To Act Or Not To Act Is The Question🔗

3.1 Arjuna said:

O Janardana, O Kesava, Why do You make me engage in this terrible war

If You think that knowledge is superior to action?

3.2 My intelligence is confused by Your conflicting words.

Tell me clearly what is best for me.

3.3 The Lord said,

‘O sinless Arjuna, as I said before, in this world there are two paths;

Self-knowledge for the intellectual, and the Path of Action for the yogi.

3.4 A person does not attain freedom from action by abstaining from work,

Nor does he attain fulfillment by giving up action.

In the previous chapter, the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that knowledge of the Self is the supreme path to enlightenment. Krishna explains to Arjuna about the nature of the indestructible Self. ‘It cannot be cleaved by weapons nor burnt by fire nor dried by the wind nor wetted by water,’ says Krishna. The Self is untouched and untouchable.

Krishna explains to Arjuna that those whom Arjuna thinks he is about to slay have already been slain, and that it is the nature of the perishable body to be destroyed; the indestructible spirit moves on. This spirit takes on a new body just as one changes a worn-out garment for a new one. Krishna tells Arjuna to shed all fears and desires, and to focus on the reality of the Self.

A few days ago, a young man came to me and asked, ‘Swamiji, should I marry as per my wish or should I listen to my father in this regard?’

I said, ‘Listen to your father’s words and go for an arranged marriage.’

He asked, ‘Why master? Won’t I be happy if I marry as per my wish?’

I told him, ‘If you have enough courage to take the bame yourself for anything that happens later, go in for love marriage. Otherwise, with an arranged marriage, at least you will have somebody you can blame for anything that happens!’

If you marry as per your wish, you can’t blame anybody if such a situation arises! If you go for an arranged marriage, after two to three years, even if things don’t work out well, you can always put the blame on someone else. I am not advocating this mode of behaviour. I am only telling what is happening in today’s world. Generally, with your own decision you can’t blame anybody. But if you decide to follow others, even though the decision to follow them is your own decision, you can somehow put the blame on that person and escape. They will not tell you that it was your own decision to follow them.

Arjuna is still very much in this mode. He is confused as to what he should do. At one level, he understands what Krishna says to him. However, the explanation about the spirit living on while the body dies, and the idea that all those he is about to fight and destroy have already been destroyed in the cosmic sense, does not appeal to him. Arjuna is a warrior. To him, what is seen in front of him is what exists. He sees all his elders and relatives arrayed against him in battle and he has to make a choice to kill or be killed. This is the physical reality that he faces.

On the other hand, Krishna tells him not to take this reality seriously. Krishna says that all the living people in front of him are already dead, and therefore he is committing no sin by killing them again. In fact, if he does not fight them, he incurs the calumny of having run away from battle as a coward.

Krishna advises Arjuna to control his senses and shed his desires. One who controls all his senses is like the ocean in which all rivers are consummated. Krishna advises Arjuna that from anger arises delusion; from delusion, loss of memory; from loss of memory, the destruction of discrimination; and from destruction of discrimination, one perishes.

Krishna also tells Arjuna that he has the right only to do his duty, but no right to its results. ‘Let not the fruit of action be your motive and let not your attachment be to inaction either,’ Krishna warns him.

Arjuna is totally confused.

He asks Krishna, 'I do not understand what you are saying. First, you tell me to fight. Then you tell me to shed anger. You say I must kill my enemies, who are my elders and relatives, but then you say I should not worry about the end result.' Arjuna says, 'All I need to know is whether I should act or not. You say that knowledge is superior to action, and yet, you say I must act. What should I do?' he asks simply.

What Arjuna leaves unsaid is, 'What use is knowledge if it cannot be used in action?' Arjuna is a kṣatriya, a warrior, not a brāhmin, a scholar or a philosopher. Philosophers can keep arguing for both sides of an issue, without bothering about any logic. Philosophers are only interested in advertising their so-called knowledge. But warriors are men of action. They have no time to waste in idle talk.

So Arjuna says, 'Cut out all this superficiality; tell me the truth as it is. Tell me what I should do.' To Arjuna, these words are superficiality!

True to his conditioning, Arjuna is uncomfortable when he is not doing something in action; when he has no clearly defined purpose before him.

