Sincerity: The Straight Way To Liberation🔗

In the seventeenth chapter, Krishna straightaway gives the methodology or technique to imbibe whatever He speaks in Śraddhā Traya Vibhāga Yoga, the Yoga of Discerning the Three-Fold Faith. After all the words that Krishna expressed in earlier chapters, no new teaching is given here. All that Krishna has spoken and taught so far is a prelude to what He is speaking now. Here, Krishna speaks about sincerity.

Let me explain the meaning of the word śraddha. Please understand that śraddha is not faith; always the word śraddha is translated as faith. This is not correct.

Śraddha means faith plus the courage to experiment with the truth. Śraddha means faith plus the courage to experiment with what we believe in. With śraddha we will never fail. Understand that there is a possibility that we may fail with faith alone. When we have faith without the courage to experiment with the truth, it is like going to a restaurant, reading the menu card and just leaving. We miss eating. We never taste the food. We never experience it. However, when we have śraddha with sincerity, there is no chance of missing the truth. A person never misses when he has śraddha with sincerity.

Lord Krishna explains and now puts all His emphasis on śraddha. After sixteen chapters of teachings, He has nothing new to add. He has said whatever can be said. He has explained all the seven layers of energy. In the fourteenth chapter, He started with Guṇatraya Vibhāga yoga - the three guṇas (attributes) of satva, rajas and tamas. Then in the Puruṣottama Yoga He explained the causal layer and the engrams or engraved memories. The deeper layers of the cosmic and nirvanic bodies are explained in the sixteenth chapter.

Krishna elaborates on the attributes of the Divine and the demon, the ego or no ego, 'you' or 'me'. He clarifies whether our life should be centered on the attitude of 'me, me, me' or the attitude of 'you, you, you'. The root cause of our identity that separates us from our core, which is divine, is explained in the sixteenth chapter.

Now Krishna comes to the seventeenth chapter, Śraddha Traya Vibhāga. Nothing more needs to be added. Whatever can be said has been said. Now all we need is śraddha. If somebody has had a good feast, just like 'house full', his stomach is also full. All he needs is an antacid, 'Digene'. Throughout the chapters Lord Krishna has given Arjuna a beautiful spiritual feast. All Arjuna needs is 'Digene' to digest the whole thing and enjoy. This chapter is 'Digene'. The whole emphasis is on śraddha: honesty, truthfulness and straightforwardness.

We may question, 'Why would He devote one full chapter for śraddha?' Please understand that we invariably miss enlightenment because of lack of understanding of this subject, śraddha. Let me be very clear, it is not that we don't know the truth that Lord Krishna speaks. We know whatever Lord Krishna speaks of and all that He has spoken so far. We know it all. It's not that we don't know. Yet why have we not become Krishna?

We miss one thing - śraddha. That's the only thing we need. Our problem is not that we don't know. Our problem is that we know too much and we are unable to digest and implement it.

Swami Vivekananda says beautifully that instead of knowing the whole library, we should know just five concepts. We should experiment with these five concepts with śraddha. Let the five concepts become your life. That is enough. Nothing else is necessary. Instead of having the whole library in your head, have the five concepts in your heart. Here, Krishna emphasizes the importance of śraddha: how śraddha and only śraddha can transform your whole life. Understand, whatever you believe, if you have śraddha, if you have sincerity in the concept, you will achieve the ultimate. Even if you believe in atheism, there is no problem.

Many people have achieved God and attained the Truth through the path of atheism. Buddha never spoke of God. He never spoke about God. Yet not only did He become enlightened, thousands attained enlightenment because of Him. In modern times, J. Krishnamurthy did not mention God in his philosophy. He was an enlightened master. He radiated enlightenment. In the same way, many other masters, such as George Gurdjieff, became enlightened with no concept or idea of God. What you believe is not important. How intense you are is important.

People use the title Mahātma to describe Mahatma Gandhi because he was intense in whatever he believed in. He was sincere to the core. Whatever he believed in, he experimented with the truth of it. The title of his autobiography, The

Story of My Experiments with Truth, depicts his life. He experimented with the truth. He allowed the truth to work on him. He worked with the truth. Working with the truth is what I call sincerity. Sincerity is not just listening, reading or believing in the truth. Sincerity is working with the truths. It is straightaway executing them, experimenting with them and having the courage to play with them.

Both meditation and gambling require courage. We need courage for gambling. And we also need courage for meditation. Meditation is the ultimate gamble. With ordinary gambling, we gamble with money. In meditation we gamble with our ego. We gamble with our whole being. But one thing is for sure in the gamble of meditation: if we lose, we win. Only losers win in this game!

