You Are Not The Master Of Your Destiny
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18.54 Absorbed in the Supreme Being, the serene one neither grieves nor desires. Becoming impartial to all beings, one obtains the highest devotional love for Me.
18.55 By devotion one truly understands what and who I am in essence. Having known Me in essence, one immediately merges with Me.
18.56 My devotee, occupied with everyday life, still remains under My protection, the imperishable ultimate abode, through My mercy, through devotion to Me.
18.57 While being engaged in activities, just depend upon Me, and being fully conscious of Me, work always under My protection.
18.58 When your mind becomes fixed on Me, you shall overcome all difficulties by My grace. But if you do not listen to Me due to ego, you shall perish.
Krishna explains how devotion is reached and how He protects the devotee.
Developing the state of non-attachment, being impartial to all beings, being unconcerned by success and failure, fully absorbed in Godhood, one becomes His devotee. In that state alone does one understand the essence of Krishna. Once one understands this, one merges into Krishna consciousness. When one is in Krishna consciousness, the devotee, even if he is engaged in worldly activities, is protected by the grace and compassion of Krishna. Without any difficulty such a devotee reaches the ultimate reality.
Recently I expressed this concept to some devotees. When we relax from the instinct that constantly works to protect us, the space created allows the power of coincidence to happen. Krishna says that even though we may be engaged in the activities of the world, if we are His devotees, under His protection we experience eternal consciousness. If Krishna only wanted to give us the spiritual experience, He would not have used the word ‘protection.’ So Krishna is referring to both the outer and inner worlds. The person who surrenders gets the best experience in both worlds. We simply need to get out and He will get in. Just get out and let Him get in.
A small story:
One day Vishnu was resting on Adishesha, His bed that is actually a big serpent. Lakshmi, His consort, was pressing His feet. This is known as pādaseva
- service to the feet. In those days women actually served their husbands! Suddenly Vishnu called for His vehicle, Garuda. He stood up, ran a few steps, stopped and then walked back. Lakshmi was puzzled and asked what had happened. Vishnu explained that He had seen a man throwing stones at one of His devotees who was meditating. He jumped up, intending to protect him. However, He saw the devotee open his eyes and pick up a stone to defend himself. When Vishnu saw that the man could protect himself, He decided not to go!
Thus, when you protect yourself and your property, He withdraws. To protect does not mean that you should not lock your house. It means that you should drop the instinct of survival. The instinct of survival constantly tortures you. It is the greatest killer. If somebody kills you, you can only be killed once. But the instinct to survive kills you every moment. When you surrender this instinct, Krishna will protect you. Intellectually you cannot understand this. You think, ‘How can somebody who made a statement thousands of years ago give me protection?’ You think that only you can protect and look out for yourself. You are wrong!
You think that the survival instinct is essential in order to exist. You will realise the futility of the survival instinct only when you surrender. After that, you will automatically realize that you can live without the instinct to survive or the instinct to possess. You will realize that you can live in the material world without these instincts ruling you. This is what Krishna means when He says that He will protect you. His energy takes care. When you surrender, a space is created that allows the power of coincidence to happen. Automatically things fall into place. Automatically you are taken care of by the energy of Krishna.
When you believe that you are intelligent enough to use your mind and go your own way, you are asking for trouble. Krishna says you will perish if you follow your mind and senses instead of listening to Him.
We must understand two things. The first is about listening to one's mind and the second is about not listening to the master.
Many people have an issue about accepting another human as superior, as someone to whom they should defer, let alone surrender. They think that prostrating at another person's feet is disrespecting themselves and quite uncivilized.
When I heal someone, if the pain is in the leg, I normally bend down and touch the person's feet. Once someone asked me, 'Swamiji, how you can touch someone's feet? You are lowering yourself.'
I said, 'When I touch someone's feet, I am raising them to my level. When they fall at my feet, you surrender your ego!'
When you fall at someone's feet, you surrender your ego. It is good for you. It does not matter to whom you surrender. Whether you surrender to a stone or a human being, surrendering your ego raises you spiritually. This is the absolute Truth. You do not need to discriminate, search, filter and go through a lot of effort and time to surrender to an enlightened master.
Someone asked me, 'What do you mean by surrender?' Surrender is when you find someone whom you can unconditionally love and you have no problem if it is obvious that you are in love with that person. Your identity then merges with that person.