Your whole life is purposeless, but again and again, you are conditioned to run towards something - whether it is in material life or spiritual life. Some goal is always put in front of you. The so-called goals in material life or spiritual life, both continuously make you feel that you are not good enough.

Just understand, whatever you think of as your purpose in life, whether it is money or relationships or name and fame, even if you have complete fulfillment in that dimension, you will not rest!

By the time you reach the top, climbing will become your habit. When climbing becomes your habit, you can't rest within yourself. Please be very clear, once climbing or running becomes your lifestyle, you will be running even if you don't know why you are running.

Someone told me this, I believe a management consultant said it, 'If you place a ladder somewhere and climb as fast as you can, you will quickly reach the top of the ladder. But unless the ladder is placed where you want, where you reach will be of no consequence!' Climbing as fast as you can is efficiency. We all think we are very efficient. Placing the ladder where you want is effectiveness. Not all of us know where to place the ladder. So, the consultant says to focus on where to place the ladder.

But I say even he is mistaken.

It does not matter where you place the ladder, as long as you enjoy the climb!

The trouble is that we spend the entire climb obsessed about where we will reach and what we will do there. If we spend that time enjoying the journey, any destination we reach will be the right destination. The destination is not important; the journey is. The goal is not important; the process is.

A small story:

A man met his friend on the street. His friend looked very sad and was nearly in tears. So he asked him, ‘What happened? Why do you look so sad?’

His friend replied, ‘Three weeks ago, my uncle died and left me fifty thousand dollars.’

The man replied, ‘That’s not bad...’

His friend said, ‘Wait till you hear the rest. Two weeks ago, my cousin died and left me ninety-five thousand dollars.’

The man exclaimed, ‘Hey, that’s great!’

His friend said, ‘Last week, my grandfather passed away. I inherited almost a million.’

Now this man became really curious. He asked, ‘Then why are you so sad?’

His friend replied, ‘This week - nothing!’

Exactly the same thing happens in our lives! We are always greedy for more. We continuously pursue material goals. As a result, we never relax within ourselves. That is the reason why even in old age, when we want to relax, we are unable to relax.

Have you seen a single man above seventy relaxing? Never! At the most he will be sitting with the television. People can never sit with themselves! If they have company, they will start talking about their golden past. If they don’t have company, they will be sitting and watching television, or they will be reading the same old newspaper, from the first line to the last with a big magnifying glass! They just can’t sit with themselves.

I have seen many elderly people in India - their sons would be married, daughters would be married, grandchildren also would be married! But they will be sitting and reading the matrimonial column in the newspaper! They will be sitting and reading the classified ads for brides and grooms, not for any purpose, but because they can't sit with themselves.

A man who can't sit with himself misses one of the major dimensions of his being. Continuously running, thinking that there is some purpose to life, his whole being will be in a state of tension, conditioned to running.

Ego is nothing but this social conditioning which gives you the idea that there is some purpose to life. Life has no purpose. Even if you achieve whatever you want, you can't take it with you. You can't carry even a single dollar when you leave. Nothing will come with you.

There is no exchange offer, please be very clear about this. If you give forty rupees in India, you will get one dollar in the USA. But no matter how much money you give in this world, you cannot have a single rupee in heaven. There is no exchange counter or exchange offer.

A small story:

A millionaire was on his deathbed. He distributed his property among his three sons and told them, 'Each of you should put a million rupees in my coffin when I die. Please put a million rupees each with my body and bury me.'

All three agreed, 'Yes, we will do so, father.' One was an accountant, another one was a doctor, and the third one was a lawyer. After the father's death, the first son said, 'I should be honest. Father has given me so much property.' Saying so, he put a million rupees in cash in the coffin.

The second son came and said, 'I should also be honest. Let me put my share.' He put his share of one million rupees cash into the coffin.

The third son came. He just put in a cheque for three million rupees and took back the two million rupees his brothers had put in and said, 'I am paying for all three of us. Let him encash this cheque and spend it!'

You can't carry anything. No cheque will be useful. None of your money can be carried over to the next world.

