Conditioning🔗

15.7 The living entities in this conditioned material world are a portion of My eternal Self.

In this conditioned material world they are attracted by the six senses, which include the mind, dwelling in prakṛti, the active energy principle.

15.8 The spirit in the body-mind living in this material world moves from one body to another carrying these just as wind carries fragrance.

Krishna uses a new word, 'conditioning'.

Recent research tells us that human beings walk on two legs due to conditioning. A group of scientists recently found a seventeen-year-old boy in a forest. Wolves had raised him. The scientists tried to teach him how to walk on two legs and speak a few words. They were unable to do this and he died within a year.

Man walking on two legs is due to conditioning. Everything we consider as human nature is nothing but conditioning.

Zen Buddhism has a beautiful technique for de-conditioning. For twenty-one days, the aspirant has to remain in a room. He can eat and sleep. But he must throw away everything he has seen or heard from his mind. Nothing he has seen or heard should enter his mind. They say within twenty-one days he will be enlightened. It is a tough job. It is tough to be in such a position even for twenty-one minutes.

Here Krishna says, 'conditioned world'. Everything is conditioning. Right and wrong, honor and dishonor, are all conditioning. We think of honor or dishonor because we are taught that way.

We are conditioned. If a group of people give us a certificate and clap their hands, we take it as an honor. That is the way we are taught. But never judge yourself by others' applause. This idea of honor drives many people mad. Never accept the judgment of the crowd.

A small story:

Winston Churchill was delivering a lecture. About 10,000 people were listening. A press person asked Churchill what he felt about such a huge gathering. Churchill replied, 'Never judge my importance by the crowd. Today there are 10,000 persons. If you announce that I will be hung in public tomorrow, there will be 100,000 people. It will be a scene to be seen.'

The crowd cannot decide right and wrong or honor and dishonor. Your integrity, your honesty to the truth, your depth of self-awareness alone can decide your worth.

Here Krishna gives these meditation hymns to re-program your causal layer, your saṁskāra.

Another small story:

A Sufi mystic begged a king for a meal. The king shouted at him, 'Nobody here knows you.'

The mystic laughed and said, 'Yes. I agree. Nobody here knows me. Yet I know myself. In your case, everybody knows you. However, you don't know yourself.'

Only those who don't know themselves worry about others knowing them.

After crossing the three layers and going beyond the causal layer, you enter a space where you are free from conditioning. May you be free from all conditioning!

Krishna says:

'They are attracted by the six senses that include the mind.'

There are five physical senses and the sixth sense is the mind. However, according to me, the mind is the only sense and the so-called five physical senses are slaves to it. The mind jumps around. If the mind can be handled, all the other five can be handled.

A small story:

Queen Madalasa gave birth to seven children. Each child became enlightened by the age of seven and moved out of the kingdom. Their father, the king, was puzzled. How did seven children in a row become enlightened? He probed into the issue and found that Madalasa had taught them one phrase, tat tvam asi (You are That). Just by internalizing tat tvam asi, their mental setup changed. They were cleared of saṁskāras in the causal layer. They became enlightened.

Enlightenment is the removal of saṁskāras, the elimination of embedded memories, and the dissolution of conditioning. We return to our pure original state. This is why enlightenment is referred to as samādhi. The Sanskrit word samādhi means 'returning to the original state'.

The spirit in the body-mind living in this material world, moves from one body to another carrying these saṁskāras just as the wind carries fragrance. saṁskāras in one body quit that body and take shelter in another. This continuous vicious cycle of movement of saṁskāras is what Krishna refers to as saṁsāra, the life-and-death cycle.

Krishna says 'taking these'. What does He mean by 'these'? In the previous verse, Krishna talked about the six senses, including the mind. He refers to them here.

When the spirit leaves one body and moves to another body, it carries the six senses, the five physical senses and the mind, in the same way as the wind carries fragrances. Just as the wind carries fragrances, consciousness carries saṁskāras, causal level imprints, from body to body.

Krishna answers a frequently asked question about sin. People ask whether sins come with them from one birth to another. Sins never follow. Only imprints travel. For example, if a man commits one hundred murders, the quantity will not follow, but the basic mentality of violence accompanies and tortures him. Only the mental setup is carried.

The concept of karma is often used to justify actions, by saying, 'It is our karma,' 'It is our fate,' 'It is our destiny, what can be done?,' 'Whatever had to happen has happened.' This is pure fabrication and justification of our negative deeds.

