Be in the Self and See the Supreme🔗

6.25 Gradually, step-by-step, one should become established in the Self,

from there, one must certainly bring it under the control of the Self.

Here Krishna says that we need conviction and intelligence to be established in the Self. Why does He talk about conviction? Understand that intelligence cannot happen without a strong conviction, a strong intellectual base. That is why our eastern rishis have given us the treasure of the sastras, the foundation of knowledge. Our Vedic seers have created sastras, scriptures that give the intellectual understanding, conviction and commitment to this process. Logically, we will be clear about the questions that naturally arise. 'What is the path? What is the goal? Why do we need spirituality?' All these questions are answered logically. All these major questions are answered intellectually in the sastras. The conclusions are given to us. We need to understand a few things about the sastras. Sastras are the scriptures that take away all our doubts completely.

samsaya rakshasa nasana hastram

It means Samsaya is a rakshasa- ‘doubt is a devil.’ Once a doubt enters our mind, until we clear it, we can’t sleep, we can’t rest. The sastras help us get rid of these doubts intellectually. Unless we have complete intellectual clarity, even if we believe, our belief will be a pseudo belief. Please be very clear that our belief will be a pseudo belief. Anyone can shake our faith. Our faith will not have a strong base. Our faith is almost like a building without a foundation. If we build without a foundation, what will happen to the building? The same thing will happen to us if we don’t have the base of sastras.

Somebody asked Vivekananda, ‘What is the importance of Veda and why should we study the sastras?’

Vivekananda said, ‘If you study the sastras, all your faith, all your sincerity will become so strong, nobody can shake your faith and sincerity.’

Otherwise, any fool can tell us that what we are doing is superstitious and we will start thinking about it, we will start questioning ourselves, ‘Am I really doing superstitious things? What am I doing?’ We will start having doubts about ourselves. We won’t believe our faith. It is not solid enough.

Please understand that we don’t really believe our belief. We may think that we believe something. We may think we have faith, but our faith or belief can be cunningly shallow. It will not be very deep unless we have the foundation of intellectual conviction. Unless we have

the deep foundation of the sastras, we will not be able to believe anything. Our emotions are not deep, our faith is not deep because we don't have the intellectual conviction. A man who doesn't have intellectual conviction and has just faith, can be shaken by anybody. Sastras, the intellectual understanding, gives us a base so that all our convictions, all our faith, all our belief can enter into our being and start working.

If we see all the great devotees of the Lord - Chaitanya, Ramanuja, Madhva, all of them had a very strong intellectual base. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a great nayaika philosopher. He was a great philosopher of logic. Once we reach the height and peak of logic, only then can we fall into the valley of love. Only then are we qualified to fall in love. Unless we reach the heights of logic, we are not qualified to fall in the valley of love, the valley of devotion.

One more thing that you should know is that there are different ways to learn and develop conviction. We can learn from our experiences as well as from others' experiences. For example, when we touch the flame of a candle, we learn that it burns. When we touch a gas stove, we learn again that fire burns. One by one, we can experience and learn that all fires burn. Or, when we touch one fire, immediately we can learn that all fires will burn. Coming to a conclusion and a clear understanding that all fires burn, after just one experience, is intelligence!

We need a strong conviction for spirituality to flower in our lives. Only then can we stay on the path without faltering. When we don't understand things, we don't carry a strong conviction in us to do anything. If we do anything with the knowledge, the wisdom, with the science of the whole action, then the activity becomes a meditation supported by a strong conviction.

When the science is lost and only the activity remains, it becomes a ritual. When the juice of wisdom is not in the activity, it becomes a ritual, and we become religious nuts. When we add the juice of wisdom, we become spiritual fruits! When we commit an act without knowing the science behind it, we make that activity a ritual. We need to add ‘spirit’ to the ‘ritual’. Then it becomes ‘spirituality’!

We can start with simple things. We can try to infuse awareness into simple actions in our everyday life like eating, having a bath, driving. Gradually, when the awareness extends to more actions and to more moments of our life, we can see that such awareness results in bliss because we are living more in the present moment. Only in the present can we experience that our true nature is bliss. All our other emotions exist only because of our ignorance.

We need to bring in the light of awareness into everything we do. This state of complete awareness that can be practiced in every one of our daily activities comes out of a deep internal conviction. It is a conviction arising out of our innate internal intelligence that we must return to our true nature, our true nature that is Divinity.

Krishna is emphasizing an important spiritual quality, perseverance. In the previous verse, He spoke about conviction. Now, he talks about persevering with that conviction. What happens most of the time to most of us is that when we realize we need to change, we try a few times and then give up thinking we cannot do it. Naturally, when we have been living for years in a certain way, the habit becomes embedded in our mind. We expect the mental setup that we have created and solidified to be broken and restructured in a few attempts, almost instantly. How is this possible? We need to be more patient and persevere in our efforts for the real change to happen.

