Selfless Service Liberates🔗

3.9 Work has to be performed selflessly; otherwise, work binds one to this world.

O son of Kunti, perform your work for Me and you will do it perfectly, liberated and without attachment.

3.10 Brahma, the lord of creation, before creating humankind along with selfless sacrifice said, 'By this selfless service, be more and more prosperous and let it bestow all desired gifts.'

3.11 The celestial beings, pleased by this sacrifice, will also nourish you; with this mutual nourishing of one another, you will achieve supreme prosperity.

3.12 Satisfied with the selfless service, the celestial beings certainly bestow upon you the desired enjoyments of life. He who enjoys the things given by them without offering anything to the celestial beings is certainly a thief.

3.13 Those who eat food after selfless service are free of all sins. Those who prepare food for sense enjoyment do grievous sin.

There are two techniques by which one can liberate oneself from attachment to work. One is by telling oneself, 'I am not the doer.' By continuously reminding yourself that it is the senses and not you who are doing something; you distance yourself from the action and you are consciously aware that you are not the doer. This is what Krishna explained in the verse before this one.

The other way is by surrendering the fruits of one's work to the Divine, to the ultimate life force that is conducting this universe. This is the technique that Krishna

talks about here. He says, 'Perform your work for Me and you will do it perfectly, liberated and without attachment.'

When you do work as a sincere, humble offering to the Divine, the very attitude of this surrender will make you do the job perfectly and you will be liberated. In your own life you can see this happening. When you are excessively bothered about the results, it is during this time that you actually think you are the doer of the action! That is why you get attached to the work and its results.

This is when you start getting stressed and tense about results. Naturally, when you are tensed, you are not performing at your optimum. You are not performing at maximum efficiency because so much of your valuable energy is getting wasted in being tense. How will you then be able to get your job properly done?

I always tell people, 'When you are afraid to make small mistakes and are extra careful, you end up making big blunders.' You waste your entire life trying to avoid making mistakes and attempting to be perfect, and your life becomes a blunder.

This doesn't mean you can be careless about your work. I am only saying that you should have the courage to make mistakes. Only when you make mistakes can you learn from them. Only then have you seen both sides of the coin. Then, with experience, when you have learnt from the mistake, you will have the perspective of both sides. Otherwise, just at the crucial time, you will make mistakes. You can have this courage only when you are not attached to the ownership of tasks and results.

When you see that Existence is purposeless and you are living in the loving, caring arms of Existence, you will relax and surrender to that very Existence. When you are in this relaxed mood, you can function at your best and enjoy every moment of life without feeling like the doer and therefore worrying about making small mistakes. Real surrender happens when this understanding becomes your experience.

A beautiful story:

A person who had faced a lot of trouble in life felt that he had had enough of his life. He ran away to the forest and wanted to find an enlightened master and achieve liberation. He searched day and night but was not able to find anybody.

Then he decided, 'Whoever comes along this road first, whoever I meet on this road first, I shall accept as my master, that's all. I am going to follow his instructions. Oh God, I know you are here. Send me a proper person and guide me. That's all I ask.'

He sat down and waited patiently. After two days, one evening, a thief came running that way. The man went and caught hold of the thief's feet saying, 'Oh master, please save me. You are my God. You are my guru. Please give me instructions on how to become enlightened.'

The thief said, 'What is this? Leave me! I am a thief. The palace guards are chasing me; I just robbed the palace.'

The man said, 'No! You are my God. You are my guru. You have to guide me on the path towards enlightenment.'

The thief said, 'Fool! Don't you see I have all these stolen items with me? I have just robbed the palace. Let me go. Otherwise, I will kill you.'

The man said, 'I don't know all that. You are my guru; teach me.'

The thief thought, 'Now, what can I do?' Then he said, 'Alright, you say I am your guru. Then listen to me. Will you do whatever I say?'

The man said, 'Yes, surely I will.'

The thief said, 'Sit down.' The man sat down. The thief said, 'Close your eyes.' He closed his eyes. The thief told him, 'Don't open your eyes until I come back and tell you to open your eyes.' The man sat with all sincerity, his eyes closed, and the thief immediately ran away.

The man continued sitting for hours. Then slowly, days passed, then a week passed; a month passed by. The man sat without food or water, absolutely still. The story says, Lord Shiva, seeing the depth of his sincerity, appeared before him and gave him enlightenment!

This may look like a story. But please understand, it has a beautiful meaning and a truth behind it: the very sincerity is enough. Nothing else is needed.

Surrender has a tremendous power, a tremendous energy. Whether you surrender to an idol or to a person or to your guru, or even a rock, is not important. What is important is the surrender itself.

Vivekananda says beautifully: 'When you pray to God, your prayers actually awaken your own inner potential and it showers blessings on you.'

Even if you see logically, surrender helps you to simply relax. When you are relaxed, you can work beautifully, with intelligence, rather than with your pre-programmed intellect.

A small story:

There was once a bank cashier who used to take all the cash home everyday and bring it back with him the next morning. He had done this for a month and could not do it anymore.