As of now, this whole world, this material world, appears four-dimensional and multi-colored as you enjoy it with all your senses. The moment you leave the body, the same world will appear black and white, uni-dimensional, flat and uninteresting. For example, as of now, the dream which you had last night, looks black and white and this world looks real. However, while you were dreaming, the dream looked exactly like reality, in colour, is it not?

Please be very clear, when you are dreaming, your dream looks very real. When you are awake, this world around you looks like reality and the dream looks dull and in black and white. But there is no scale to measure which is reality and which is a dream.

A small story:

A great Zen master comes out of his bedroom one morning and suddenly starts weeping.

His disciples ask him, 'What is this, master? You are an enlightened man. How can you weep? Why are you weeping? What happened?'

He says, 'Last night I dreamt that I was a butterfly.'

The disciples laugh and say, 'What is the problem? It was only a dream. Why do you bother? Forget about it.'

The master says, 'No, no! Now I have a big problem. I don't know whether I am a Zen master who dreamt that he became a butterfly or whether I am a butterfly is who is now dreaming that it has become a Zen master!'

Please be very clear, there is no scale to measure reality and dream. There is no scale to prove whether the dream is reality, or what you think as reality is really the reality. We don't know!

As of now, the material world looks like a 4D, four-dimensional one. 3D movies are no longer the ultimate; now there are 4D movies. When I visited the Universal Studios, they were screening a film called Shrek in 4D. While watching some scenes, not only do you see it in 3D with the spectacles provided, but your chair is also rocked and water sprinkled on you to give some real special effects! You really feel that the movie is happening around you; you really feel you are undergoing the experience. That is what 4D is.

Now, when you are here, this world appears in 4D and dreams are in black and white. But when you enter into the dream, the dream looks like 4D.

Please be very clear, we don't know which is true, which is reality. Right now you may be dreaming that you are sitting in a temple and listening to the Gita! We don't know! There is no scale with which we can measure dream or reality.

People tell me, 'But everyday when we enter into the dream, we are not entering into the same dream Swamiji. On the other hand, everyday when we return to reality we are entering into the same reality. So with this scale we can say which is reality and which is a dream.'

Please be very clear, in one night's dream you can live even 20 years of life, am I right? Don't you sometimes have such dreams where in one night's dream you live 20 years of life? In that 20-year span, you are in the same consistent dream, is it not? Then why can't your dream be reality, because of its consistency?

Be very clear, this whole life, this whole time span, which you think is reality, may be part of one dream! So be very clear, there is no scale to prove which is reality and which is a dream. When you leave the body, all that you see now as multi-colour, will become black and white.

As I stated earlier, nothing can be carried with you at the time of leaving the body. You can't encash your cheques! You can't talk to your relatives. If you speak, they will run away! Your car will not be useful to you anymore. When you are not able to take anything with you, what is the purpose of life then?

What is the purpose of life? The moment you understand that life is purposeless, the moment you accept the beauty of purposelessness, you will realize the meaning of living.

Life has no purpose, but it has meaning to it.

Purpose means goal orientation. You always think about the goal; running, running, running and suddenly one day you just drop dead! The more goal-oriented you are, the more you will miss life.

Purpose is different from meaning. When I say the word 'meaning', living itself becomes meaningful. Come to this present moment and the path itself is life; the path itself is meaningful.

There is no such thing as, 'in the end you will be happy'. You always postpone joy; you always postpone bliss and so you always postpone living. Life is lived in a very superficial way because you think life has a purpose.

Be very clear: The man who works just for his salary, just for money, for him only the payday will be a beautiful day. He will be happy only on that one day. He sells his 29 days every month for that one day. He is selling his 29 days just for that one day of happiness.

I don't say, 'Don't take your salary.' But let it not be the only goal in your life. Let it not play a major role in your consciousness. That is what Krishna means by these words: karmaṇyevādhikāraste mā phaleṣu kadācana - you can do only your duty, you have no right to its fruit. If you think of the fruit, you will lose the joy of doing, living! The meaning of living is experienced only when you understand the beauty of purposelessness. This is a beautiful verse! It is the essence of the Gita!

Two things you need to understand from this: One, He says, let your inner space not be contaminated by the purpose of life. Please understand, when I say inner space, I mean your mind. When you close your eyes, what comes into your mind is your inner space.

