Four Pious Men🔗

I am very dear to him, and he is dear to Me.

7.18 All these devotees are indeed noble; one who knows Me, dwells in Me.

Being engaged in My mission, he attains Me.

7.19 After many births and deaths, he who knows Me surrenders to Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is.

Such a great soul is very rare.

Krishna now goes deeper. He talks about the Indian community system.

Before entering into this subject, I bow down to the system that has been created by the rishis (sages), which has made the whole spiritual science a reality. I bow down to the community system which kept our scriptures alive, the spiritual science alive.

In these modern times, abusing our community system and abusing the social system created by the rishis has become a fashion! Bashing our Vedic system or abusing our Vedic system has become a fashion. Especially in Southern India, abusing the Vedic system and abusing swamis has become the trend. If you want to show you are educated or an important person, abuse our Vedic system. You can immediately gain popularity. There will be at least ten fools to listen to what you say. It's an easy and cheap way to gain popularity.

Not only have we not understood our Vedic system, we have also started disrespecting this great system created by our ancient Masters. Please understand, only because of our rishis and because of the system that they created, the spiritual culture in India is alive today, and India itself is still alive!

The other day I read Paramahamsa Yogananda's autobiography. There's a beautiful reference in the Book of Genesis where Abraham prays to God. He requests God not to destroy a particular piece of land. God says, 'If I find ten good people in that land, I will not destroy that land.' He tells Abraham, 'If I find ten good people in that land, I will not destroy that land.'

Only after reading that statement, I understood why India is alive. India being alive is the greatest miracle of God. India is still alive and that's the greatest miracle of God. And it's all because of these ten people.

No other culture survived or lived for such a long time. All other cultures that came into existence along with or after the Indian culture - Babylonian, Roman, Greek, etc. - knew how to fight, how to build empires and big cities in a professional way. They knew how to protect themselves. They were great warriors! Yet they were unable to survive. Today we see only their relics. These cultures are not alive today. Of the Indian culture, the Indian system, we have at least 10,000 years of recorded history.

There's a beautiful book written by Swami Prakashananda Saraswati. The book is a comprehensive history of religion in Indian culture. He has recorded Indian history in a beautiful way. According to him, the Indian culture is trillions of years old. Anyway, we can be sure of one thing - that we have at least 10,000 years of recorded history of the Indian culture.

No other country has been invaded as much as India. India has been invaded by practically every culture, every country. There is nobody who has not invaded Indian soil. Yet, no country has been invaded by India. India has never invaded any country. It never went out to destroy or fight with another country. India stayed within its boundaries. India was again and again invaded, but it never invaded anybody. At the end of the day, this is the only culture that is still alive! It has not died. It's alive! Only because of this community system is Indian culture alive today.

Another important thing we need to understand when we read these things is this: 'Man cannot live without creating a community.' Man is a social animal. He creates some form of community or other. You cannot say that the United States does not have some form of community system. In other countries also the community system is there. However, these community systems are based upon money.

When I went to Brazil, I gave a discourse to a large company called Petrobras. One guy asked, 'How do you justify the community system in India? The high caste people look at the low caste people in a disrespectful way. How do you justify this?'

Of course, there are a few issues in Indian culture also. Indians also made mistakes. We missed the spirit with which the community system was developed, and started following the letter. Some mistakes happened. That's true. However, the whole community system cannot be labeled wrong because of a few mistakes.

For example, if someone has a tumor in his body, the tumor must be operated on and removed. You cannot straightaway kill the person! The operation must be done and the tumor removed. We can't abandon the whole person.

And it is we who committed mistakes, and now we are abusing the whole system.

I told him, 'Yes, one or two mistakes happened. But look at the developed countries or so-called cultured countries. If you enter an airplane and walk to economy class past first class, watch the way first class passengers look at you. Have you observed how passengers in first class look at you? Just by observing, you see how disrespectfully they look at you.'

Don't think there is no community or class system in other countries. In every country, there is a community and class system. The Vedic rishis at least created the community and caste system based upon intelligence and wisdom. With rishis, the community system was created based upon intelligence, based upon knowledge, based upon wisdom. In other cultures, the community system was created based upon money and power.

In countries where the rulers are kshatriyas (warrior class), they are the ones who create the community system. The more powerful someone is, the more respected he is. In other countries, people who do business, the business class, control the whole system. There the more money someone has, the more he is respected.

India is the only country where people who respected intelligence and wisdom created the whole system. The system was created based upon intelligence, based upon wisdom. So that is why, in India, the more wisdom a person carries, the more he is respected. The more spiritual he is, the more he is respected.

The whole social system was created based upon sharing. Man must contribute something to the community.

Let me describe the spirit with which the whole system was created, and how we abused it. Of course, we abused it; we did not imbibe the true spirit completely. If we had imbibed the whole spirit completely, we wouldn't have fallen into this state. Let us first understand the spirit with which the whole system was created. Then we will understand where we made mistakes. Then we should understand how we can revive it and practise it again in our life.

First, the whole system is not based upon our birth. It is based upon our character. Krishna says again and again in Gita that it is based upon our gunas (nature), based upon our attitude towards life. A person who works based upon fear, or works out of fear, belongs to the working class, shudra. A person who works out of greed, belongs to the merchant or business class, vaishya. A person who works to get attention or to prove that he is superior, belongs to the kshatriya community. A person who works out of gratitude, expressing his bliss, is a brahmana.

Everybody must contribute something to society. A person may share his time if he has nothing else; he has only one thing and that is time. A person who shares his time is a worker, a shudra. He belongs to the working class.

A person who shares products has time and a little bit of intelligence to create products. He creates products and shares the products with society. He's a vaishya, a merchant. These people belong to the merchant or business class.

The person who shares confidence, gives courage to the community, gives confidence to the whole community, is a kshatriya, a warrior! He unites the whole group as a community in a solid way by giving confidence, by sharing his confidence.

The person who shares his knowledge, bliss or spiritual wisdom, is a brahmana.

It is completely based upon our role, the role we are supposed to play in the community, which is based upon our character. In no way is it related to our birth.

Please be very clear that this is the spirit with which the whole system was created. This is the spirit with which Vedic rishis designed the system. Here nobody is higher and nobody is lower. Be aware that no one is higher and no one is lower as it is practised today. In the course of time, one or two mistakes happened. But because of that we can't say the whole system is wrong. We can't say the whole system is a failure. We can't say the whole system is a failure because of one or two mistakes.

'O best among the Bharata, four kinds of pious men begin to render devotional service unto Me: the distressed, the desirer of wealth, the inquisitive, and he who searches for knowledge of the Absolute.'

Here Krishna talks about those who approach the Divine and the ways in which they approach the Divine. Man is centered on seven basic emotions. Basically we live and work based upon these seven emotions: greed, fear, worry, attention need (name and fame), comparison and jealousy, ego (thinking that your ideology is you, the identity which you show to the inner world and the identity which you show to the outer world are you) and the last one, the seventh emotion, deep discontentment.

These are the qualities with which man lives. These are the qualities with which he is working. Man is centered on these seven different emotions.