What is the problem if we fail sometimes? Why don't we look at the positive side and see that we succeeded a few times as well? Naturally, when we start trying we will be aware and successful a few times and we will be unaware a few other times. Why do we want to count the failures and feel depressed? We can also look at the successes and feel inspired. That is a much smarter approach!

Once the conviction is there, what can stop us from breaking free of the old mental setup? Nothing can stop us except our own mind. The mind is like a faithful servant. It reproduces whatever it has been fed. All along, we have been feeding the mind negative memories of failure and we have been storing all the past memories related to failure. What will the mind reproduce? It will recollect and present the same instances of only failure. When we want to measure the strength of a chain, we measure the strength of the weakest link in that chain. Based on the strength of that link, we know the strength of the entire chain. But we cannot apply the same logic to measure ourselves.

We measure our lives based on our weakest moments. We make a big mistake. When we measure ourselves based on our failures, based on our low energy moments, our low energy moods and all the wrong steps that we have taken, we take a wrong reading of ourselves. We cannot do with our lives what we did with the chain.

Why can't we give credit to ourselves for the strong moments, for the successful moments? We have been conditioned by society to consider ourselves to be weak beings. We have been taught to feel that we are not complete. We have been taught to feel guilty. The more we remember negative decisions or mistakes, the more guilt we create for ourselves. Does that help us in any way? No! It only creates low energy. We should just decide that we would not be trapped in this cycle of guilt and desire.

We need to measure ourselves against our strongest moments, our greatest moments, moments when we have displayed extraordinary awareness, courage, compassion, love and such other divine qualities. These are the moments when we have truly come into our own. We have shown to ourselves what we can achieve if we try. We can do this each and every time. A human being is the sum of his greatest moments. He is not a mechanical device that fails based on its faults. He is a spiritual being who thrives on his strengths.

One more thing that you should understand is that you

attract 'like' incidents in your life. 'Like attracts like.' I'm sure you have heard this before. The energy of one frequency attracts the similar frequency. When we are angry, the low energy attracts similar low energy. Pain attracts pain. Joy attracts joy. Bliss attracts fortune. If we are joyful, we will create joyful people around us. We will create a beautiful community around us. We will create a blissful group around us. If we are suffering and if we are depressed, then naturally we will attract only that type of people around us. It is for us to decide.

For example, when we tune our television to the CNN channel we see the programs on that channel. When we tune the television to some other channel, we see some other program. In the same way, if we tune our mind to a positive attitude and to positive things and sincerely welcome that level of energy, we start attracting positive situations and people. We start meeting blissful friends and start creating blissful situations. We start creating a blissful life.

We must persevere in our efforts to change our attitude and we will see the results in front of our very eyes. Failures are merely tests to verify our mettle. Irrespective of how many times we may fail, with complete faith we can believe in that inner strength that we all possess. Then we shall succeed. This is what is meant when Krishna says the true yogi reaches the state of ultimate happiness, the state of eternal bliss and divine Consciousness by his identification with the Absolute.

In the next verse, Krishna talks about passion and sins. Passion is nothing but a deep attachment to something for the pleasure that it gives. Usually we associate passion, sin and such terms to deeds we classify as right or wrong. But here, Krishna does not talk about sin in the way society teaches us. It is not morality that He is talking about. I tell you, there is no sin except the sin of connecting thoughts and thinking that we are logical beings. That is the Original Sin. Not understanding that thoughts are independent and disconnected is the Original Sin.

When we are in ignorance, when we are unaware, we commit sin because we are not aware of what we are doing. So the key is to be aware every moment. The solution is not to condemn ourselves as sinners and expect to be redeemed by some external force. It is we who choose everything in our lives and how we want to live. But since we do not participate in this process with awareness, we call it 'fate'. We are the ones who commit the actions, but we don't want to accept that fact when we get the results.

A small story:

A man went to a restaurant and ordered various items on the menu. He had a hearty meal and was ready to walk out. The waiter rushed to his table and handed him the bill. The man was surprised and told the waiter, 'But I didn't ask for a bill!'

Can we expect to eat in a restaurant and not pay the bill? Naturally, when we eat, the bill will also come. But we only want the food and not the bill. Similarly, we

choose to do what we want, but do not want the fruits of our actions. When we infuse awareness into our actions, automatically the very awareness will ensure that we do the right things. We don't need to depend on society and morality to teach us the right things to do.

I tell you, conscience is a very poor substitute for consciousness. Live according to your intelligence and awareness and you won't have to depend on others to figure out what to do and how to do. If you depend on others, even after becoming an adult, it means you are not mature. Anything done out of conscience can only be superficial. It does not have the conviction of experience to back it. That is why it is never done whole-heartedly because your energy, your intelligence is not behind the action. It may have been somebody else's experience but you have not experienced it fully.