In ordinary gambling, the more we get, the more we win. In the gamble of meditation, when we put the ego at stake, we win the whole game. We put our whole ego at stake. Spiritual life needs courage. That is why Swami Vivekananda calls his spiritual disciples ‘dhīraḥ’. Dhīrā means someone who is courageous, who is courage personified.

We might ask, ‘Why do spiritual people need courage? For spiritual life, don’t we need to be silent?’ No! Spiritual life calls for courage. To experiment with these truths, we need courage. In the past sixteen chapters we have heard many different teachings, different understandings and so many different techniques. We have heard everything. All of this can help transform our life only if we have the courage to experiment with them. Otherwise they add more weight to our head, that’s all.

Please understand that if we receive these teachings and store them in our head, we gain more head weight, nothing else. Now we think, ‘I know the Gita.’ However, we need to experiment with the Gita. We need to experience it.

For example, if we eat too much food and we are unable to digest it, what happens? We vomit it out. We have a stomach ache and we vomit. Similarly, if we hear all these things and we don’t experience it, we will get a headache. We will catch people and vomit all these things on them. Please be very clear that unless we have sincerity, unless we experiment with these truths, listening to these truths is dangerous.

Now I am giving one more step. Here it says, ‘If you don’t practice, listening to these truths is dangerous.’ We may ask, ‘Why?’ Because now, by and by, even after so many days of listening or reading these great truths, we will start hallucinating that we know, without knowing. That is the most dangerous game.

Never ever get caught in that game!

Spiritual life needs courage, sincerity, and the consciousness of dhīraḥ.

A small story:

The great saint, Dakshinamurthi Swamigal, lived in Tamilnadu, South India, near a place called Tiruvaroor. Let me share a historical incident from his life.

A poet from the king's court met Dakshinamurthi Swamigal and was inspired by his presence. Consequently, the poet wrote one thousand songs in the bharani style in the saint's honor. Bharani is a special style of poetry involving one thousand verses. The rule is that only someone who shows courage and power and kills one thousand elephants in war is qualified to have such a song written about him. Here, this poet was so inspired by the saint's presence that he simply wrote the songs on him on the spot.

The king also considered himself to be bharani. I don't know if he killed one thousand elephants in war. He may have just paid a poet to write one thousand songs about him!

Anyway, suddenly, one day in court, out of ego and pride, the king announced, 'I am the only bharani in this whole country, in this whole region!' One of his poets stood up and said, 'No O king, you are wrong. Dakshinamurthi Swamigal is also a bharani. One of your court poets has sung a bharani about him.'

The king's ego was hurt. He said, 'What? Who is this person deserving bharani? Bring him here.' The poet said, 'No, no, he is a beggar. He will not come here.' Beggars can never be forced. We can never force homeless people. We can force anybody but a homeless person to do what we want, because he has no desire. We can't do anything about him. As long as someone has some desire, he obeys the social system. So we can't do anything about a homeless person. He does not care for name, home, fame or security. So we cannot bind him. In this case, this man was a beggar and a saint. They could not bring him to the king.

The king felt deeply offended. He said, 'What? For a beggar, bharani! Which fool sang the songs? Call him to me right now.'

The poet was summoned to the court. The king said, 'Fool, how dare you sing bharani for a beggar.' The poet replied, 'O King, please forgive me. Before you say anything, before you abuse that master, it would be nice if you would go to see him.'

The king said, 'What kind of advice are you giving me? Tomorrow morning your head will be cut off.'

That was the king's usual trend, direct violence. Only foolish people immediately express violence. When they can't behave in an intelligent way, when they don't know the truth and they don't have enough energy to convince the other person of the truth, they take to the sword.

Take for example the history of Buddhism or Hinduism. They never converted anyone with the sword. They had intelligence. They converted through logic, analysis and convincing the other person of the truth.

For example, great masters like Adi Shankaracharya and Mandana Mishra had different views on a particular subject, still they did not fight with each other. Shankara did not say, 'If you don't convert to Vedānta, I will kill you.' They sat together and analyzed what they knew. It was a loving discussion. It was a beautiful scene. Shankara and Mandana Mishra sorted out their differences with deep respect by discussing without rancor.