At some point or another, we work based upon these seven emotions. In every moment, if we scan our life, we work based upon these seven emotions: out of greed, fear, worry, attention need, jealousy and comparison, ego or deep discontentment. Man is centered on these seven different energy centers. These seven emotions are seven energy centers that supply energy for us, fuel for us. We are being fueled by these seven emotions. If we analyze and look deeply into it, the work that we do in life, everything that we do in life, is rooted in one of these seven emotions.

If we are centered on greed, we approach God in the same way. Goddess Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth) appeals to us. We want Lakshmi because we are completely centered on greed. Or we continuously run behind Kubera (Lord of wealth) and perform Kubera yaga, Kubera yagna (fire rituals related to Kubera), Kubera pooja (worship of Kubera); we continuously repeat the concept of Kubera.

Please understand that when we feel we are missing something, we try to get fulfilment by creating our own God and approaching the Divine in that mold. We try to get fulfilment by approaching the Divine in the same mold and with the same emotion, the same feeling that we miss in our being. If we think we are poor, if we think wealth is the most important thing in our life, we run behind Goddess Lakshmi.

One more thing: when we become mature, when maturity happens to us, we approach the same Lakshmi as Gnana Lakshmi (Goddess of wisdom as wealth). We pray to the same Devi to give us wisdom, to give us knowledge. As we grow and mature, we approach the same God but we approach in a different way.

We approach or create God in our own mold. According to our maturity we project and see the Divine. We approach those gods that appeal to us most. If we are centered on greed, if our thoughts are centered on greed, we go to the god who gives us boons, who makes us feel fulfilled, who gives us what we want. A person who is centered on greed feels happy and comfortable approaching Goddess Lakshmi. He doesn't want any other god. Of course, we can approach Lakshmi from various levels, yet when we approach with greed, we start at the first step. It's not that we should not approach the Divine from greed. There's nothing wrong in approaching the Lord from greed.

There's nothing wrong in starting our life with prayers for boons. However, ending our life with prayers for boons means something is seriously wrong. It's a good start, but a bad end! There's nothing wrong with starting at this level.

Vivekananda says beautifully, 'It's good to be born in the church, but not to die there.' Before we die, we should grow out of it. We must become mature; we must realize other dimensions of the Divine, other dimensions of our being.

I say, 'In prayer, we pray to God; in meditation, we become God!' See, prayers give us immediate results and as we know, anything that gives immediate results has side effects. This is with respect to prayers. Praying to that higher principle or to the Divine is not wrong, yet it is not enough. Whereas in meditation, we become that higher principle or the Divine to which we constantly pour out our prayers. And this is permanent.

The Divine is nothing but a mirror; we see our own reflection. We see our reflection! And whatever we do to the Divine comes back to us. The more we understand, the more we grow and relate with the Divine in a more mature way. Otherwise we are confused and caught like a drunkard.

A small story:

A man returns home very late, completely drunk. He's not able to walk. He somehow makes his way into the house, stumbles over a table and breaks a piece of glass. Not only does he break a piece of glass, the glass cuts him badly on the back. He goes to the bathroom and tries to bandage himself, looking in the mirror. Then slowly, without making a sound, he enters the bedroom and falls asleep.

The next morning, his wife starts her enquiry: ‘What happened? What did you do last night?’

He replies, ‘I didn’t do anything. I am ok.’

The wife says, ‘No, tell me why were you late?’

He says, ‘No, no, I went and had a few drinks.’

She says, ‘That’s ok, but did you hurt yourself?’

He says, ‘No, no, I did not hurt myself.’

She asks, ‘Then why did you put so many bandages on the mirror?’

This guy, instead of putting the bandages on himself, put the bandages on the mirror.

If we are drunk, if we are unaware, we do the same thing! We do everything to the mirror. We miss where we are supposed to work. Catching the mirror and catching the form is one and the same. Catching the form is nothing but catching the mirror. If we put the bandage on the mirror, we can never be healed. The mirror should be used to find out where to put the bandage on us. We cannot heal ourselves by putting bandages on the mirror.

In the same way, we should use God or the Divine like a mirror to find out where we have a problem. The healing work should be done on us, not on the mirror. Don’t miss and try to do the healing work on the mirror. If we do that we miss whole thing.

A man who is centered on greed, is stuck with Lakshmi, stuck with prayers.

This reminds me of another story, a true incident.

A small-time astrologer used to visit the Bangalore ashram. Suddenly, one day he came to the ashram in a car. In India, owning a car is a luxury.

I asked, ‘What happened? Suddenly you have a new car. Did you win a lottery?’

He replied, ‘No Master, it’s the grace of Lakshmi yantra (yantra means instrument and Lakshmi means wealth; so Lakshmi yantra refers to an instrument giving wealth). It’s because of Lakshmi yantra.’

I asked him, ‘Who gave you the yantra? I have never heard of something called Lakshmi yantra. Who gave it to you?’

He said, ‘Nobody gave it to me Master. I give it to people!’

Whether the person who received Lakshmi yantra became rich or not, the person who made money selling it became rich!

When you are caught in greed, it is easy for others to exploit you.

So be very clear: starting life with prayers is ok, it’s a good start, but it’s not the right place to end.

At the next level, the person is centered on fear and worships gods who will protect him. He is continuously centered on fear. Continuously he does Sudarshana homa (homa refers to making offerings into a consecrated fire and Sudarshana homa refers to homa done for general protection), continuously he does Mrityunjaya homa (homa done to avoid untimely death and improve longevity) for gods who will protect him. He goes around the navagraha (the shrine of the nine planets collectively known as the navagraha, found in most Hindu temples). He circumambulates the navagraha. This graha (planet), that graha, this pooja, that pooja, this dosha (defect), that dosha; he continuously goes around the navagraha. It's ok, nothing is wrong, but it's not the place to stop. The second level is worshipping the Divine based on fear, approaching the Divine because of fear.

Approaching the Divine out of greed is the first step. Approaching the Divine out of fear is the next step.

The third level is, approaching the Divine because of worry. Again worry is nothing but fear and greed. The mixture of fear and greed is worry. We approach the Divine the same way. We pray to the Divine: 'Please help me stop worrying. Please help me come out of these worries.' At this point, we may do yoga or meditation for the sake of peace - not for spiritual enlightenment, but to calm our mind, to get a little peace and give rest to the mind.

The next level is based on attention-need. It is based on name and fame, i.e. we approach the Divine for the

sake of name and fame. Not only do we pray to the Divine, we gradually start representing the Divine. I have seen many people who start representing the Divine. If you go to India, you see that people who run temples behave almost like God. It's a big problem. The person who runs the temple thinks he is God because he takes care of the whole thing. He knows the tricks of the trade. He thinks, 'I am everything. When I know the whole thing, why not use the situation to my best advantage?' That's a big problem.

I tell people: unless you are mature, never take up the task of running a temple. One person asked me, 'I don't believe in spirituality, I am not a spiritual person. However, I want to run a temple as a social service. I want to do it as a social service. Shall I do it?'

I told him, 'Never make that mistake! Never do it. If you are not spiritually mature and you enter this work, surely you will trouble yourself and you will trouble others. By and by, it will become a pure name-and-fame game! And naturally you will not only hurt yourself, you will hurt others. Never take up the responsibility unless you are spiritually mature.'

