Stand Up And Be Counted🔗

Krishna reiterates and emphasizes what He has said before and ends with a punchline.

He says, 'Act without attachment. Do not worry about success or failure in results. Center yourself in wisdom that takes you beyond action and the desire for fruits of action. Once you are centered in wisdom you will act wisely. Once you give up attachment to results, you will be freed from the cycle of birth and death and you will be beyond sorrow.’

He then adds, ‘When you are centered in wisdom you will no longer be deluded by what you hear. When you are no longer deluded by what you have heard, you are liberated.’

Krishna’s immediate reference here is to the scriptures, the Vedas, an oral tradition. Arjuna earlier quoted these scriptures to Krishna, using them to emphasize the potential implications of his actions. Krishna chides Arjuna and says, ‘Don’t be confused by what you hear, even if it is supposed to be divine knowledge, the Vedas. Remember: If you are really centered in wisdom, you can never be deluded; you will be in awareness.’

Krishna’s words resonate even today, and perhaps are far more relevant today. We are bombarded by information on all sides 24 hours a day, whether we like it or not. When something is stated repeatedly, especially by an authority, we tend to believe and accept it without reservation. No one even needs to force you to believe; your brain can be washed without any pressure, without coercion.

This is what many political and religious institutions use to instill fear and greed in people amd make them obey their commandments. This is also what all marketing and advertising executives do to convince you about their products. This is what someone called a ‘Hidden Persuader’.

A small story:

One day a man went to a mental hospital to visit his friend. There, he was chatting with another person for a long time. He asked him how long he had been there, how he was treated and such things. It was only when he returned from the hospital, that he learnt that the person with whom he was talking was a doctor and not a patient as he had assumed.

He rushed back to him and apologised, ‘Sorry doctor, I will never go by appearances again.’

Understand, we all go by what we see, hear and read. But what we perceive may not be true at all.

The first response of most of us is to believe rather than doubt. This is especially true when what we see, hear and read was already instilled into us from childhood. If we are told again and again from childhood, as most of us are, that we must listen to elders and read figures of authority, we grow up tending to do just that. It also happens that when what we see fits our fantasies, we don't bother to question.

Social, business and religious institutions use this power with great effect upon us. All religions and cultures have some book or other that is believed to be divine in origin and which must be obeyed implicitly. Does our inner experience tell us that whatever such a book says is relevant to us? More importantly, do we perceive it to be relevant today?

The vedic scriptures, the śruti, divine in origin, and the smṛti, rules and regulations laid down later by Manu and other sages, make no such claims. In fact, Hindu scriptures have both the humility and the arrogance to challenge us to transform ourselves according to the needs of the day, but stipulate that we first experience what is said. Vedic scriptures are not dead knowledge that is a burden upon us to abide by, but living guidelines that lead us into wisdom and liberation.

'So,' Krishna says, 'let the Vedas say what they want. You may hear whatever you must, but put what you hear, see, and read to the test of wisdom to go beyond delusion.'

He asks Arjuna to experience what he is exposed to and then decide what he must do. Krishna has already said in the Gita that He is the Vedas; He is knowledge, and yet He asks him to experiment and be guided by his inner wisdom, not by what he merely hears.

What courage, what authority! Only one who is so sure about the truth can say, 'Do not listen to what I say and how I act, but listen to your inner voice of truth born out of your own awareness and experience.'

One can write hundreds and thousands of pages but they will be meaningless when judged against these words of the master.

Some of the social and corporate institutions are quite direct in imposing their truths on us without giving us a chance to verify and accept them. 'You must fall in line with our mission if you want to be included in our corporate family,' they say. That is why sanyāsis, monks, get out of the rule-bound world, seeking the freedom of truth, but unfortunately, many get caught in the rules of religion. In society, wise men have been punished for expressing truths that they experienced which violated the beliefs then held by their leaders. Socrates, Copernicus, Da Vinci and many others suffered when they refused to accept what they heard. They became revered as visionaries years after they passed away.

In today's corporate world, people who stand up to what they believe is right when they see their companies doing unethical things, are referred to as 'whistle blowers'. Today it is a respected word. Even three decades ago this was a derogatory word, referring to traitors.

Why is such a person a traitor? Is it because he sees a truth that is at variance with what his institution, his company, the Government or religion tells him? If, in the wisdom of one's experience, one realizes a truth different from what one has heard, then, he not only has the right but also the responsibility towards humanity to tell them about that truth. The truth may be joyful or painful but it must be told.

Krishna is taking Arjuna on the path of enlightenment through simple steps. He says, 'Don't be inactive, do what you need to do. Do it with no expectations and no attachment to results. Do it with a centered mind and in wisdom. Do it with the wisdom of your own inner calling and not because of something you have heard. You will then go beyond all suffering and be liberated.'

These steps are so simple that everyone can practice them; in fact every one should practice them. Stay in the present moment with total awareness, without worrying about what you have heard and experienced in the past or what you expect to hear and experience in future. Stay fully centered in the experience of the present, and based on the truth of that experience, act. You can never go wrong. I promise you that.

Q: Swamiji, in the corporate world everything revolves around budgets and objectives. How realistic is it to work without goals in such an environment?

Please understand, not only is this possible, but this is also the only way to live in bliss without suffering.

You seem like a professional or a corporate person. You must have worked with some budget, forecast, milestones, goals, objectives and so on. How many times can you honestly say you achieved all that you planned and budgeted for? I have talked to many CEOs. They have been honest in saying that in their budgets what is met is the cost projections but not profit projections! This is a universal truth. Expenses always exceed the budget while profits fall below the budget.

Yet, the whole corporate system goes by budgets and stresses everybody in trying to meet them.

Krishna does not tell you to destroy budgets. He advises you not to be obsessed with budgets and goals. He tells you, ‘Do what you have to, act for the sake of action, fight for the sake of the fight, without worrying about the outcome.’

He says to focus on the present moment.

This is the full circle your management science has now come to. Everyone talks about process control. What does that mean? It means to focus on what is happening at this moment! Unless you get what you are doing now right, there is no way you are going to do it right any time in the future. The future becomes the past through the present only.

I am told that it is only recently that the discovery has been made that even if you inspect 100% of what is produced in a factory or office, there will still be about 1% of defectives. You cannot reduce it to zero.

They say that the Japanese developed the method of focusing on the process instead of the product and this led to zero defects! All your great systems of Six Sigma are based on the belief of being in the present moment.

This is what Krishna said over 5000 years ago. ‘Forget about the end product,’ He said, ‘Focus on the process, on what you need to do.’ Can anything be simpler?

Krishna’s message is very simple. He says: Surrender the outcome to Me and focus on your action. Why is it difficult to do? In fact this will lift a huge weight off your shoulders. You will no longer be constantly stressed about the result. Instead, you will focus on the activity and you will perform better.

Just try this approach. Relax completely and focus totally on what you have at hand at this point in time. Make sure that you do it with awareness. You will see that the results follow automatically without your having to worry about them.

Understand this: When your path is right, your destination will always be right. You will travel light and you will travel in bliss and whichever destination you reach will be the one most suited to you.