Do As I Teach🔗

3.32 But those who do not regularly perform their duty according to My teaching, are ignorant, senseless and ruined.

Next Krishna makes an important point. He clarifies one more point.

Krishna says: Those persons who execute their duties according to My injunctions and who follow this teaching faithfully, without envy, become free from the bondage of actions.

Here you need to understand two things. He says 'according to My injunctions'. It means that when you enter into your being, whatever your being says is Krishna's words. When he says My injunctions, He means the injunctions from the atman, injunctions from the being, the paramatman.

When you drop the goals and fall into your being, the Divine will guide you. You will be guided by nature. You will be guided by God Himself and will become an instrument in His hands.

If you become a hollow bamboo without any blockage inside, you will become a flute in the hands of Krishna. Dropping your purposes or dropping your ego is what I call becoming a hollow bamboo. If you become a hollow bamboo, you will become a flute in the hands of Krishna.

If you are a solid bamboo, you will be used only to carry dead bodies. In India, solid bamboo is used only to carry dead bodies. In the same way, if you drop the ego and fall into the being, you will become an instrument in the hands of the Divine; you will become a divine flute.

When you become a flute, the air that enters into you comes out as music. In the same way, when you become an instrument in the Divine's hands, the air that enters into you comes out as sastra or mantra or music. Whatever comes out of you becomes Divine. Your words become mantra (sacred words), your actions become tantra (sacred techniques), and your form becomes yantra (sacred form).

The moment you drop the ego, your words become mantra to guide people. Your form becomes yantra to be meditated upon, your actions become tantra, or a technique to realize the atman and you become Divine.

If you carry your ego just like a solid bamboo, which is used only to carry dead bodies, you will also be carrying this dead body. You will also be carrying this dead body of yours!

Now it is up to you whether to become a hollow bamboo and become a flute in the hands of Krishna, or to be a solid bamboo and carry the dead body to the cremation ground.

If you drop into your being, you will become an enlightened being, and you will become an instrument in the hands of the Divine. Your words will become mantra, your form will become yantra and your actions will become tantra. Instead, if you decide to carry your ego, you will be carrying this dead body wherever you go.

Here, He says, 'Those persons who execute their duties according to My injunctions, according to your inner consciousness...' Please be very clear, as long as you carry the goal of society, the purposes conditioned into you by society, you will be carrying a conscience. The moment you drop social conditioning, the purposes taught to you by society, you will drop conscience and start living with consciousness.

Social conscience is different, spiritual consciousness is different. If you live with goals, you will carry social conscience in your life. If you realize the beauty of purposelessness you will carry spiritual consciousness in your life.

'The man who lives according to his consciousness, believing in and having shraddha (faith) towards these teachings...' Why does Krishna ask for shraddha here? This is the first time Krishna says 'shraddha'. Why? 'shraddha vanto anasuyanto', He says.

Of course, the word shraddha cannot be translated as faith. Faith is a very poor word for shraddha. In English, there is no equivalent word for shraddha, because the very idea of shraddha has never existed in Western society.

Let me be clear, the very idea of shraddha never existed here. That is why the equivalent word for shraddha does not exist. Shraddha does not mean faith. It means faith plus the courage to execute the idea. Courage to experiment with the idea is shraddha. Courage to experiment with the idea is what is called shraddha. Here Krishna says,

‘Shraddha vanto anasuyanto,’ the man who executes the teachings with shraddha, with the courage to follow. Why do we need courage to follow?

A small story:

A man born blind goes to the doctor and asks, ‘Doctor, will you help me to get my eyesight?’ The doctor says, ‘don’t worry, I will perform an operation. You will get your vision and after that you can walk without the stick.’

Blind people always carry a stick to feel the road. The doctor tells him that he will be able to walk without the stick.

The blind man asks, ‘Doctor, I understand you will do an operation. I understand I will have my eyesight restored. But I don’t understand how I can walk without the stick. How can I walk without my stick?’

By and by, the blind man forgot that the stick is just an aid. He started thinking that the stick was necessary even just to walk. But until the operation is done, until he gets his eyesight and experiences, he has to have shraddha towards the doctor’s words and go forth with the operation.

In the same way, I tell you, just live without the mind. Just live without purpose and goals; you will be able to walk without the stick. The stick is your worry. But you can never believe that you can live without worrying. By and by, worrying has become a part of you. So you can never imagine that you can survive. You can be alive without worrying.

When I say you can live without worrying, you will say, ‘No, no, no! How can it be possible? If I don’t worry what will happen to my children? What will happen to my house? What will happen to my wife? What will happen to my family? What will happen to my property? What will happen to my lawsuits?’