I tell them, 'Think of the person whom you would like to be with if God told you that the entire earth is about to be destroyed. Only you and one other person will survive and you can choose that person. Who will that person be? That person is the one you have surrendered to!'
Vedic chants end with the word namaḥ. What does this mean? It means 'I surrender to You.' Each time you utter a vedic prayer, you say, 'I surrender to You, my Lord.' Is there another system of prayer that so thoroughly destroys your ego?
So, just because you do not surrender to a master or a favorite deity, because one is human and the other is stone, do you think you are the master, free and independent? You surrender to someone else for money, power or lust. One of these will surely happen. People run after someone because that person carries something that they want.
How much more sensible it is to follow and surrender to someone out of intelligence, because that person is more aware and can guide you on the path to awareness?
Why are we reluctant to surrender to another person? It is because we have been captured by our mind and senses. We are in a jail and we are captive. We fear losing the identity that our mind and senses have created for us. We fear letting go of that identity. Our mind fights against shifting our allegiance from that ego and identity to someone else.
Realize that you are a slave to your senses and not the master of your destiny as you imagine. Be aware that your pains and sorrows arise from the mistaken belief that you are the master of your destiny. Once you realize this, you will look for an alternative.
You then understand what the greatest master of all says: If you listen to Me, I shall protect you, whatever may happen. If you do not, and you follow your mind, you shall perish.
Q: Swamiji, Krishna says that ‘having known Me in essence, one merges in Me’ and refers to this as devotion. How can knowledge (jñāna) be devotion (bhakti)?
Please understand that bhakti and jñāna are not separate. Where there is devotion, there is knowledge and where there is true knowledge, there is devotion.
Krishna does not refer to dry intellectual knowledge, even if such knowledge is of the scriptures. Thousands of scholars and philosophers waste their time and everybody else’s time by analyzing Bhagavad Gita word by word and comparing it with other scriptures. What is the point? This is a pointless, foolish exercise that serves only to boost one’s ego.
The entire purpose of Gita is to help you drop the ego!
All you need to do is understand one verse of Gita, one statement of Krishna, in its entirety. That is enough to enlighten you. This is what Vivekananda meant when he said that the study of one handful of earth can teach you about the entire earth. You need depth, not breadth of knowledge.
Every word of Gita, every word of Krishna, is energy. That is the knowledge that you need to imbibe. That is the energy that you need to experience. This is what the ‘knowing’ Krishna refers to. Once you ‘know’ this energy, you reach this energy. You become Krishna. You are not only devoted to Krishna, you become Krishna.
There are two paths. One way is to 'know' the truth so clearly that there is absolutely no doubt about your trust in the master. There is no doubt that you are the same consciousness as the master. Once you know this, there is no duality. You and the master are the same. This is the height of devotion.
The other way is the deep surrender that happens within, the unbridled love that arises within you and through which you merge with the master. Along with the merger, comes the knowledge that you are no different. Seemingly, knowledge comes from devotion.
The truth is that both happen simultaneously. Do you think Meera did not know that she was one with Krishna? Do you think she could have drunk poison without knowing that whatever she consumed was being consumed by her Lord and master, Krishna?
Do you feel Shankara was just a dry philosopher when he beheld the form of Devi and sang the verses of Soundarya Lahiri? He was possibly the greatest philosopher the world has ever seen, and he melted in front of Her in devotion.
All this talk about the three approaches to Divinity as dvaita (duality), viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified duality) and advaita (non-duality) are best left to philosophers to argue about.
Duality happens when you are open to that cosmic energy but you still feel separate. You are like the ocean drop that knows it is part of the ocean but sees itself as separate.
To reach this stage, you need to be open. When you are closed, you do not even accept that there is this huge ocean of which you are a part. You are ignorant. Duality or dvaita is the first step.
Next, you become available. Not only do you know that there is this huge energy around you, but you become aware that you are part of it. You are a part of the Whole. You realize that as a drop, you are a part of the ocean. This is qualified duality, viśiṣṭādvaita.
Then you suddenly realize and know that you are the ocean. There is no difference or barrier between you and the energy. You are the energy. You are God. This is non-duality, advaita. You just are. From being open, to being available, you just are.
When you 'know' Krishna, there is nothing else to know. Then, you become Krishna.