There's a beautiful ritual performed during the installation of a deity in a temple, called prana pratishtha. The scriptural instruction is that the person who installs the deity must be enlightened. Otherwise, the person who installs the deity receives the collective negativity of people who pray in that temple. It's a frightening idea.

It may be a frightening idea, but don't think it's a lie. It has meaning. The person who takes up this job without spiritual maturity will naturally end up with name and fame problems. He creates problems for himself and others. He starts representing the Divine. He puts himself in the place of the Divine and acts on behalf of the Divine.

The people who stand and pray in front of God, the deity, are gullible because they are caught in fear and greed. You can easily exploit them. You can make them do what you want them to do because they are already in trouble. They wait for a solution. They search for a solution. So naturally you can take them for a ride. That is the reason why again and again and again, it is emphasized that only an enlightened person should run a spiritual organization. Enlightened persons run all the major temples of India.

Often we are told that if we give a business project to a monk, he destroys it since he will be unable to do it. If we give a spiritual project to a householder or businessman, he turns the whole thing into a business. He makes the whole thing into a matter of accounts. The Divine cannot be brought under accounts and mathematical calculations! The whole thing loses its spirit. The spirit is lost. The original spirit and inspiration with which the whole thing was created will not be realized.

That is why Masters emphasize again and again that we need spiritual maturity before we enter into these activities. Spiritual maturity is the basic need. Don't come to the Divine for name and fame. You miss it and you mess it.

The next is comparison and jealousy. This is an extreme step. It's an extreme step. People always compare. People feel jealous of others' position, their status or their wealth. A person who compares and is jealous can never rest. Look into what makes us run in our lives. Why do we feel like running, running, running continuously? Why are we in a hurry? Why do you think we run?

There is a beautiful verse that says, 'Just as a monkey-charmer makes a monkey dance using a stick, Parashakti (the Universal intelligence) or maya makes us dance with a single stick called jealousy.' With one stick, She makes us dance. We all dance all kinds of dances because of one stick! The moment we think somebody has more than we do, we hurry. We are in a hurry!

A small story:

A man enters a bar and orders five drinks. Without pausing, he gulps down all five glasses.

The bartender asks, 'Why are you in a hurry?'

The guy replies, 'You would also be in a hurry, if you had what I have.'

The bartender asks sympathetically, 'What is the problem? What do you have?'

The guy says, 'I have only 50 cents.'

Don't be in a hurry! This guy says, 'I have only 50 cents.' If we are in a hurry, please be very clear, we have only 50 cents. We don't trust ourselves. That is why we run, run and run. We don't think we can achieve by being relaxed. We don't trust our energy. We hurry because we only have 50 cents. We want to grab and finish everything before the other person realizes we have only 50 cents. We don't want someone to see that we are inadequate. Don't be in a hurry! We don't need to run. If we are centered on jealousy and comparison, again we approach the Divine from that angle and only for that purpose.

I have seen some people who run temples in India boast: 'Only in my temple, we have a hundred foot high tower; in my temple, we have diamond crowns and twenty-four carat gold crowns. I have this, I have that!' With the Divine also, people boast and compare.

Why talk about temples? We do this in our homes. In San Jose, I visited a devotee. He took me to his prayer room and started explaining. He had ten photographs. However, for each photo he gave at least half an hour's explanation.

He said: 'No copy of this photograph exists anywhere else on planet Earth.'

I asked, 'How is that possible? There must be at least a few prints.'

He said, 'No! All other prints are destroyed! This is the only print available.'

It is hard to imagine the extent of foolishness people go to and what type of things they do if they are caught in jealousy and comparison. One goes on and on bragging: this is mine; that is mine; this is the way I do it, etc.

We need to realize that each of us is unique. God is not a machinist; He is an artist. He sculpts each of us with His hands lovingly and uniquely. Therefore, each one is different.

When we approach the Divine with the mentality of jealousy and comparison, we are caught again. People ask me, 'Master, in our epics, the puranas, we read about gods and goddesses fighting out of jealousy and greed, out of anger. What do you say about that?'

Please be very clear, those puranas were written for people caught in jealousy, so that they could relate with them. Don't think that the Divine has done those things. I don't think the Divine would have made those mistakes. But if people think the Divine has also made those mistakes, they relate with Him.

That is why again and again we do the marriage rituals for God. If people feel He is married, they feel comfortable and safe. People feel, 'Yes, I can relate with Him now. He is like me.' To give feelings of comfort, to make people feel relaxed, these stories are told and these things are expressed. So, it makes it easier for people to relate with Him.

You see, unless the Divine is expressed in our language, we will not be able to relate with Him. That is why these puranas, all these stories, are written and given to us.

Next is the person who is centered on the ego. This is difficult. The person who is centered on ego, the person who is centered on name and fame, tries to accumulate name and fame in the guise of the Divine. The person who is centered on name and fame starts claiming that he is divine without expressing the qualities of the Divine.

That is why there's a beautiful Upanishad verse that says: if you are divine, express it by your quality. Let people recognize it by your quality, not by your words.

Believe me, what you do speaks for you; what you speak will not do anything for you. What you do, the way in which you work, speaks for you. Your words will not work for you.

There's a short, beautiful Upanishad called Paramahamsa Upanishad. It says Paramahamsa should not wear kavi cloth (safron robe). Actually, technically speaking, I am not supposed to wear this kavi cloth. They say we are not respected if we wear this kavi cloth.

By our quality, we should be respected. Because of our quality, because of our divinity we should be respected. The divine qualities expressed in our life, that alone should be respected, and not this cloth. The respect should not come because of this kavi cloth and tradition. It should come because of the enlightened qualities expressed in our life.

Yesterday there was a question: How do we know if a person is egoistic or a real spiritual Master?

A person who is egoistic can only play with words. Only a person who has achieved can reproduce the experience in you. A person who has achieved creates the experience in you. If you get the experience, then be very clear your Master is enlightened, divine. He's the embodiment of spiritual experience and knowledge. If you get words but not the experience, be very clear, something is seriously wrong in the path or in the person you follow.

Words are like the menu card. Experience is like the food. If you go to a restaurant and they give you a menu card and say, 'The food is not available here,' can you call that a restaurant? No! The menu card is not enough; your hunger cannot be removed by it. Words are like the menu card. Experience is like the food. Be very clear, in spiritual life we cannot stop with a menu card.

The person who has approached the Divine with ego always tries to represent the Divine without having the solid experience in himself. That is why the Upanishad again and again emphasize experience. If we don't experience, be very clear there's something seriously wrong with the person whom we follow.

I always tell my listeners: if you have not experienced anything with me, forgive me, there's something seriously wrong with me. Forget about everything. You are not wrong. It's easy to put the blame and responsibility on disciples and continuously blame them by saying: you are not qualified, you are not practising perfectly, you are not practising regularly, you have not tried, and that is why you have not had any experience.

This is a cunning way of cheating the disciple and evading the truth. The disciple comes to a guru because the disciple is not perfect. And the guru says, 'You are imperfect and that is why you do not have spiritual experiences.' To learn this, one doesn't need a guru: a spouse is sufficient! Because this is what they tell each other continuously. From morning till night, that's what the wife tells the husband or the other way around. She doesn't need a guru to tell her that she is imperfect; her husband will do.