Once a man came and asked me, 'Master, I know I should do certain things but I am not able to do them when I need to. For example, the other day, I was travelling in a bus and an old man got onto the bus. I knew I should get up and offer my seat to the man. But I started to think that I myself had such a long way to go and that if I got up, I would feel tired after some time. I just thought about it and couldn't get myself to get up and give my seat to the old man. Later I felt guilty about it.'

I told him, 'It is because you have not had the deep experience of joy when you give your seat to another person that you weren't able to do it. The joy has not become your experience. If you had given your seat before, you gave it half-heartedly. Now, try doing the

same act with an attitude of experimentation, thinking, "Let me try this. Let me see how it feels." Try doing it as an experiment, with complete involvement, not with the greed of earning a good name or feeling good about you. Just do the action with the curiosity of a child.'

Have you seen a child doing anything, like looking at a flower? A child will look at a flower not just with its eyes, but also with its entire body. The eyes will look at the flower with awe and curiosity. The hands will feel the flower and the nose will enjoy the smell of the flower. A child does anything and everything completely, with curiosity about life. Its whole body will be completely involved in any action. We should try to look at life and all that we do in life in a similar way. Many of us have not experienced the joy of serving someone whole-heartedly. On the other hand, if we are a smoker, do we need somebody to convince us to smoke? No! Smoking has become our experience. That is why we don't need to depend on somebody else to convince us about it.

All these things follow each other: when we are in bliss or the highest happiness, we can never commit any sin because we are aware and conscious and we cannot be caught in passion or rajas. When we are in a 'no-mind' state we are in bliss, and we are not caught in the passion or sin that are products of the mind. When the mind subsides, the Divine Hand that is orchestrating every single event in the whole universe will guide every one of your actions.

What does it mean to be freed from all past sinful reactions? Our past reactions are nothing but our past

memories along with the associated emotions deeply inscribed in our unconscious zone. One thing to understand is that a reaction is different from a response. A reaction to anything is always due to our past memories. If our action is based on any past event, concept, notion or memory then we are merely reacting to an event or incident or a person. You see, there are two things, collecting arguments and forming a judgment and the second is already making a judgment and then collecting arguments to support it. The second is what we do most of the time.

We can see in our own lives how many times this has happened and we may not even have noticed. Our son comes late from school one day and we have already formed a negative judgment as to why he could be late. We decide that he is in bad company or he has gone to some movie. When he comes back, we are ready with our judgment based on some incident in the past and we are not even open to listen to him. As soon as he walks through the door our tone and actions become accusing. Perhaps he stayed back to study in the library but we are not ready to accept this. We have already formed our judgment.

Whenever we hold on to any past incidents or emotions, our actions are bound to be impacted by them. On the other hand, if our action is not based on the past but from a spontaneous decision based on the present situation, then we are 'responding' to the event or incident or person. When we are in bliss, our actions will be only a response and not be based on these past samskaras that Krishna calls past sinful reactions.

Have the courage to make decisions without referring to these past incidents because every single incident and every single moment is a brand new one. How can we compare what is happening now with what happened before? The situation is different, the person is different and so are we. Every moment, each one of us is dying and being born again; we are changing. Our intelligence is being constantly updated. Then how can we analyze the present situation through the lens of the past? We must give up all regrets and guilt that we might have about the past and immerse ourselves in the present moment. We don't need the past to live beautifully in the present. In fact, we can't live blissfully in the present if we continue to use the past as some reference point for how to manage our lives.

Krishna says that the realized person sees the Supreme in everyone and everything. He sees everything situated in the Supreme and all beings situated in the Supreme. The yogi is in touch with the higher Self and is in bliss. When we experience the Truth, we see everything in us and us in everything. In fact, in my first spiritual experience at the age of twelve, this is what I clearly saw.

When I was twelve, I was playing with this technique of just watching where thoughts came from. At that age, I didn't even realize it was a meditation. One day, on the foothills of Arunachala, in my hometown of Thiruvannamalai in South India, I was sitting on a rock, just playing with this technique that I had been practicing for two years. Suddenly, something happened; something opened. I felt as if I was being pulled inside. Suddenly, I could see 360 degrees in all directions. My eyes were closed but I could see everything in front of me and behind me. Not just that, I felt that whatever I was seeing was all me. I could see myself in everything - in the trees, in the rocks, in the ground, in the hills, everything. I could clearly see that everything was me and I was everything.

An enlightened person sees no difference between himself and the rest of the universe. He is one with the universe. His boundary does not end where his physical body ends. In fact, now with Kirlian photography, we can even check the auric body. For ordinary people, the aura just surrounds the physical body but when you are one with the universe, the aura extends infinitely. The vishwarupa darshan that Krishna gives Arjuna is the same glimpse of the Truth where Arjuna sees that he is one with the universe.