The person who acted as judge in the discussion was Mandana Mishra's wife. What a beautiful, loving atmosphere it must have been! Can you believe that the wife of one of the competitors was the judge? Never! And here, Shankara appointed Mandana Mishra's wife as the judge. Bharati judged the discussion between Shankara and Mandana Mishra. And finally, she passed judgment in favor of Shankara. She declared that Shankara won the debate. The whole thing happened out of love. There was no violence, no cutting, no killing, nothing. It was just a simple discussion.

Throughout the history of Eastern religions, there was never any cutting or killing. They never converted through the sword because they did not believe in killing. They had enough intelligence to express the concept. And one more thing, the loser automatically joined the group which expressed the truth more clearly!

When Shankara convinced Mandana Mishra, Mishra dropped everything and surrendered his life to Shankara! He became a disciple of Shankara and took the spiritual name Sureshwaracharya. He followed the path of Shankara's teachings. People who use the sword prove that they are foolish. Because they lack intelligence, they must attack. Those who convert people through the sword prove they do not have enough clarity or courage to perceive the truth. We can never achieve anything by the sword. Only destruction is possible through the sword, never construction.

The king, foolish as he was, straightaway said, 'Kill him. Tomorrow morning the poet should be killed.' The poet replied, 'I have no problem. I have experienced Truth through this master. I am ready to die; however, if you are really intelligent, meet this master at least once. Don't punish me until you have seen him. Then I will be ready to die.'

The king agreed, 'Alright, I will see him. If he is not a real bharani, we will kill him also.'

The king set off to meet the master with all his paraphernalia: chariots, foot soldiers, elephants, armies and all his warriors. Kings always travel with their paraphernalia because they lose their identity without their paraphernalia. In contrast, Dakshinamurthi Swamigal was a paramahamsa, an enlightened master. Masters always live by themselves. They do not need any paraphernalia. This master was an avadhūt, which means he never wore clothes. The king found him sitting under a big banyan tree. Without any paraphernalia, he was sitting under the banyan tree and the king arrived with his paraphernalia to see him.

This was the scene: This simple beggar sat in a corner without any clothes. He was in bliss and peace, completely lost in Existence, in brahmajñāna (knowledge of the Supreme). He sat in intense silence and peace. This silence penetrated anyone in his presence. The king appeared with his warriors and entire army to confront this yogi who sat in profound silence.

The king jumped down from his chariot and advanced towards the master. The master did not move. There was no movement in him even after seeing the king and his army and hearing all the commotion. He opened his eyes and looked straight into the king's eyes. It was the first time that someone looked straight into the king's eyes. The king had always looked at others straight in their eyes and they had always put their heads down. For the first time somebody looked straight into the eyes of the king. After a few seconds, the king put his head down. The king clearly felt something happening inside his being. He felt like a mere beggar in the master's presence. He did not know how to act. He did not know how to react. It was a strange situation. He was at a loss. He could not decide what to do. He felt overwhelmed.

Dakshinamurthi Swamigal signaled to the king to sit down. There were no words from him. He simply made a sign asking the king to sit. All the ministers and the army dropped their weapons and also sat in silence. In ten minutes the whole army was sitting down. It is impossible to make an army sit. Even the leader of the army can't make the army sit. That is why they say we must continuously give a task to the devil. If we don't give any task to the devil, it will eat us! Similarly, we cannot make the army keep quiet. But here the whole army sat in silence.

One hour passed. Then two hours passed; three hours; then the evening also passed; one day got over. The master, the king and the entire army sat in silence. Not a single word was exchanged. There were no instructions, nothing. They did not even greet each other. They were merely sitting. Two days got over, then three days got over. Now the master thought, 'This is too much. The poor man and his entire army have been simply sitting for three days without food and even without toilet visits! These people must return to their kingdom, to the palace. The king must take care of the country. He has been just sitting here for three days.

The master opened his eyes and said, 'Now you can go.' The king fell flat at the master's feet, did namaskār (obeisance) and came out of the forest.

Then the king summoned the poet and said, 'Leave alone thousand elephants... You may sing for the master praises that you usually sing for the one who has killed ten thousand elephants!'

The poet made a beautiful statement, 'Killing ten thousand elephants is easy. It is not a big deal. You just need the weapons and you can simply kill; however, killing one's mind is the real achievement.'

This master had killed the king's mind. Not only had Dakshinamurthy Swamigal killed his own mind, he could kill anybody else's mind if they sat in his presence. Killing ten thousand elephants doesn't take courage, but killing your mind requires courage.