A true Master will reproduce in you the same experience that happened in him, no matter what your condition.

A scientist is a person who creates a formula to reproduce what he experienced in the outer world. A spiritual Master or a mystic is a person who creates a formula to reproduce his experience in the inner world. For example, Newton saw an apple fall from a tree and he understood something. He created a formula to reproduce the same understanding in everybody else. Likewise, a Master or a mystic creates formulas or

techniques to reproduce the same experience that happened to Him in everybody else.

I always tell people: if you have not experienced anything by attending our meditation programs and meditation camps, be very clear, something is wrong with me, not with you. Forget about me; carry on with your life. You may meet some other Master.

I am enlightened only if you can experience my enlightenment, not otherwise. Before that, it's only a word, a menu card. A menu card will not help you. It cannot remove your hunger. It can only create more hunger. It can only create more trouble. So don't stop with the menu card. What you hear is only the menu card. Don't stop with the menu card; aim directly at the Divine.

The person who approaches the Divine with ego gets everything and boosts his ego. He never surrenders to the Divine. He becomes more egoistic. His ego becomes stronger. He strengthens his ego by getting all the knowledge.

Be very clear, these are the most dangerous people. The most dangerous people! Instead of surrendering their ego to the Divine, they strengthen their ego with their knowledge. Knowledge can be used in two ways. With this knowledge, you can surrender to the Divine; or with this knowledge, you can make others surrender to you! For both these purposes it can be used. It's up to you how you use it.

A small story.

A king goes to the forest to hunt. Suddenly he sees more than fifty trees with the target mark: marked circles within circles, like a bull's eye. In the center, there is an arrow. There are target marks and an arrow pierced exactly in the center. He sees so many target marks and the arrow exactly in the center. He wants to find out who has mastered the art of archery. 'Who is this person? He must be a great master. He must have mastered the art. He must be like Arjuna,' thinks the king.

Suddenly he sees a young boy with bow and arrows; the same colored arrows that he saw at the target marks.

He asks, 'Are you the person who shot the arrows?'

The boy replies, 'Yes, I am the person.'

The happy king congratulates him saying, 'From this day onwards, I appoint you as commander-in-chief of my army. I appreciate your mastery over archery, your power, and your capacity. Please tell me how you mastered such a great art at such a young age. How did you achieve perfection at such a young age?'

The boy replies, 'It's simple. First I shot the arrow, and then I marked the circles. That's all!'

Be very clear, if we approach the Divine with ego, we do the same thing. Instead of aiming at the center, we shoot arrows and then create the circles. Instead of aiming at the center, we create the center according to our aim. When we approach the Divine with ego, instead of surrendering our ego, we strengthen our ego with knowledge. And it is dangerous.

The next level is the ultimate. When we go to the Divine with gratitude, with ultimate gratitude, the whole relationship takes a different turn. It takes a different turn! We feel so grateful, so deeply connected with the Divine that our whole life changes.

We move from first level of greed, where we pray to boon-giving gods, to the next level of fear where the gods who can protect us appeal to us. That's why tribal gods have big swords. In many Indian villages also, you see gods with swords and big weapons. People who are fear-centered worship gods with weapons.

The next is worry. Buddha appeals to us if we are centered on worry. Buddha appeals most, gods or gurus who give us peace appeal to us. To the person who is centered on name and fame, gods who give name and fame appeal most.

In the same way as with gods, people also approach Masters from all these levels.

I have seven kinds of disciples: One, people who approach me out of greed; two, people who approach me out of fear; three, people who approach me out of worry; four, people who approach me for name and fame; five, people who approach me out of jealousy and comparison (comparison in terms of: ‘That guru has only one or two ashrams. This guru has more ashrams at a young age. He must be a big guru.’). Six, people who approach me out of ego, to strengthen their ego by saying, ‘I am a disciple of Nithyananda Swami. I am close to him. He knows my name. He calls me by name.’ Just to have ego satisfaction they come to me. Finally, seven - there are a few, very few who approach me out of gratitude.

There’s one more problem with people who approach me out of greed. Not only do they have greed, they also have their ideas and fantasies about a Master: their own frame. They come with a frame and see whether this person fits that frame or not. I face a big problem because of my age. My age is a big problem.

An incident that happened in our Indian ashram:

One day I was sitting outdoors in the ashram. I was sitting alone, without my turban. Nobody was around me. I sat alone on a small stone, enjoying the cool breeze. Our ashram is located next to a forest. Bears and cheetah come in from the forest area. I was sitting there on a stone, enjoying the cool breeze. One well-read, elderly pundit (scholar) came to me and asked, ‘I want to meet Swamiji. Where is he?’ I told him, ‘Please go and sit in the Ananda Sabha (meditation hall). He will come in half an hour.’ He went and sat in the meditation hall.

In those days, I used to sit alone; there were not many people in the ashram. He went and sat in the hall. After half an hour, I wore my turban and rudraksha (rosary beads) and went there and was about to sit in my chair. He said, 'No, no, I want to meet the big Swamiji. I want to meet Guruji (Master).'

I said, 'Please forgive me. In this ashram I am the Swami. Whom do you want to meet?' He said, 'I have heard about Nithyananda Swami. He healed my cousin. I want to see him.' Then I told him his cousin's name and the disease he had and that I had healed him. I told him, 'I am Nithyananda Swami.' You will be surprised; he was not ready to believe me. He just looked at me.

Then I said, 'Usually, we don't carry ID card (identity card). Usually in India, swamis don't carry ID card. Still, if you can't believe, look at that photograph (on the ashram signboard). See the name, and see that face. I am that swami! I can't say anything more to convince you.'

You will be surprised! I tell you, this is the truth. He said, 'I am not ready to learn from you.' He did not speak to me, but went away. He went away. Because of his strong fantasies and strong imagination about what a guru should be like, he was not able to relate with me.

When we have a strong imagination, we will not be able to relate with the reality. It will be difficult to relate with the reality. He went away. He said, 'I have nothing to ask you about, nothing to talk to you about,' and he went away. When we can't drop our strong imagination, naturally we won't be able to relate with reality. It is the same with fear; people who come with fear will never be able to get rid of that fear. They will be stuck with that.

At different levels, people approach the Master or God. The more mature we are, the more we feel connected to that person who will give us fulfilment. When we become mature, when we are above fear and greed, please be very clear, we approach the same Master, the same God, with more maturity, with more intimacy. We feel deeply connected.

In Bhagavatam (an Indian epic), we learn about five different attitudes with which we normally relate with a Master or with God:

1) Dasa bhava - seeing God as a lord or master and oneself as a servant, as with Hanuman who saw Rama as his master and served Him as a sadhana (path for liberation)

2) Vatsalya bhava - seeing God as a Divine child, as with Yashoda who saw Krishna as her son

3) Sakha bhava - seeing God or the Master as a friend, the way Arjuna related with Krishna

4) Matru bhava - seeing God or the Master as a father or mother, the way Ramakrishna related with Goddess Kali (representation of the Mother of the Universe).