We have the freedom to act: the free will to decide and act. Ironically, only an enlightened master has no freedom. Enlightened masters are driven by Parāśakti's will; they are guided by Her, that universal power, into doing what they must do.

Understand: I cannot take a single step on my own. My limbs move in accordance with Her wishes.

The ordinary human being is in control of his destiny. All that nature provides are paths in our lives and we choose the path we travel by. We decide the path. What drives us into taking one fork or another is vāsana, the 'smell' that the spirit carries. It is the subtle imprint of our past actions, saṁskāras and karmas. It is not definitive or predestined.

We have the choice to redefine that vāsana, that smell, into either a stink or a wonderful fragrance. It is in our hands only. Whether we wish to travel in the same merry-go-round or decide to break out and walk free is our decision.

Ramakrishna beautifully says that the soul travels from one body to another like we move from one room to another. When He left His physical body, His wife Sarada Devi was about to remove her jewelry. (Traditional Hindu families never allow a widow to wear jewels, especially the sacred thread signifying marital status, and bracelets.)

Just as she was about to remove the sacred thread, Ramakrishna appeared and told her not to remove it. He said, 'Where have I gone? Just to another room. Don't remove your jewelry.'

From that time till her end, Sarada Devi followed His words. This may seem easier today. But in those days, in an orthodox Hindu family in a small village, it was not so. She was highly courageous.

Someone who leaves all social conditioning, who sheds all saṁskāras in his causal layer, moves from body to body as easily as moving from one room to another.

We create big buildings. We accumulate a good bank balance. We have friends. Just as we start enjoying life, suddenly death appears before us. We fear death only because it takes everything away from us. If we are unattached, if our causal layer is not filled with saṁskāras, if we are not gripped by social conditioning, we will not fear death. We know it is like moving from one room to another.

As Krishna says elsewhere, 'It is like changing one dress for another.'

In one of his parables, Ramakrishna says:

An ascetic who was deep into tantric practices went into a forest to worship the divine Mother. He placed all the ritualistic instruments around him and started worship. A tiger roaming that forest attacked and killed him. A passerby saw this and quickly climbed a tree to save himself.

Once the tiger had left, this man climbed down and out of curiosity sat near the corpse and started praying. Suddenly the divine Mother appeared and told him that she was pleased with his spiritual practice, and that he could ask for any boon.

The surprised man asked, ‘Mother, the other man was working hard on his worship. Yet, You allowed him to be killed. I just came by and sat down where he had left, and prayed to You. You have now blessed me. Why?’

Devi said to him, ‘For many births before this you have been my devotee and you came here not by accident, but by the saṁskāras and vāsanas of your past. I appeared before you as a result.’

The saṁskāras of this life are the result of prārabdha karma, the mindset, along with the spirit from the vāsanas of the past birth that are carried into this birth. It is always a mix of pain and pleasure.

Q: Swamiji, you say conditioning makes us do what we do. Isn’t there a built-in programming of the human body-mind system that dictates what we do?

This question needs to be answered at many levels. Let me be brief.

Science earlier believed that the brain developed on its own as the body grew. They assumed that as far as normal physiological factors were concerned, a person grew the same way whether he was brought up in one environment or another.

Some years ago they uncovered a teenager in a Los Angeles suburb locked up in a room. Her parents, for whatever reasons, brought her up in seclusion and never let her out. When released, she would not walk, talk, nor understand anyone. I believe she finally died ten years later. Neurosurgeons who performed the autopsy found that many parts of her brain had withered away.

It is now understood that the synaptic connections (the connection between brain cells), depends upon how that part of the brain is used. The brain comes with millions, possibly billions, of potential connections. These connections are made if that part of the brain is used. Walking and movements activate some connections. Speaking, hearing and other sensory inputs activate some of these connections. In the case of this girl, many connections were never used and therefore never activated.

Science recognizes that whatever the innate potential of the body-mind is, conditioning allows that potential to be exploited. Whether it is done in what we consider a positive or negative way depends upon local culture and upbringing. The body-mind system as it exists at birth takes care of some autonomous activities, yet even these depend upon factors of nurture, such as food, shelter, care, etc.

That is why there is nothing predetermined. Yes, the last desire of our previous body dictates the environment in which our next body is born. Beyond that, it is a matter of probability, not certainty, as to how the evolution of that body turns out.

Quantum physicists understand and agree with this. Science today knows that all events are probabilistic, and not determined by so-called laws of nature. Nature just is. It has no laws. It is beyond laws.