All we need for real spiritual life is courage and sincerity to experiment with the truth. We typically lack that quality. We listen to everything. Wherever there are discourses and lectures, we go and listen to anyone who speaks. We read all the books. When it comes to facing the reality of putting this knowledge to test, there is no action. Then you tell me, 'For practical purposes, Swamiji, we must have our possessions. Otherwise how can we survive in this world?...' You just compromise cunningly.

Compromising is cowardice. Please understand that the person who compromises never experiences anything in his life; not only in the spiritual life, even in the outer world life. He can never experience life itself.

Sincerity to experience a single truth is enough. Nothing else is necessary. We don't need to do big things. Please be very clear, we can't call somebody 'a big person' if he does something big. What he does is unimportant; how he does it is important.

As an example, the great saint Nammalvar, who lived in Tamilnadu, made garlands for Vishnu throughout his life. He did nothing else. He picked flowers from a garden, made garlands and gave it to God. All he did was make garlands. He became enlightened. So many enlightened masters did not do big things. They did small things in a big way. They had deep trust.

Another enlightened person did not even do that. He did not make garlands to offer God. Instead he threw a stone towards the Shiva linga everyday. His name was Sakyanayanar (Sakya refers to the clan of the Buddha, and Nayanar is a name for devotees of Shiva). Somehow he became a Buddhist monk. Because he was a Buddhist monk, he could not worship the Shiva linga in public. Yet he had tremendous respect and devotion for Shiva.

In Buddhism, at least one son from every family is given to the monastery at a young age. They bring him up and make him a Buddhist monk. Like that, Sakyanayanar was given away to a monastery. Still, he had deep devotion to Shiva. Everyday he went near the Shiva temple. It was not even a regular temple, it was just a small Shiva linga under a tree. From a distance he took a stone, visualized it as a flower and threw the stone at the Shiva linga. If someone observed him and asked, 'What are you doing?' he would say, 'I am only throwing stones at the Shiva linga.' He would throw the stones and leave that place.

One day when he threw a stone, an old man suddenly appeared and asked, 'What are you doing?' He replied, 'I am only throwing stones at the linga.' The old man said, 'No, the way in which you throw shows your devotion. You may be throwing stones, but the way in which you are throwing shows devotion. Tell me who you are?'

Sakyanayanar replied, 'Somehow I was born in a Buddhist family, yet I am deeply devoted to Shiva. Everyday I come and offer my Being to him by throwing a stone. Immediately the old man turned around, gave darśan (vision) as Shiva and blessed him with enlightenment.

Understand that what we do is unimportant. Even if we sweep our home, even if we just clean our house, it is okay as long as we do it with complete and intense sincerity in that moment.

Live in the moment.

Understand that spiritual practice does not mean you need to go into a deep forest, hold your nose ten times, and breathe this way and that way. You will only torture yourself. Do anything, but do it with intensity and sincerity. Have courage to express whatever you believe. Have courage to work and experiment with whatever you believe. Whatever your beliefs may be, have the courage to experiment with them.

Don’t bother whether the truth you believe is the ultimate Truth. You will never know whether it is ultimate unless you have the courage to experiment with it. Without experimenting, you cannot conclude. If you conclude without experimenting, it is prejudice. You cannot conclude without experimenting. All you need is courage to experiment with the truth that you believe.

Tamil has three words for satya (truth). One word is vaaimai, which means speaking the truth through the mouth. Another word is unmai, which is speaking the truth through your mind or heart. The third beautiful word is meimai, which means living the truth through your body.

In Tamil, ‘mai’ means body. Truth means living the truth through the body. All of us understand speaking the truth through the mouth and speaking the truth through the mind. However, what does ‘living the truth through the body’ mean? We have never heard this before.

This is where we miss the boat. We continuously think about the truth. We go on contemplating the truth from morning till night. We speak what we think is the truth. Nonetheless, we forget one important thing: executing the truth in life, living the truth in life. That is where we miss. Living the truth in life is the essence.

Patanjali gives satya as the first instruction in his Ashtaanga Yoga. In the set of five disciplines called yama, the first discipline is satya. This satya refers to truth in thought, word and action. It is vaaymai, unmai and maimai, all the three combined.

People ask me how difficult it is to practice one by one, all eight steps of Ashtanga Yoga before reaching the final point of samādhi. I explain that Patanjali did not outline these as eight steps. These were eight limbs or eight parallel paths to samādhi, enlightenment.

When practiced sincerely, any part or even a part of a part can lead to enlightenment. In reality we cannot practice satya unless we are enlightened. We become aware of satya, that ultimate truth, upon enlightenment, and not before.