Ramakrishna really felt Goddess Kali was his mother. He always tasted the food before offering it to Goddess Kali. The temple organizers reprimanded him, 'No, you cannot do this. It is sacrilegious! You cannot offer food to God after you have eaten the food.'

Ramakrishna said, 'If you say that, I will leave the temple. I have no problem. But I cannot give food to my mother, food to the Divine, unless I taste it first. Unless I know it is good food, I cannot give it to my mother. I have no problem in leaving the temple and worshipping from outside. But I will not stop what I am doing.'

Ramakrishna deeply felt that Goddess Kali was his mother.

5) Finally, the fifth attitude is madhura bhava - seeing God as a beloved, the way Radha saw Krishna. This attitude needs a tremendous amount of maturity. Only if we experience the consciousness which is beyond body, can we relate with the Divine with the attitude of a beloved, madhura bhava.

These are the five different bhavas (attitudes) with which people relate with the Divine. With different maturity levels, different attitudes suit our minds. According to our maturity, our attitude differs. The more mature we are, the more the gratitude happens. The less the maturity, the more we fill our life with prayers. Prayer religion is greed; confession religion is fear!

That is why I say, ‘Gratitude is the greatest prayer, and thank you, the greatest mantra.’

Next, when we go beyond prayer and confession, we experience gratitude. We experience the Divine. Krishna explains how we can grow step-by-step, how we can reach the ultimate maturity, how we can create and experience the Divine on the ultimate level. He explains step-by-step.

Let’s see how Krishna explains. What is technique Krishna offers us to grow in maturity and experience eternal consciousness?

Based on how we approach the Divine, the community system is created. Only based on how mature we are, the whole community system has been created. How much we share with society depends on how mature we are. With the same maturity, we approach God also.

If we miss money, if we feel money is missing in our lives, we go to the God who gives money. If we miss knowledge, we go to Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge), who gives knowledge. If we feel insecure, we go to the god who protects us. We go to Durga or Kali. If we miss spiritual experience, the ultimate experience, then we go to the ultimate Divine. We go to the divine incarnations, the ultimate expressions of the Divine.

Krishna says, ‘Four types of people come to Me - Chaturvidha bhajante mam.’ He explains four communities. The first are the people who are distressed, i.e., the working class or workers. The second are the people who desire wealth, i.e., business people or vaishya. The third are inquisitive people who continuously enquire, continuously say, ‘Tatah kim? Tatah kim? Tatah Kim?’ (What next? What next? What next?) A kshatriya, for example, never rests because he constantly asks, ‘What next? What next? What next?’ The fourth is the person who searches for knowledge of the Absolute: he is a brahmana.

‘All four come to Me, all four reach Me, but from different levels.’ Please be very clear, from different levels all four go to the same God, but they will not experience Him in the same way. They experience Him in different ways.

You may go to the same god or a different god, but according to your maturity, you experience the Divine. As long as you are caught in fear or greed, you go to those types of gods. You will be attracted to only those types of gods.

That is why again and again I tell people: ‘It is easy to go to a temple and pray, but difficult to go to a Master and meditate. It’s for mature people, not for everyone.’ In the temple we see thousands; but in spiritual places, we see a few hundred. It is not for all; it’s a luxury.

Spirituality is a luxury; only a few intelligent people can afford it. The price of spirituality is the limit of our suffering! Only if we have had enough suffering can we afford to get into spirituality. If we have not had enough suffering, or if we have not understood that we have had enough suffering, we cannot enter spirituality. It's only for people who have suffered, who have understood that they have suffered. There are two things: it is not only the suffering, but understanding that we suffer. This is what I call intelligence. Both are needed to enter into spiritual life. Spirituality is a luxury. It's not for all. Religion is for everybody. Only a few mature people can enter spirituality.

The person who approaches Me out of love and gratitude, he is the best person, for I am dear to him and he is dear to Me. By this one shloka, Krishna ends the whole conversation, the whole concept.

Krishna says, 'Starting at different levels is ok, but don't stop there. Don't stop there.' We can start or take off from any level. However we should not stop and stagnate. This hinders growth. A simple analogy can be stated here. It is like failing to proceed to the second standard from the first; not only that, it is also not making an attempt to move onto the next levels. We want to stay in the same cozy, familiar level.

It takes many lifetimes to understand and achieve this maturity. However, we should not think, 'Let me take some more lives to become mature. What is the hurry?!'

When I say it takes many lives, some think, 'Let me take some more lives and become mature.' Now, that's a big problem. Whenever we speak, we must make it clear, otherwise you can't imagine how many different ways people interpret it.

A small story.

Once, a great Bhagavatam scholar recounted the story of Harishchandra. Most people in India know the story of Harishchandra, a king who lived for truth and sold his wife for the sake of truth. Just to keep his promise, he sold his wife, such was this great person.

The scholar recited the whole story. After narrating the story, he asked one person, 'What did you understand from this story?'

The person said, 'Master, I understood that truth is the most important thing in life. We should give up everything for truth. Truth is the ultimate.'

The pundit was pleased. He asked the next person, 'What did you understand?'

The man said, 'Master, I understood that in an emergency, it is ok to sell your wife!'

From the same story, two people have two different understandings. So be very clear, don't miss the understanding.

A common saying is, 'As many Masters, so many paths.' However I say, 'As many disciples, so many paths!'

The Master may utter the same truth to His disciples, yet each understands and interprets in his/her own way. Again, the understanding depends on the maturity of the person receiving the truths. They all approach the Divine, but from different planes. Hence the attitude with which one approaches matters a lot. Based on that one experiences the Divine differently. If we miss the understanding, we misunderstand.

Here Krishna says, 'Out of these, the wise is always devoted to Me. He is the best person.' To start with, you can start at any level, yet you must strive to reach the Ultimate. And, one more thing I want to make clear is, please don't think, 'Oh! Krishna says it will take many lives; let me take some more lives and become mature.'

NO! If you can enter into the knowledge this moment, the experience can happen to you. You don't need to postpone.

Every moment is a new birth for you. Every moment is death and every moment is birth. The outgoing breath is death, and the incoming breath is birth. So be very clear, every moment you die and take birth. This moment can be a new birth for you. The person who understands this truth takes a new birth. He is called dvija.

A person who is initiated is called dvija in Sanskrit, which means twice-born or reborn. All sannyasi are twice-born or dvija. They are the reborn or born-again people. ‘Reborn’ does not refer to being reborn physically, but at the being level. At the being level, they have taken a new birth. They give birth to themselves. They become newborn beings. So understand that in this moment, a new birth can happen to you.

Krishna says: aham sa cha mama priyah - He is dear to Me, and I am dear to him. He is in Me and I am in him. Krishna says beautifully that He is in you and you are in Him. The moment you understand this Ultimate Truth, the moment you approach the Divine with the right attitude, you become the Divine. All you need to do is change your attitude. Over! Change your attitude and the whole thing is done.

One more thing you must understand. The Master or the Divine is in you only when you engage yourself in service to Him. Sitting in front of the Master or the Divine, gazing at and enjoying the form, is not the service Krishna talks about. You chase Him, no doubt, but from a purely selfish nature.