If your inner space is filled with the purposes of life, be very clear you are running behind something which will never give you fulfillment. He says, 'Let your inner space not be disturbed or filled with purposes.'

One important thing you must understand; by nature, your inner space is filled with energy; your inner space, what you refer to as ātman, spirit or soul, is filled with blissful energy, eternal bliss. The more you free your inner space of other furniture or 'purposes', the more you empty yourself of goals, the more the space for bliss.

For example, this room is filled with space. The more furniture you put in it, the more space will leave this room. Please understand that this room is not empty; no place is empty. It is filled with space. It is filled with ether. This room is filled with the energy of ether. The more furniture you bring in, the more ether will be pushed out; the lesser will be the ether energy.

In the outer space, if you furnish your home, it will look very nice. But if you furnish your inner space, it will look very ugly.

Don't furnish your inner space. Don't bring more furniture into your inner space. Let your inner space be empty. Of course then, it will never be empty. It will be filled with bliss! The more inner space you create, the more blissful your life will be, the more ecstatic your life will be, the more joyful your life will be. Your inner space needs to be empty. That is what Krishna means by saying, 'Don't be attached to results.'

If you continuously think about the result, you will never be able to perform your action completely; you will always be goal-oriented; you will never enjoy the path. Not enjoying the path is the worst hell you can happen be trapped in.

Again and again Krishna says, 'Paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām dharma saṁsthāpanārthāya saṁbhavāmi yuge-yuge'. It means: I come down to save the innocent and good people, and to destroy the evil-minded people again and again.

People ask me, 'You say dharma (duty) is the only thing to be practiced, but in our lives, we see people who are not living according to dharma, but who are living more happily; they have more property, more wealth. Why is that?'

Please be very clear, they may have more property, they may have more things in the outer space, but never think they are happy in their inner space; never think they are blissful. When does someone not follow dharma? When he follows his ambition! Ambition is the thing that causes you to commit all mistakes, commit all possible sins. Ambition is hell. So remember, such people are probably already in hell.

Don't think we go to hell because we commit sins. No! We commit sins because we are in hell. The very ambition is hell; there is no need for a separate hell. Don't think we will reach a separate place called 'hell' at the end of life. The very ambition is hell. People make mistakes because they are in hell.

If you are happy and blissful, you will never disturb others. If you are unhappy, naturally you will vomit that violence on others. The very ambition is enough punishment. You need not wish for him to be punished. Just because of his ambition, he himself misses his whole life.

You can easily miss life by having a purpose to life. If you have salary as the purpose, you will miss twenty-nine days of your life just for that one day, your payday. If you work just for the sake of the weekend, you will miss five days for the sake of those two days. Unless your life itself becomes joyful, unless your working itself becomes ecstasy, unless that itself becomes bliss, you cannot experience what Krishna says in this verse: karmaṇyevādhikāraste mā phaleṣu kadācana

Purpose can be fulfilled, but through purpose, your life can never be fulfilled.

When you carry purposes in your life, you are not living; purposes are living through you, that's all. In your childhood somebody gives you some purpose like, 'You should become a lawyer, or you should become a doctor.' You are given a purpose and that purpose is fulfilled through your life, but you will never feel fulfilled.

Never make the mistake of thinking that you will be fulfilled when your purpose is fulfilled. No! Your fulfillment is completely different from the fulfillment of your purpose.

If you want to experience fulfillment, you have to work in a different direction. It is a totally different experience. It is a totally different dimension of your life. If you want fulfillment of your being, listen to what Krishna says here.

I think Krishna is the first and the last master who declared the Truth as it is. No statement can be the Ultimate, that is why I say ‘as far as I know.’ Krishna is the first and last master who declared the truth as it is.

Two things: Always, people who are active in the outer world, know the techniques to achieve success in the outer world. People who are active in the inner world know the techniques to achieve success in the inner world.

But Krishna knows both! He is the only master who is an enlightened man and a king. He knows how to give a technique to achieve total success in the outer world and in the inner world. He shows you how to furnish your outer space and how to keep your inner space empty. That is life in totality.

The whole of Gita is only about this one idea: how to furnish your outer space with the ultimate luxuries and how to keep your inner space in the ultimate bliss.