The sincerity with which we practice leads us to enlightenment.

That is why I have said time and again that it is not necessary to have an enlightened master as our guru to become enlightened. Any master whom we follow sincerely can lead to enlightenment. Even if we truly believe a stone idol will deliver us into liberation, it will do so.

Our approach, our conviction, our courage and our trust elevate us.

Śraddha is total conviction in what we are doing. There should be no doubt in our mind about the path that we are following and why we are following. All great masters had undivided focus in whatever they did. They never swerved from their chosen path no matter what challenges and problems they faced, including threats to their lives.

Śraddha will also deliver whatever else we need, including material benefits. Here Krishna speaks of spiritual enhancement. We can use the same technique to achieve whatever else we need. Śraddha works equally well in material pursuits. That is what I call Quantum Spirituality. Spirituality is not separate from materialism. Spiritual wellbeing is not divorced from material wellbeing. Material wellbeing is part of overall spiritual wellbeing. And that is Quantum Spirituality.

Be very clear, spirituality is not about renouncing everything and going off to a forest or a mountain. If we do this without cleansing our mind, we will only live our fantasies in the forest or on the mountain. We need not go anywhere to practice spirituality. We can stay where we are and enjoy whatever we have, without regrets and guilt. All we must do is give up and renounce our fantasies about what we do not have.

To accomplish this, to focus on what we have, to enjoy what we have and to renounce greed and expectation, requires courage, determination, single-minded focus and discipline. It requires śraddha.

Understand that the ultimate step or the straight way to enlightenment is honesty and sincerity towards our beliefs. Whatever we believe is not the issue. We must have the courage to experiment with it.

Q: Swamiji, you said that spirituality is no different from materialism. This is not what I have been taught. I shall be grateful if you can explain.

I define spirituality or spiritual wellbeing as the combined wellbeing of body, mind and being. To be spiritually well means you are well physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and materially as well, fully content with all that you have and all that you experience.

There can be no spirituality in discontent. Unfortunately, all of us are discontented with whatever we have. Whatever may be our possession, we seek something more, something different. Discontentment is the cancer of our being.

For most of us, there can be no wellbeing without material wellbeing. We need to be comfortable and respected in society.

If we transcend that need for name, fame and wealth and seek the life of a monk, it is fine. On the other hand, if we run away from our environment because we are uncomfortable with our poverty or social disrespect, that mindset and discontent follows us wherever we go. Going into the forest will not solve our problem.

Ancient Hindu mythology contains graphic descriptions of how divine beings disturb the meditation of earth-bound sages. The divine beings, the demigods, do not want competition in their space of heaven. Hence it is said that they divert and disturb the focus of these sages by sending celestial nymphs to create lust in them! For this reason, we have graphics today of meditating sages trying to cover their eyes as the nymphs dance before them. Usually artistic representations show their fingers spread out while they are peeping through the gaps!

There is no need for nymphs. Our mind is enough. If we go into the forest to meditate with a disturbed mind, we carry that disturbance from our home to the forest. No one needs to send women to disturb us. If it were true that the demigods sent beautiful nymphs to disturb meditators, half the world would be into meditation! It would be a great motivator! The nymphs are but a symbolic representation of our mental unrest.

Spirituality is easier for rich people and people in power. These are the people who have discovered that wealth, fame and power are transitory. They have experienced the depression of success. They only need to understand that there is something permanent beyond wealth, name and fame.

That is why there were many rājaṛṣis in the vedic culture. These were kings who were sages, enlightened masters. These were the true masters, not those who sat in forests. These kings, such as Janaka, ruled their kingdom with an undisturbed mind.

As householders, many of you find your life unbearable. Imagine the plight of a king who must manage millions of householders. Yet, these kings ruled with non-attachment.

Such people do exist even today. Many have created wealth for themselves and others and live in a spiritual mode of 'You'. This attitude separates the spiritually minded person from the non-spiritually minded person. Krishna talked about this in the previous chapter. The shift from 'I' to 'You' makes us spiritual. It is not the shift from enjoyment of material things to discarding them. Poverty does not make us spiritual or enlightened. If that were the case, half the world would be enlightened.

This is why I say time and again that to evolve spiritually we do not need to renounce anything that we have. We need to renounce the attachment to what we have and renounce the fantasies we have about what we do not have.

As long as we are content and comfortable with our home, car, wife and children and we do not fantasize about someone else's home, car, wife and child, we will be spiritually well and happy.