He found himself trembling all the way while driving back home and was not able to sleep at home with all the money in his custody. He finally asked his boss to relieve him of the job since he could not bear the stress any longer.

His boss told him that even if the money were to be lost, he would not be blamed and he could continue with his job. The cashier slept peacefully from that day onwards.

What was the difference in him? He was doing the same job, but why was the fear and tension not there anymore? It was because the responsibility had been shifted to a higher authority, that's all. This is surrender! Do your duty, leaving the responsibility of the results to Existence.

Understand, Existence loves you and understands you better than you understand yourself. See the example of Arjuna; Krishna knew Arjuna better than Arjuna knew himself. The very trust, the very connectedness enabled Arjuna to relate with Krishna, who took him to the ultimate consciousness.

Have simple trust in Existence, in the intelligence of the life force. This is the very life force, the energy that is keeping you alive. This is the energy behind the marvelous functioning of your brain, of your digestive system, of your nervous system.

This is the energy that runs our solar system, all the galaxies and the entire universe, so smoothly. Imagine, is it possible for so many billions of stars and planets to move in such beautiful order even if you had the most modern traffic control system in place? Such a beautiful order, in what appears to be chaos when seen superficially!

Life itself is so unpredictable; you cannot predict what can happen the very next moment! So many billions of living bodies on planet earth, so much diversity!

Logically, it should be an unmanageable chaos. But there is a beautiful order in that very chaos. And in that order, the spontaneity and chaos of Existence fits in so beautifully!

A very beautiful story from the Indian epic Mahabharata:

King Yudhishtira performed a great sacrifice after the battle of Kurukshetra was over. He gave very rich presents to the priests and the poor. They were all impressed by the grandeur of this sacrifice. They praised him saying, ‘We have never seen such a great sacrifice in our lifetime.’

Just then, a small mongoose appeared. Half of his body was golden and the other half was brown. He rolled on the ground where the sacrifice was performed. He then exclaimed with sorrow, ‘This is no sacrifice at all. Why do you praise this sacrifice?’

The priests were aghast and angry, ‘What! You silly mongoose! Did you not see the sacrifice? Thousands of poor people have become very rich. Millions of people have been sumptuously fed. So many jewels and clothes have been distributed!’

The mongoose replied, ‘That may be a big sacrifice for you. But to me the sacrifice offered by the poor brāhmin was much bigger.’

‘What brāhmin and what sacrifice are you talking about? We never heard of this!’ said the priests.

The mongoose continued, ‘There was a poor brāhmin in a village. He lived in a small hut with his wife, son and daughter-in-law. Once, there was a great famine. The whole family starved for days on end.

One day, the poor man brought some food home. When they were ready to eat, they heard a voice at their door. The brāhmin opened the door and found a guest at the doorstep. In India, we say, atithi devo bhava, meaning ‘the guest is God Himself’.

The brāhmin said, ‘O Sir! Please come inside. Please have a seat and have some food.’ He gave his portion of the food to the guest. The guest said, ‘Sir, I am still hungry. I have been starving for the last fifteen days.’

The wife said to her husband, ‘Please give him my share too.’ The guest ate this portion also, but he was still hungry. The son said, ‘Father, please give him my share also.’ The guest ate this and yet he remained dissatisfied. The wife of

the son said, 'O Sir, please have my portion too.' The guest ate this portion also and was fully satisfied. He then blessed the poor brāhmin and his family and departed in great joy.

I entered the hut that day and found that these four persons died of starvation. A few grains of rice were found on the ground where the guest had eaten. I rolled myself on those grains. Half of my body became golden. Since then I have been traveling all over the world to find another sacrifice like that. Nowhere have I found one. Nowhere have I been able to convert the other half of my body into gold. This sacrifice of Yudhishtira has not turned the other half of my body into gold. That is the reason why I say that this is no sacrifice at all.'

The sacrifice that Krishna refers to comes from a true sense of surrender to the universe. When we give to others what we can afford to give, it is no sacrifice. When we give to others by denying ourselves, then it is sacrifice. That is why most of the charitable work done by people, even with good intentions, does not fit into the essence of what Krishna says here. Of course, it is better to give others rather than foolishly stuff yourself. You will get sick with indigestion!

But when you give at your own expense, by denying yourself, by starving yourself, you function at the level of the universal energy; you function as part of the principle of Vasudaiva kuṭumbakaṁ meaning 'The whole world is my family' as told by Krishna; you operate out of compassion. Then there is no compulsion to give. There is no moral injunction to give. There is no expectation that you will go to heaven if you give and to hell if you don't.

That's why, time and again, I tell people, 'Do not donate anything to the mission in the belief that I will help you pass through the gates of heaven. First of all, there is no heaven, and second, I am not its gatekeeper!'

You will be in heaven when you donate after falling fully in tune with the principles of the mission. You do not have to think about a heaven after you die. You will die in heaven on earth if that is your mental attitude.