Krishna is the only one who has produced a formula for inner space and outer space together. He teaches about keeping your inner space in eternal bliss and keeping your outer space in ultimate luxury.

You can’t expect this from a Buddha because Buddha gave up the outer space. He lived with just three pieces of clothing and he lived the life of a monk. So he taught how to remain simple and blissful.

But Krishna lived as a king. Krishna lived not like a king, but as a king. Only Krishna can give practical instructions. Only Krishna can give a manual for practical spiritual living. With all other masters, their manual is useful only for monks who are sitting in monasteries. Only Krishna’s manual is useful for people who are living a regular lifestyle.

Here He says, ‘Not merely by abstaining from work can one achieve freedom from action.’ You can’t achieve freedom from action by moving away from work.

I saw a monk who was considered a great Paramahamsa because he never got angry. His claim to greatness was that he never got angry. There was no need to get angry because he was sitting in the Himalayas!

He was sitting in the Himalayas and people were there to give him food everyday. In the morning somebody brought him breakfast, at noon somebody brought him lunch, at night somebody brought him dinner! Somebody gave him clothes. What was the need to get angry? He was respected because he never got angry. Usually, human beings respect anyone who does something that they cannot do. If you want to be respected in society, just do something that others can't do, that's all.

So this person was considered great because he never shouted at anybody. Of course, nobody realised that there was no need for him to shout at anybody, because he was sitting in the Himalayas and being taken care of by his devotees and disciples.

One year, his disciples requested him, 'Master, let us go to the Kumbh Mela in Nasik.' The biggest gathering of humanity happens in India during the Kumbh Mela. Every four years, the biggest gathering of humanity happens in India at this event. It is not just the biggest spiritual gathering, but the biggest gathering in the world

Anyhow, they convinced the monk to go to the Kumbh Mela. After he attended the Kumbh Mela and was about to return to his Himalayan abode, all his disciples left him! When he came down from the Himalayas, his routine got disturbed. Only then did his disciples experience his anger. They realised that he would also shout at others, get irritated and be angry.

Please be very clear, as long as a difficult situation doesn't arise, all are great saints! Everyone is a saint till a crisis happens. Only when a crisis happens can you judge whether one is a real saint or just an escapist.

Abstaining from work or moving away from work cannot give you freedom from action. To have freedom from action, your inner space needs to be purified. Your inner space should become empty. You need to remove furniture from your inner space. Renouncing furniture in the outer world is not going to help you. Only removing furniture from the inner world is going to help you.

The idea that life has a purpose should be renounced. That is why Krishna says, 'Just by renouncing, just by outer renunciation, perfection can never be achieved; perfection can never happen.'

One more thing, if you renounce the outer world, you will be thinking about the outer world all the more. If you renounce the outer world, the outer world will fill your inner space even more.

A small story:

An enlightened master and his disciple were walking near a river. They were supposed to cross the river to go to their monastery, their ashram. On the way, a young lady was standing near a river. She wanted to cross the river, but was afraid to do so. She asked the master, 'Master, can you help me cross this river?'

He said, 'Why not? Please come.'

He just lifted her, crossed the river, left her on the other bank, and continued walking towards the ashram. The disciple was observing the whole scene. He was not able to digest what he saw. He was burning inside him. Maybe he was jealous! He was not able to digest it.

After reaching the ashram he was not able to control himself and asked his master, 'Master, you are a sanyāsi (monk). How can you touch a woman, that too a young woman, and carry her through the river? How can you do that?'

The master turned, smiled at him and said, 'I left her long ago. Why are you still carrying her?'

Please be very clear, renouncing in the inner space, or emptying your inner space is the real thing to be achieved. That is what Krishna says here. Once you have renounced in the inner space, it doesn't matter what you do in the outer world. Nothing will touch you.

Q: If we are to drop the memories of what happened in the past as the master indicates to his disciple, won't there be more problems? People do learn from their past, from their past mistakes. If they drop their impressions of the past, they will suffer. Wouldn't they?

Think for a moment about your self. Think about all the problems you have. Think about the most serious problems that you have. You will find that these are repetitive. They are caused by the same conditions.

You have walked the path before, you have faced the same situation many times earlier, and yet you act in the same manner as before, resulting in the same problem. Do you really ever learn?