When you devote yourself to the Divine mission, you become a devotee. That is when you become dear to Him. Your worship is no longer selfish. It is towards the mission of the Divine, in whatever form.

I tell my followers: stop sitting in front of me, gazing at my form and waiting for words to drop. Work for my mission. Help me transform people. As long as you sit and gaze, you chase me. When you work for my mission, I chase you. I shall always be with you.

When the scriptures say, 'Follow the Master,' they do not mean to follow the form. They advise you to follow the teachings of the Master, so that you can be the Master, too. They tell you to follow the institution of the Master, his community.

That is why the Buddhist prayer says:

Buddham does not refer to the man, Buddha; it refers to state of Buddha; dhammam are His teachings and sangham is His institution. When we follow these three, which define the Master's mission, we are on the path to liberation.

This is an important statement. Only after many births and deaths can we relate with an enlightened person. We will not be able to relate with an enlightened person, an enlightened Master, unless we undergo many births and deaths.

I told you about the seven steps in spiritual progress:

1) go around many temples, perform many rituals, pilgrimages, etc; 2) do rituals by yourself; 3) concentrate on one God; 4) instead of rituals, do japa (chanting), repeat stotra (verses in praise of God); 5) instead of japa and stotra, visualize His form and meditate; 6) instead of meditating on any form, fall into the same consciousness, realize that that form and your atman are one and the same. God and the atman are one and the same; 7) experience Reality.

Don't think these seven steps will be done in one lifetime. People take hundreds of lives to achieve this maturity. It is rare to achieve this maturity. Krishna says: sa mahatma sudurlabhahò - indeed, very rare is it to see such souls who have achieved that maturity.

It's easy to relate with gods in the temple because they don't demand that we are pure. They don't demand discipline from us. We can pray to Him, do whatever we want, and think He has blessed us and go away. However, relating with a living enlightened Master is difficult.

People ask me, 'Why do Masters become popular after their death?' After death, all Masters become popular because it's easy to cheat ourselves with a photograph. We can keep His photograph and do whatever we want and think these are His teachings. And we will have no problem. There is nobody to question us. There is nobody to ask us anything. We can do whatever we want and project everything as His blessings, and we can play with the photograph. It is easy. There is nobody to catch us, nobody to discipline us. It's easy to play with the photograph. That is why dead Masters become popular.

And we don't have to give up our ego with dead Masters. Just keep a photograph, put a garland, do aarti (offering a lit flame); then go and do whatever we want. Sometimes we sit under that photograph and represent him. No problem! It's easy. The whole game is easy. Nothing needs to be done. The whole game is nothing but ego fulfilling. And it's a nice game!

Connecting with dead Masters is easy because they don't demand our ego. We don't need to surrender. Nothing needs to be done. That is why there will be large crowds with dead Masters and temples. The crowd will be so much because nothing needs to be done. All we need to do is think that we have done everything and we are blessed.

But with a living Master, we need to transform our life. We must transform our life. We need to experience the truth. He will not let us sleep. He will not let us rest. He will haunt us until we realize the truth. He will not let us do what we want. He will not fulfil our ego.

I always tell people, ‘Old Masters are dead. The living Master is Death!’

The living Master will be Death for us. He will be Death for our ego. And we cannot play our games with him. We cannot play our games with him. We must grow. We must become mature beings. Nothing can be done. We cannot play the same old game and put his name in front. He makes us wake up. He shakes us. He awakens us.

Somebody asked the enlightened sage Ramana Maharishi: 'If this whole world is maya (illusion), I see the Master also in the same dream, I see the enlightened person also in the same dream, I see You also in the same dream. How is it going to help me?'

Ramana Maharishi said: 'If we see a lion in our dream, what happens? We wake up immediately from our dream. In the same way, if we see a Master, be very clear, we wake up from our dream. Master is a simha swapna (lion-dream or nightmare).

Masters are nightmares. That is why we are afraid. People are afraid to come near Masters. With living Masters, it is difficult. We can't continue to play our game. We can't play the same game, and do whatever we want. The game can't be ours. The game will be His. We cannot play our game. We must act according to His script. He is the director. That is why it's difficult to fall in tune with a living Master.

Only a person who has understood, after many, many births and deaths, who has matured, who has enough knowledge, surrenders to Me, surrenders to the living Master.

In India, especially in Tamil Nadu, kids play with wooden dolls. They have four to five dolls. I have seen kids play. For one doll, they drape a sari and say, 'This is Mother.' They dress another in a dhoti and say, 'This is Father.' For another doll, they put on a skirt and say, ‘This is Sister.’ They dress another doll in trousers and say, ‘This is Brother.’

And they start their game: they say, ‘Mother is cooking,’ and they take the mother doll and make it stand near the toy kitchen. They say, ‘Father is going to office,’ and place the father doll in a small car, and they will drive it, too. They make honking sounds, ‘peem... peem...’ to give an effect of a real life scenario, and take the car to office. And then, after a few minutes they say, ‘Sister is going to school.’ They place the sister doll in the toy car and move it around. Sister goes to school. They cry and make sounds as though Sister cries because she doesn’t want to go to school.

They enact the scenes of the game. And then they say: ‘Now it is evening, Sister comes back from school.’ They bring Sister back. They bring Father back and say, ‘Father comes back from office.’

This seems like a game for kids. They may be playing. But please understand, you play the same game. You catch somebody and say, ‘You are my mother, you are my father, you are my wife, you are my husband, you are my son, you are my sister, and you are my brother.’

And if that doll doesn’t behave according to your frame or your image, you say it’s not a good doll, this is not a good toy, and you throw it away. Sometimes, children hurt themselves with dolls and say, ‘This doll hurt me.’ They don’t realize that they took the doll and

poked it into their eyes. They complain: this doll hurt me. They cry. In the same way, when somebody doesn't behave according to your frame, you feel they hurt you.

To you, a sister means a certain kind of person, you have an idea that a sister should behave like this or like that. A mother means - you have an idea of how a mother should be. Similarly, a wife; you have an idea about how a wife should be. You want all the dolls to play their role. When somebody doesn't play their role well, you throw them out of the gate. You don't want to play with that doll.

Suddenly, you die. You leave the body.

When you go to another place, in your next birth, you again catch one more set of dolls and start the same game: my father, my husband, my wife, my daughter, my son, my brother, my sister - and the game starts. You play the same game. Continuously, you play the same game. Sometimes you bring dolls into the game, sometimes you throw dolls out, sometimes you fire them and sometimes you enjoy them. And if you don't have enough dolls, you get some cats or dogs to play with. And now you have everything to play the game. And now that you have everything, continuously you play, you play, and you play.

Suddenly, again you die. When you die again, you assume another body. With that body, you catch one more set of people and play the same game!

Again and again and again, you play the same game. Only a person who is a little mature thinks, 'How many times will I play this same game? What am I doing? How many times will I do this same psychodrama?'

Please understand that the whole thing is a psychodrama! The whole thing is a psychodrama. Whether it is a relationship, or whether it is life itself, it is nothing but a psychodrama. You have an agenda. Society has taught you that, as a father, you should behave like this; as a husband you should behave like this; as a son you should behave like this. As long as you follow the agenda, you are considered a good citizen.