Through Quantum Physics studies, the scientific community has come to the conclusion that everything in the universe is energy. In fact, this is the first line in the Upanishads that was given by our Vedic seers thousands of years ago. The very first line of the Isa Vasya Upanishad says, 'Isa vasyam idam sarvam', all that exists is energy. All our minds are not individually separate pieces of the universe. They are all one and the same. All our minds are interlinked. Not only interlinked, they directly affect each other. This is what I call collective consciousness.

In the ultimate sense, at the spiritual level, the moment we understand that we are deeply connected, totally and intensely connected to the whole group, to the whole universe, not only do we start experiencing bliss, we really start living. Many dimensions of our being start opening. Right now we are stressed out and disturbed continuously because we think of ourselves as individual egos. If we disappear into this collective consciousness, we will experience so many dimensions and so many possibilities that we simply cannot imagine right now!

When we then see an enlightened Master, we understand how all encompassing he is. He never excludes anything or anyone. He sees no imperfections in anyone. He is just pure love, that's all. And pure love sees no imperfections. When we see every human being as a part of God, then that is real worship. It is easy to worship God in the temple. Real worship is seeing everything as God, seeing our neighbor as God. Existence is pure love.

Society is always against pure love. Deep inside, society is actually against Existence or God. The best way not to follow anything is to start worshipping it. Society escapes in the name of worship.

Society will never approve of us if we were to let go and love every plant and animal with endless love. It will tell us that we are mad. It will approve only of societal love, love that is governed by give and take, love that comes with a reason or motive, no matter how subtle. But I tell you, we must keep on loving with all our hearts, and expand to see Existence in everything.

The root of God is love. The root of God lies in seeing Him in everything. People are afraid to go to the roots and so they delude themselves in superficial layers. They don't have the courage to explore with anything beyond a certain point in life. Have the courage to go deep inside and love. We will start feeling the common thread of Existence in all that we see. We will understand that all that we see are illusory happenings held together by the real thread that is Existence. Automatically we will start loving everything in the same way without any trouble because we will see only Existence in everyone and everything. Each and every atom on this earth is unique, is Divine, and is an expression of Existence.

Q: Master, you said bliss attracts fortune. How does this work? Normally, we believe that if we are rich we can become happy. Are you saying that by being happy we can become wealthy?

Yes. I am saying exactly that. Bliss does attract fortune. By being happy you do become wealthy.

Whatever state we are in, we attract people of a similar state. If we keep complaining all the time, the only people who will stay with us are those who complain themselves. So, we work out a schedule amongst ourselves that one complains for one hour, then the second takes over, and then a third and so on. By complaining about everything else in this world we make ourselves more miserable and make others also more miserable. This is a vicious cycle.

However, when we express joy and look at the positive aspects of things, we will share that joy with everyone and everything around us. Then it is joy that increases and not misery. When we are happy, we are thinking positive thoughts. But the problem that most people have is that when they try to think positively, the positivity is only skin deep. There is a huge mass of negativity that is buried underneath that they are not even conscious about. However positively one thinks, unless the negativities are removed, there will be nothing good happening. It won't last.

Bliss does not happen with mere positive thinking. It is much more deeply seated and permanent. Bliss happens when all of our negativities dissolve. Bliss happens when our deeply rooted samskaras, the engraved memories that are stored in our unconscious, dissolve. These samskaras influence all our thoughts, decisions and actions. When we are free of these emotion-laden memories, we are able to look at all that happens around us dispassionately, without being affected by emotion. By dispassionately, I don't mean dull and lifeless. I mean looking with maturity and calmness, without being emotionally drawn into the dramas going on around us. Bliss does not mean jumping like a clown all the time or being caught on the roller coaster ride of emotions. Bliss is a state beyond joy and sorrow, where neither has meaning or effect. It is an intense, life affirming energy. It is unimaginable and worth every effort to achieve it.

Bliss means it will not be the same when it happens a second time. If we already accidentally felt bliss, when it

happens for the second time it will not be same. If it is the same, it won't be bliss. Bliss means new. Nithya means eternal. Eternal does not mean old. Understand, eternal does not mean old. Eternal means 'present'. We need to understand this important basic truth. So we can't give any example of the bliss happening. If it repeats it will never be bliss. It is just pleasure. Anything we try to reproduce again through the same path, the same method, will only be pleasure, never bliss.

Meditation leads us to newer and newer moments of bliss. It is not reproducing the same moments of bliss. That is only trying to reproduce the past from a memory. That can never be bliss. It will never be the same. It will always be new. So we can't give an example. If I can give any example I would have started a shop, The Bliss Shop. We can't, that is the problem. When we are in this state of bliss, we are in tune with our true nature and we are merged in cosmic consciousness. We become Existence. Abundance is the nature of Existence. Therefore, we attract abundance and fortune.