasa 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 sannyas (renunciation) will help us unless we change the attitude. If we change the attitude, karma, sannyas, or anything can help us. All we need to know is this: don't bother about whether we are a karma yogi or a sannyas 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 sannyas, 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 sannyas. Suffering is because of our wrong attitude. And I tell you, with this wrong attitude, be it karma or sannyas, it feels like a punishment. With the right attitude, be it karma or sannyas, it is a blessing.

With the wrong attitude, if you take sannyas, 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 sannyas, again drop the goal. Don't think sannyas 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.

Sankhya yogou prithagbalaha pravadanti na panditaha, 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 sannyas. Here, the words karma and sannyas, these two words are equated to karma yoga and sankhya yoga.

Those who are actually learned, I can say those who are actually experienced, say that both karma and sannyas 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 sannyas, 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 sannyas. 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.

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 Indian litigation, in Indian courts. In Indian 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 Indian President goes then and asks God, 'God, when will India 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.

A true sanyasi has to be a totally different person from these two. He has to become the beginning of a new man: peaceful at the very core of his being; at the center, peaceful, at the circumference, blissful. This is the ultimate harmony. This harmony can be called God, enlightenment, nirvana, or any name that we want to give to it: truth, beauty, liberation.