When, even once, you don't follow that agenda, you are not respected. All the other dolls kick you out of the gate. They tell you that you are not accepted in the game. You are not allowed in this game anymore. You are not invited to parties. That is what is called boycotting. They boycott you and then suddenly one day you realize, 'How many times am I doing the same drama; again and again and again the same game!'

The person who understands that he is doing the same drama, playing the same game again and again, has achieved knowledge: gnanavan mam prabadyate. Gnanavan means the person who has achieved knowledge, the real intelligence about what is happening. Then naturally you surrender. Vasudeva sarvam; you surrender unto Me.

One who understands that the cause of all causes is Me, realizes the ultimate Divine. He realizes thus, 'How

many times will I undergo the same drama? How many times will I make the same mistakes?' Until this realization, the whole thing is repeated again and again without end, without the experience.

The person who has understood, who has knowledge of this truth, surrenders unto Me, surrenders to the Master, an enlightened being, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all there is. Such a great soul is rare.

Only a person who has achieved this knowledge relates with the Master in a real sense. Only he sees the Master in a real way. Please be very clear, there's a beautiful verse that says, 'Even if you have seen an enlightened Master once, you will become enlightened.'

Some people come back and ask me, 'Why haven't I become enlightened yet, Master?' Be very clear, 'Never think that you are seeing me; never think that by seeing through your eyes, you can see the Divine. You can see my form, but not me. Even if you have seen many enlightened Masters, never think that you have seen them. Just by seeing through your eyes, never ever think that you have seen them.'

Even if you have seen them, the attitude with which you have seen them plays a major role. If you went to them with greed, you went to a demigod and not to an enlightened Master. If you have gone out of fear, again you have approached a demigod, not an enlightened Master. Only if you go with an attitude of love and gratitude, understanding and maturity, only then do you see a living Master, only then do you see an enlightened person. The moment you see an enlightened being AS HE IS, you WILL become enlightened. There's no doubt about it.

Q: Master, I am never comfortable with the status quo; I need to always work towards something, to keep myself busy. Once I am there, I need to move again. Am I on the path, as you say, since I seem to be dissatisfied with the end result?

Interesting! If you are truly on the path and focused on the path, you enjoy the path. You will not be dissatisfied with what you get at the end. Whatever you receive, wherever you reach will be satisfying. That is what Krishna means by detachment, neither attachment and liking, nor aversion and dislike.

Life is a gift, birth is a gift, love is a gift, and death is a gift. If we know how to appreciate them, all are gifts. If we don't know how to appreciate them, there will be nothing but complaints in life. There are two types of people: 1) those who know how to appreciate the beauty of that which is, of that which has been given to them, and 2) those who have no sense of appreciation. They condemn, complain, and ask for more and more.

Only the first kind of people becomes spiritual. The second kind becomes religious. The second kind is bound to deny God sooner or later, because God becomes an enemy who does not fulfill their desires. These people created the proverb, 'Man proposes, God disposes.' Non-spiritual people create such proverbs. They feel frustrated. Whatever happens is wrong. It is never up to the mark. It is never fulfilling, and never to their heart's content; it falls short. They live in misery because there is a grudge, as if they are deprived of something. How can they feel grateful? And without gratitude there is no prayer. Without gratitude there is no spirituality.

Gratitude is the foundation of spirituality. It is the experience of surrender born out of gratitude that becomes the experience of God. The seed of prayer is gratitude. You feel grateful because great is the gift of God and it constantly showers on us. Most of us take it for granted. That is one of the most stupid things that a human being can do, but the mind always does it: it takes things for granted. The sun rises and the dawn has tremendous beauty. But the mind says, 'So what? It happens every day. It is just another morning like the others.'

This is how the mind looks at things. It becomes insensitive: insensitive to beauty, insensitive to music, insensitive to poetry, insensitive to love, insensitive to everything that is valuable. Then naturally we live in darkness. We live in ugliness. We get used to it since it is our own creation.

Start feeling grateful. Cultivate the sense of appreciation. Praise Existence for what has already been done and then much more will happen to you. The more we praise, the more we become capable of seeing, the more perceptive we become. A prayerful person becomes so perceptive that he sees God everywhere. He finds God's signature everywhere and in everything!

We have forgotten who we are. We have become ignorant of our divine nature. That is our Original Sin. Because we have forgotten ourselves we have forgotten all that is ours, the inner Kingdom of God that is our home. The Garden of Eden is not somewhere else. It is in the innermost center of our being. It is in fact our natural habitat. Yet we behave as if it is a strange territory. We are not even aware how to find it.

Bliss results when you find your natural habitat. You are in bliss when you reach your center. It is only for those who are courageous, daring and brave because bliss happens only when we have moved beyond the known into the unknown. Whenever we become confined to the known, our life becomes routine, repetitive. It goes on moving in the same rut. It goes around in circles, and slowly it dulls our sensitivities, our receptivity. It hardens people. It makes them blind; it makes them deaf. It makes them dumb because there is nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to taste and nothing to feel. They have known it all. It is the same repetition. How can there be bliss in such a life? Such a life has only one taste: misery, depression, and a sadness that is a resigned sadness.

But if one is courageous enough to move continuously from the known into the unknown, from the familiar into the unfamiliar, one goes beyond misery. It is risky, because the familiar is secure, safe. And who knows what will happen if we go into the unknown, into the uncharted sea? We take our small boat and we go into the uncharted sea. Who knows if we will come back to the old shore again? Who can give us a guarantee? There is no guarantee.

But unless one is ready to risk oneself, one cannot remain blissful. This is the Master's whole work. It is to help us in what we believe to be a risky path. It is to help us get out of the mind, to put the mind into deep silence so that the heart can function, to come closer to the heart so that we can hear its message.

Q: I hear what you say about the caste system, that it is based on gunas or qualities and not on birth, and that all castes are equal, etc. Yet today it does not work that way. There are many other cultures that treat each other better than we do here. Still you say that we are one of the most civilized cultures. I am unable to reconcile the reality with the truth of what you have presented.

Wonderful. This is a doubt that has arisen from your being. I bow down to that. What you have expressed is a plea. You say, 'Please let me understand what this means, I am confused.'

I salute your question and you, because you come from the level of Arjuna, appealing to the Master, ‘Please clear my doubt. Let me be at peace.’ I salute you as well as your question, because when I answer I do not answer your question, I answer you, your being. Where you come from is not violence; it is a genuine dilemma.

In the Vedic system we had two kinds of scriptures: shruti and smriti. Shruti was the truth as experienced by enlightened Masters, that they transmitted personally to disciples. Shruti means ‘what is heard.’ The Veda and Upanishad were the primary shruti. These truths are timeless and beyond space. They are not historical facts; they are experiential truths.

However, your experiential truth may not be that of another person, and it certainly will not be that of an enlightened Master. So, even while studying shruti, the inviolable truths, there is often a problem of understanding and acceptance. If Krishna says that the spirit cannot be destroyed, you wonder, ‘What is He talking about? What is the spirit, where is the spirit, I do not see one.’

You need to reach the no-mind state of an enlightened Master to understand the meaning of their expressions, which are the shruti. That is why there are many interpretations of the Vedic scriptures, the shruti. Unenlightened beings casually interpret these sacred truths with no understanding. Many cannot even understand the language these were written in.