There is a joy, an eternal joy, and a bliss that enters your being when you act out of sacrifice, selflessly. The bliss is always there, but when you are free from the filtering ego and mind, you start experiencing that bliss. The garbage of expectations disappears and the bliss is experienced.

This was the principle on which various sacrificial rituals came into existence in the vedic culture. These were instruments of mass meditation. The energy of the cosmic space (ākāśa) was captured by the vibrations of the air created by chanting mantras. This energised air fuelled the sacred fire in the sacrificial fire pit (homa kuṇḍa). This energy was transferred to pots of water by physically linking the pots to the fire pit through many threads. This energised holy water was then sprinkled on bodies, deities and the earth to complete the energy cycle. All five energy points: space, air, fire, water and earth were connected through such a ritual to benefit humanity!

It was only a metaphoric offering of all that was sacrificed to the fire. During these rituals, great kings and nobles who performed the rituals gave away to those who lacked material wealth. These rituals helped to maintain material balance.

But, as the mongoose said, even the rājasūya yāga of Yudhishtira, performed to celebrate his victory, lacked the spirit of sacrifice of the poor brāhmin family. So give away what you need, not what you do not need!

Q: Swamiji, what is suffering? Why do we suffer? Is suffering essential?

In the Buddhist tradition, life itself is considered suffering. This is at variance with what I say - that life is bliss and meant to be lived blissfully.

Buddha talked about how we live our lives. I talk about how we can live our lives.

Buddha does not talk about sins and merits. His code of conduct is the middle path, one of balance. He implies that there is no real right and wrong, and as long as you lead a balanced life, it is fine.

Buddha also says that desires are the root cause of all suffering. I would like to add a condition. Unfulfilled desires are the root cause of all suffering. When a desire is fulfilled, when it brings with it the energy to fulfill itself, and gets fulfilled, it leaves no traces behind. There is no hangover with respect to that desire. Such are the desires that the energy body brings with it to the body it is born in. These are the desires that each one of us is born with. They come with the energy needed to fulfill themselves and this is what we call prārabdha karma.

Prārabdha karma are the real needs we are born with. They are the 'opening balance' of energy in the body at birth. They arise out of the mindset (vāsana) with which the energy, the soul or ātman, leaves the previous body-mind system.

To this opening balance we keep adding acquired desires which do not arise from our core. We see what others have, or are influenced by media such as internet, television, radio, billboards etc, and our list of desires grows. We want to be happy and we think that by adding more and more to our lives we will somehow accomplish it. But we have the energy reserves to fulfill only our natural desires, our prārabdha, and not these acquired desires, āgāmya karmas. These āgāmya karmas are our unconscious desires, our samskāras that cause suffering.

These are the desires that Buddha refers to which he says lead to suffering in our life. These desires create expectations of fulfillment, and when they are not fulfilled, they create suffering and linger on within our body-mind system.

It will help you to realize that suffering itself is not an event in your life; it is actually only your response to an event.

Whether or not you suffer in a particular situation depends entirely upon your reaction to that situation. When do you undergo suffering? When you fall ill? When your neighbor's situation improves? When your partner leaves you for someone else?

Well, suppose you decided to just accept these situations without anger or resentment; just as they are, so be it. Would you still suffer as much?

Try to accept the inevitability of the moment, without reaction. It is only your negative response to an experience that allows it to hurt you. Don't you see: no one or nothing can make you suffer without your silent permission? When we have certain expectations or fantasies that aren't fulfilled, we suffer. If we don't learn from the situation and drop the expectations, we go on suffering.

Make a habit of witnessing experiences minus your personal judgment. Learn to recognize with clarity the causes of your suffering - the obvious and the subtle. The ability to do this will come, not in a day but certainly through practice.

One of the most deeply hidden reasons for suffering is that you could be enjoying it! For example, falling ill can become a source of pleasure if it brings you the attention and care you have been craving for. It can also be a means to escape a situation that is distasteful to you. Examine why it sometimes gives pleasure to inflict pain upon yourself or others.

Is there a better channel through which you can receive the same pleasure - without the suffering? Become aware - this is the first step. The second is to accept totally the here and now - without questions and without reaction.

Awareness with acceptance - this is the only way out of suffering.

The second part of the question is, ‘is suffering essential?’ Yes, in a way it is.

Suffering can be a powerful catalyst for growth. Just like a seed that has to first rupture before a plant can grow and blossom, intense suffering can break down the defenses of your ego, leaving you open and vulnerable to Existence.

With your usual thought patterns shattered, you begin to see things as they actually are. You begin to recognize a subtle distance between you and the pain - that it is not ‘your’ pain, that it is not something intrinsic to you. In fact, pain is simply the response you have chosen to that particular situation. And once you see that, how can you suffer any more? In consciously accepting your pain, you truly let go of it.

Suffering is not necessarily the key to bliss. But if you learn your lessons well, suffering can certainly open your eyes to the choice of suffering. It can teach you how unnecessary it is to suffer, and how you can move out of it.

This is what I call ‘necessary suffering’! The suffering that teaches you that there is no need to suffer is what I call ‘necessary suffering’.