Please be very clear: never think your life is going very smoothly because of you. It is going very smoothly in spite of you! Understand? Your life is never going smoothly because of you; in spite of you it is going smoothly!

The moment you have the courage to have shraddha towards these teachings and start living without purpose, only then will you realize you don’t need the stick to walk. Once you enter into the being, the depth of your being, you will enter into a totally different dimension.

Whatever you think of as spiritual life or material life as of now, both will lose their meaning and you will enter into a new dimension of life.

For example, can you explain the life of marriage to a four-year-old child? Can you explain to a four-year-old child what life is? You can’t. He can’t understand. He can understand only toys. He can understand only dolls and he can only play with toys. Once he becomes older, naturally he will be able to understand what life is. Automatically toys and dolls will drop from him.

Do you feel that you are missing your toys? Do you feel that you renounced your toys? No! The moment you grow, you start experiencing a different dimension of your life and the toys simply drop.

When you experience a different dimension of your life, automatically small things drop you and you drop them. Not even your dropping them is important, them dropping you is important. Your dropping smoking is not important, smoking dropping you is important.

When you enter into your being, when you enter into the purposelessness of life, the whole so-called material life and spiritual life drops you and you enter into a different dimension of life, a new dimension. That is what I call ‘quantum spirituality’ or eternal consciousness. You are then in eternal bliss; you start living in eternal bliss.

Now you may have a serious doubt, ‘How can I live without worrying?’ I tell you, your doubt is nothing but the same doubt as the blind man asking, ‘How can I walk without the stick?’ You cannot convince the blind man that he can walk without the stick until he gets his eyesight. Only after he gets his vision, will he be able to understand he doesn’t need the stick to walk.

In the same way, only when you reach the being will you understand that you don’t need worries to live. You don’t need your mind. You don’t need to be harboring any worry to live. Until you reach the being, you need to have shraddha. Until you get your eyes, you must have shraddha and lie down on the operating table. You need to allow the doctor to work on you. That is the reason Krishna is saying, 'Shraddha vanto anasuyanto.'

The next word is a beautiful word: 'anasuyanto', which means 'without envy'. It is an important thing. Whatever has been said so far, everyone is able to understand and agree with.

But, suddenly, one thought comes, 'my brother purchased two houses. My sister is getting a big new car. How can I live just like this?' The moment you get some thought, 'He is having that, she is having this,' what happens? All your spirituality, all your purposelessness, all your spiritual philosophy, everything just disappears. You are again in the same rat race.

Krishna says, 'without envy'. Envy is the thing that puts you again and again in the same rut. One great problem in the rat race is, even if you win, you are a rat. Even if you win, you are only a rat. Nothing more than that!

Please be very clear, the moment envy or jealousy enters into your being, the whole thing disappears. Again, you start running into social conditioning; you start running behind purposes. You start running behind the goals. Envy or jealousy is what makes you run like a rat.

There is a beautiful idea from Tantra about maya shakti (the power of illusion). Maya makes us all dance with just this one stick called jealousy. Have you seen the guys who make money with monkeys in India? On the roadside, they will do a small show with monkeys. They will have a small stick. They will rotate the stick and shout in Tamil, 'Aadra rama, aadra rama': Dance Rama, dance Rama. They will give instructions and according to their instructions, the monkey will act. With a small stick they will make the monkey dance and do whatever they want.

In the same way, maya shakti is making you run as she wants with just one stick called jealousy, envy, or comparison. The moment you compare, you just jump into the same path again, the same rut, the same routine, which I call the purposeful life. Then you become a karmi, not karma yogi.

The man who lives in eternal consciousness, nithya ananda, and allows his body and mind to work according to its nature, is centered on eternal consciousness. He is called a karma yogi, one who has espoused action without attachment as the ultimate renunciation.

But the man who jumps out of jealousy, out of envy and out of comparison, enters into social conditioning He is caught in the social rut, the same routine of the rat race, and is called a karmi, one who is focused on action arising from greed.

The difference between karmi and karma yogi is only one thing: the man who is driven by jealousy is karmi, and the man who allows the eternal consciousness to drive him is called karma yogi.

All you need to understand is only this one word: without envy, 'anasuyanto', without jealousy. The moment you start thinking, ‘Oh! He has all those things. He has all those things’, you become mad. If the neighbor brings an air conditioner into his house, your house temperature increases. Your house temperature increases!

One more thing: when we do things out of comparison, we do only foolish things. Our intelligence stops working. Our intelligence completely stops working. And we will definitely fall short of our potential because now we are using someone else’s productivity as our measuring stick. We might have accomplished much more than what our neighbor has done but now we are setting our sights on that!