Sanskrit is not an easy language to learn. That is why it is called the language of the gods. It has many subtle levels of meaning. Many foreigners have translated our Vedic shruti, either based on what was translated to them or based on their limited learning. I respect them for their curiosity. But when Indians follow the translations of foreigners - thanks to the fact that they no longer understand the language of their forefathers - we are in a tragic state.

Instead of attempting to read the original because they are too lazy, they are content to read copies. These copies were not merely made with limited understanding of the language, but often with a total misunderstanding of the culture. In many cases, this misunderstanding was deliberate. It was designed to denigrate what was said. That was the only purpose of many translations.

Under the British, many Indians became scholars. Their reputation depended on how they expressed themselves in the language of their Masters and rulers, in order to be accepted. For them the easy way out was to follow those of the ruling class whose scholarship had been established. It became a vicious cycle of slaves emulating their rulers and trying to be better than them in misinterpreting their own culture and its truths.

If you doubt me, learn Sanskrit and read the original scriptures. Then read the copies by foreigners and Indians who in turn copied them. You will find the truth for yourself.

Furthermore, understanding the language is no guarantee that we have understood these truths. These scriptural truths are established in different energy levels corresponding to the ones we live in. If we are at the gross physical level of existence, operating only within bounds of the material world, that is the level at which we understand the truth expressed.

However, these truths were expressed at the highest energy level, the nirvanic layer of these enlightened Masters. Unless we reach that level, we cannot understand the truth of these scriptures. In our Life Bliss Programs, we take people step-by-step through these layers. When I accept someone as my disciple and initiate him, I help him access the nirvanic layer. Even that is not enough. I can help him access that point, access the truth once, and provide him the glimpse. After that it is up to the disciple's sincerity and commitment to stay there. This is what Nithya Healers and Acharyas are trained to do.

Many disciples, especially acharyas, kept asking me to talk about scriptures at levels higher than the gross physical level. I tried that once in my Ashtavakra Gita discourses. You can ask them how many understood or even made an attempt.

Many read these scriptures like novels. Or they use them for predictions. People open a page of the Bible or Gita as they do with the Chinese book of predictions and blindly follow what is written on the page they open. I understand that many people do that with Guaranteed Solutions, the book based on my teachings in the Life Bliss Program. If we have faith, whatever we read works well for us. This has nothing to do with the page we open.

When we immerse ourselves in the pages of a scripture with total understanding and in deep meditation, we truly understand and feel the energy of the truths. This has nothing to do with physical and literal understanding of a few words in a language. I am sure that even a monkey can be taught to understand a few words of any language. It does not need the superconscious ability of a human to do that.

All I have said so far is about Vedic shruti. Bhagavad Gita is a Vedic shruti, even though it is not a Veda or Upanishad and is a part of an epic, a purana, which in turn is considered a scripture. As we heard today, Krishna is crystal clear on the classification of this system. It is based upon our nature, the mix of our gunas, and not on our birth.

If we are to blame someone for the mess we have today, we need to look at the colonizing foreign rulers. They corrupted us and our system as part of their calculated effort to destroy our culture. The pity is that they succeeded well in that.

Today we measure someone's capability in India not by their ability to understand traditional culture and value systems, but by their ability to communicate in English and live by Western 'civilized' standards. We are proud not to be 'Indian' or follow our traditional culture. Corruption of this classification system is a result of converting a highly scientific and effective system of education and training into a hierarchical system of oppression, as a direct result of the 'Westernization' of our minds.

Many call this a varna system, varna meaning 'color' in Sanskrit. Foreign experts said that this arose from the fact that higher castes were foreign Aryan invaders who were lighter in color. It is surprising then that Vishnu and his incarnations Rama and Krishna are described as dark or blue, the color reserved by these experts for shudras, the lowest class according to them.

Understand two more things. People quote the manusmriti and similar material as proof that our scriptures differentiated among people based on caste. The Vedic religion is the only religion that separates truth from facts. The shruti are expressions of experienced truths of enlightened Masters. They remain as truths, regardless of time and space. On the other hand, smritis, like those of Manu, are man-made factual regulations. These are based upon the socio-economic conditions prevalent at a point in time and space.

The Vedic religion, sanatana dharma, what we call Hinduism today, has always accepted that smritis can change; in fact they are meant to change with changing times. What was smriti in Manu's time can no longer be true thousands of years later. People who quote smritis in defense of their criticism of Hindu practices should understand this first. If some Hindus do not accept this, it is for the sake of protecting the socio-economic benefits that have accrued over time, not because of scriptural sanctions.

In fact, as far as I know, Hinduism is the only religion that has the courage to declare that these man-made religious laws can and should change according to the changing culture. No other religion has the courage to allow a part of its compiled scriptures, its religious foundation, to change with time.

Secondly, wherever you look in this world there is a classification system. Nowhere is everyone treated equal, however civilized they call themselves. A much more recent civilization that considers itself to be the bulwark of global democracy can have nothing good to say about its treatment of minorities based on skin color and socio-economic standing. Once again it is about the conditions of birth. No country and no culture in this world have had a past that is without blame in this regard.

God is an artist not a machinist. He cast each human in a different mold, unique in potential and performance. He did not mass-produce them as robots. Herein lies the inherent problem as well. Sections of society value themselves and their skills better than others, and depending on their culture, subjugate others based on their superiority in that skill. At a time in the past, physical strength may have been the superior skill. In much of the world today, wealth is the consideration. These skill sets were also passed on as if they were birthrights. The son of a warrior became a warrior and the son of a noble, a noble.

At least in the Vedic system the criterion for classification was the child's inherent ability. It had nothing to do with birth. It had everything to do with what the child was good at. Whatever classification was chosen was ok, since nothing was considered superior or inferior. An artisan who was a shudra was as respected as a scholar who was a brahmana or a merchant who was a vaishya.

Condemning the system and eliminating it will not solve the problem. Another system will be created. This has already happened in most parts of India. The son or daughter of a political leader is considered by birth to be the future leader of the country. This has democratic sanction. Does this system set that right?

I am not a brahmana by birth. As a Master, I am beyond the gunas, beyond classifications. I have no need for any system. Let me tell you this. I salute the brahmana of this Vedic tradition who at the risk of their lives kept the Vedic tradition alive for thousands of years.

One disciple, a brahmana by birth, criticized his varna based upon his understanding of what 'education' had taught him. I stopped him. I told him about the brahmana dikshitars of Chidambaram who even today do not move

out of the limits of their sacred township. Many thousand years ago this group swore to stay and protect the scriptures in their possession. As the world around them progressed and grew richer, they could have given up this noble, but monetarily valueless occupation. In fact, it was a thankless occupation because the Tamil community had been in the forefront of denigrating the Vedic culture in this country. That is the reason why you find the largest and wealthiest expatriate community in the USA to be Tamil Brahmins who could not survive in their homeland.

You have similar communities of brahmana scholars in Varanasi and other locations who kept Vedic scholarship alive in spite of numerous handicaps. Without them, this country would have been ruined.

This is the reason I salute the Indian community system.