Saṁskāras Drive You🔗

18.59 If due to ego you think: 'I shall not fight,' your resolve is useless, and your own nature will compel you.

18.60 O Arjuna, you are controlled by your own natural conditioning. Therefore you shall do, even against your will, what out of delusion you wish not to do.

18.61 The supreme Lord resides in everyone's heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the activities of all living entities, that are acting as machines under His illusive material power.

Krishna delivers an ultimatum to Arjuna.

‘Whether you like it or not, Arjuna,’ He says, ‘you will fight. In seeming intelligence, your ego tells you that you should not fight. You are under the illusion of your superficial knowledge that it is not right to wage war against friends, relatives and teachers. But you forget that your nature and your conditioning as a warrior drive you. You are a puppet in the hands of Existence. You will fight.’

These are extraordinary words. Whether we like it or not, whatever our intelligence may be, and whatever our will may be, Krishna says we will be driven by our saṁskāras. The Divine power drives the machine that is the karmic cycle. There is no escape.

Nothing can be clearer. The law of nature drives us to fulfill our unfulfilled desires. Our past conditioning invokes these desires. Even though they may be in our unconscious, inaccessible to us, they determine what we do. The master sees this even if we cannot. That is why Krishna makes this bold statement.

Q: So far Krishna has said, surrender to Me and I shall take care. Now He says you have no escape from past conditioning. It makes me feel hopeless!

A wonderful doubt! Krishna has been talking to Arjuna throughout these eighteen chapters to give you hope!

Yes, saṁskāras drive you. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad clearly states: as are your desires, so are your thoughts. As are your thoughts, so is your will. As is your will, so are your actions. As are your actions, so you become.

It all starts with your mind. The mind creates desires. The mind creates and stores the saṁskāras. You can refuse to bow down to your mind and refuse to accept these saṁskāras that control you.

Saṁskāras can also be dissolved. In our programs like ASP or LBP level 1 and NSP or LBP Level 2, we teach meditation techniques to effectively reduce and remove saṁskāras. On an ongoing basis, our healers learn special meditation methods to continuously dissolve saṁskāras. These techniques are an extension of what Krishna has spoken about in Gita.

All meditation techniques bring you into the present moment. When you are in the present moment, you renounce attachment to fantasies about the future. You detach yourself from the results of your action. This alone leads you into liberation from the bondage of saṁskāra.

Surrender to the master, surrender to the universe, is the ultimate technique to rid oneself of all bondages, karma, vāsanā and saṁskāra, of the past, present and future. I instruct Nithya Healers that they cannot and should not wish that the person they are healing be healed. The affirmation if at all needed will be: Let whatever is good happen! That is all. The universe has the intelligence (buddhi) to decide how to use its power (śakti). The healer does not. The healer is solely the instrument connecting the person to the healing energy.

When people come to me for help, I usually say one of two things. To those who come purely for material assistance, health and wealth, I say, ‘I shall pray to Anandeshwara to help you.’ To those who come as sincere seekers, connected to me at the being level, my disciples and devotees, I say ‘I will take care.’ Ask my disciples about the power of these words.

I say this to those who come in a mode of total surrender. They have such absolute trust in me that they tell me, ‘Please say you will take care.’ They know at their being level that once they have downloaded their problems and pain to me, it is no longer their burden. It is mine. They know it so deeply that there is not an iota of doubt in their minds that the problem has disappeared. In fact, many no longer feel that they need to be in my physical presence. Such is their surrender and the trust born out of surrender.

I do nothing with them. All I do is pass their problems on to Parāśakti, the universal feminine energy of the cosmos; that is all. I have already surrendered to Her. Not one finger of mine can move without Her command. So, what can I do? But such is Her compassion that She responds every time. When the being surrenders, when the ego and mind surrender, She takes over. On the other hand, if you are filled with your ego, there is no place for Her.

So I tell my healers, when you start healing and go into the healing meditation focusing on the Ānanda Gandha cakra (energy center), get out of the way so that I can come in. This means, I am asking you to give way so that the universal energy can come into you.

This is what Krishna, the greatest master of all, the Parama guru, the Jagat guru, has repeated throughout the Gita. He does not ask you to surrender to Him out of His ego. He asks you to surrender to Him out of His deep compassion. What can you give Him that He does not have?

Where else would you want to go since only He can grant everything you want? More importantly, only He can grant you what you need to free you from your suffering forever. Who else can do this for you? No one.

Don’t lose hope. There is no need to do that. Krishna is a beacon. All you need is trust in Him.