A small story:

A priest and a rabbi were staying opposite each other. Not only were they staying opposite each other, but they were opposite to each other in many other ways as well. If the priest put rose garden in front of his house, within 24 hours the rabbi would bring in a new rose garden. If the rabbi painted his house white, within 24 hours the priest’s house would also be painted white.

Suddenly, one day a new Mercedes Benz was standing in front of the rabbi’s house. This was too much for the priest. Somehow he did something, and within 24 hours not only did he buy a Rolls Royce, he started sprinkling holy water on it as well.

The Rabbi saw from his house and asked, 'Hey! What happened to you? You got a new Rolls Royce, that's acceptable. Until yesterday you were alright. But why are you sprinkling water on the car this morning?'

The Priest says, 'I am a religious person so I cannot travel in a car which is not Christian. So I am baptizing it.'

Now the rabbi was in big trouble! What to do? That evening he was seen cutting the exhaust pipe of the Benz with a hacksaw blade!

If you understand, understand. If you have not understood, ask the people who are laughing!

If you do things out of jealousy, out of envy, out of comparison, you will end up doing only these types of foolish things. Your intelligence will stop working. When you start comparing, intelligence stops working.

Please understand that every one of you is unique. There is no need to compare with any other person. You are unique. The main problem is that you compare only with the nearest person, five inches above and five inches below, only with those persons do you compare yourself. You don't compare yourselves with Bill Gates, do you? If you do, even God cannot save you. That is different! But you don't. You compare only with your neighbor. You compare only with your colleague. You compare only with your brother and you compare only with your sister.

The problem is not even failure; you worrying about failure is the problem. That is why you don’t compare with unreachable goals, you compare only with reachable goals and you compare only with those people in your immediate world. Understand that this comparison is what is driving you crazy. Again and again and again it brings up the whole social conditioning in you and eats away your whole life. Your whole life is eaten away by this one maya called comparison.

Your whole joy, ecstasy, the very bliss or the ecstasy of living is swallowed by this one maya called comparison. Just like the whole earth is swallowed at the time of pralaya (end of the world, with the earth being submerged in water) by the ocean, in the same way, just this one concept of comparison, this one idea of envy and jealousy swallows your whole life.

Jealousy and comparison have no existence. There are two things you need to know: there is something called comparative reality and something called existential reality. If you build your life based on existential reality, you will never suffer. If you build your mind on comparative reality, you will be continuously suffering even at the time of death. Not only at the time of death; even after death.

Don’t build your inner space on comparative reality. Let your inner space be built on existential reality. Accept life as it is. If you build your life on existential reality, you will live your life blissfully in eternal consciousness, as a karma yogi.

A small story:

One guy comes to the bar with a big smile, a big grin on his face and asks the bartender to serve drinks for the whole house. ‘Serve drinks to everybody. I will pay,’ he says. The bartender serves drinks and says, ‘this is so nice. I am very happy you did a good thing for everybody. May I know why you did this?’

The man says, ‘I am very happy today. I have become taller than my younger brother. My younger brother used to be taller than me, so people used to tease me all the time and ask, ‘Are you older or is he older?’ So I had a problem. Today, I have become taller than my younger brother.’

Your younger brother being taller than you is a huge problem. Elder brother being taller can at least be tolerated, but younger brother being taller is too much.

The bartender asked, ‘How at your age did you suddenly grow and become taller than him?’

The man replied, ‘Oh, no! I have not grown. He met with an accident and both his legs have been amputated.’

This may seem to you to be in bad taste in a social sense. However, this is how many people react when they see another person doing better than themselves.

When we compare, when we live with jealousy, when our life is based on comparative reality, please be very clear, we end up doing only these type of things. We become blinded by comparison and our very nature becomes dangerous. Let your inner space be built on existential reality, not on comparative reality.

By nature, a person with a body and mind has to act in one way or the other. If you follow your nature, you can be comfortable and flow in tune with Existence. When you are relaxed, when you are blissful, you express yourself beautifully.

When you try to be what you are not because of your greed or fear, you suppress yourself. What can suppression do? You cannot suppress energy. You can only transform energy. It can never be destroyed or suppressed.

For example, if you see someone who generally irritates you, what is your reaction? If you are in a position to show your irritation, you will do so. It may be some person who cannot affect you in terms of your money or position. In that case, you will make your irritation known to the person because you are not afraid. He is not in a position to affect you adversely. But, say this person is your boss. Now, you are afraid to make your irritation known because he holds the power to affect your job, your source of income. So you suppress your emotions.