Have you learnt to keep quiet when your wife says something to incite you? You know from the past that she is baiting you and you have always fallen for that bait. Yet, you rise to the same bait again. You know that you get angry easily and that makes you do irrational things. Does that knowledge stop you from getting angry?

You may say, 'That is my nature, how can I change it?' If you cannot change it, who can? Who suffers as a result? The truth is that you are not bringing in the intelligence to learn from your past behavior and past errors to rectify them. You act out of a state of unconsciousness based on judgments that your unconscious mind has already made for you.

Carrying the load of your memories does not in any manner help you prevent the same mistakes from being made again. In fact it ensures that you make the same mistakes again.

When the master tells his disciple that he left the woman behind a long time ago, and that the disciple was still carrying her, the master refers to the judgment that the disciple had made. The judgment is based on the past conditioning of the disciple. Every past memory carries a certain conditioning that is attached to it. That is what we call as the emotion associated with the memory. It is not the mere memory of the incident, which in fact is neutral, but the emotion attached to that memory, the judgment that you pass as a result of that emotion, that needs to be dropped.

As long as you retain these incidents as emotion-laden memories, they have the power to rule you and influence your decisions. Also, most decisions are based on memories retained in your unconscious mind, and so they can rarely be useful. They only cause more suffering. For example, you won't even know why you are reacting in a certain way to a certain situation. You don't know because the reaction or emotion will be bound by a memory that is stored in your unconscious. This is what we mean by memories stored in the unconscious.

Dropping the memories is really about dropping your judgments about these events and the emotions connected to these memories. Dropping them enables you to drop your negativities. You will feel clean and you feel liberated.

These emotion-laden memories are embedded in our unconscious and drive our decisions and actions. What we think are rational decisions are in fact mostly illogical decisions driven by unconscious embedded memories. These memories are called saṁskāras.

Saṁskāras are memories of experiences, mainly of unfulfilled desires, which are buried deep within our unconscious mind. They are extremely powerful. Many of our emotional and physical disturbances are caused by these saṁskāras, also called engrams by some psychologists. These are a collection of value systems and beliefs that we accumulate from childhood based on upbringing and experiences.

These saṁskāras, whether you believe it or not, are also carried over from previous lives. Our energy body, the spirit or soul, when it disengages from the material body-mind system at death, carries the mindset arising from the experiences of the life that we lived. This mindset defines the way we are born again. I can tell you in all honesty, based on my experience, that this is absolutely true.

In our Life Bliss programs, we teach you how to identify and dissolve these saṁskāras. In the Life Bliss Program - level two, also called the Nityānanda Spurana Program, the entire process is one of eliminating your unconscious, embedded memories. Accumulated saṁskāras are dissolved and those that you brought with you at birth are revealed.

The saṁskāras that you were born with have the energy needed for fulfillment. Once you understand what these are, you can pursue them to fulfillment. This fulfillment is the ultimate liberation that is actually the meaning of your life. This is why you took this birth.

Dissolution of the wasteful memories is the cleansing of the emotions attached to these memories. In these Life Bliss Programs you are led through techniques to relive your past experiences in a superconscious meditative state. This re-living helps in relieving you of the emotions associated with these memories.

Look at it this way. These emotion-filled memories, caught in your cells as biomemory, are like heavy video files that occupy huge amounts of disk space. When the emotions are stripped away, the files become bare text files and shrink in size to a large extent!

This is what happens. Your memories still remain so that they can be useful. However, all the emotions attached to these memories are stripped off and destroyed. So, when these memories do come back, they do not haunt you. You just witness them and move on.

When this process is internalized, all your negativities are removed. You are no longer judgmental based on your past experiences and memories. Judgmental behavior is not caused by memories, but by the positive and negative emotions attached to these memories. Even what we imagine to be positive is never positive. The positive quality is a result of your ego and conditioning. An experience that gave you pleasure at one time and is remembered as being positive rarely brings you the same pleasure when repeated!

Dissolution of these emotions, removal of these samskāras, transforms you. It is as if a veil is lifted from your eyes. You start understanding the true meaning of life. You start figuring out who you are and why you are here.

This is what I have defined as my mission. My mission is your transformation.