Neither expression nor suppression can be the solution. The solution is to infuse awareness and understanding into this process. Your reaction of irritation is not because the person has done something. If you just look a little deep, you can see it is how you choose to react that decides what you feel about the person. You choose to get irritated by what he is doing.

Why should you allow yourself to get worked up about the other person's actions? Also, it may not even be that the person has done something, which you think is irritating. He may have done the same thing a couple of times before. But this time, he many have come with a completely different intention. Yet you are already biased by your past perception about him. You have decided unconsciously this is what he is going to do and you get irritated even before he comes close to you.

That is why I say that awareness is the key. If you are aware of what is happening both within you and outside you, you will not get controlled by your unconscious. You will be able to see clearly when biased emotions arise or when your reaction to the person arises. The very awareness is enough. You don't need to suppress it or express it. The awareness will itself bring emotion under your control.

Q: Master, when a relationship is not working out, when should we persevere and when should we abandon it and get on with our lives?

I think what you are asking me is, just how much conflict should one be prepared to put up with in a relationship? Right?

Love is the most dangerous path there is! Only those with great courage dare tread this path. At any bend on this path you have to be prepared for great joy, great pain, great beauty, great struggle, great understanding.

Yes, there is bound to be conflict in every relationship, because every individual is unique, and no two personalities fit together so perfectly that no rough edges remain.

If there is conflict, don't sweep it under the carpet out of fear that it will destroy the relationship. On the contrary, ignoring it can do just that. Allow the conflict. Examine it. See what you can learn from it. Is it stemming from something in yourself that you are secretly unwilling to acknowledge?

It is only in an intimate relationship that you discover yourself. Your partner is like a mirror reflecting your true nature. After all, who else dares point out your worst flaws with so much clarity!

So examine the nature of your conflict. Also remember, in every relationship, there is a time to stay together and a time to move on. What kind of love do you share? Are you really, truly, surely in love? Do you relate deeply with each other, being to being?

Don't look for reasons and arguments. Don't intellectualize the process - simply turn the question inwards with complete honesty and trust. The answer will arise on its own. If your answer is 'Yes', then understand that the issues of conflict are mere ripples on the surface of your relationship.

These are just situations created by the ego to counter the sense of 'no-self', of surrender, that comes with love. Work around these situations with love and care.

If the answer you are hearing is 'No', then maybe it is time to move on. To remain in a relationship where there is no true relationship, no connection of being to being, is sacrilege, unfair to you both. Love, for you, may be elsewhere. Don't search for it. Just be open to the possibility.

In the meantime, don't let the conflict destroy the relationship, destroy you both. Nobody deserves that. Accept that this is not the person for you, and move away without resentment or bitterness. Don't destroy your own capacity for loving. To become bitter will only cause you more suffering, and destroy your faith in Love itself. And that is the most dangerous thing that can happen to anyone.

Many of my disciples have followed this technique I am about to describe with tremendous healing effect in their relationships. To understand the principles behind this technique it is useful to have attended at least the basic Life Bliss Program Level 1.

We all have seven centers in our mind body system, called chakras in Sanskrit. Each center controls an emotion. When the center is blocked in energy you feel the effects of negativity and when it is energized you feel at ease. Simply put, a blocked center leads to dis-ease.

The root center is blocked by greed, lust and anger. The spleen center by fear, the navel center by worry, the heart center by attention need, the throat center by jealousy, the eyebrow center by ego and the crown center by discontentment. A person who has gone through the LBP 1 course will be able to recognize the blocked center from which that person is acting based on the emotions of the interaction with that person.

Normally one would respond from the same energy center or another blocked center. We tend to respond to an angry person with anger or fear. However, we have the capability to respond to all such interactions from an open heart chakra. All that we need to do is respond with unconditional love. Whether a person comes on to us in anger, fear, worry or ego, it is possible to respond with love, and with no expectation in return.

You may think that this is impractical. It is not. If you try this you will find that your relationships improve miraculously. It is especially difficult with people close to you, especially a spouse, and therefore, all the more reason to practice with one's spouse. Many people say, and believe it when they say, that they love the whole world. When you ask them to show proof that they love their spouse, they are stumped!

People talk about Transactional Analysis and other such techniques. They talk about cross communication between adult, parent and child. Ultimately all communication is based on emotions and feelings based on emotions. These emotions are linked to the various energy centers. Love is the most powerful emotion. It is the only emotion that can overcome all other emotions, when it is spontaneous and unconditional.

This is why in every culture and religion, love is associated with the divine and the heart is associated with love. Open your heart, energize your heart center and let unconditional love flow out of you. It will transform you and transform others.