CHAPTER 15: Puruṣottama Yogaḥ🔗

15.1 Śrī Bhagavān says, The imperishable banyan tree of life, symbolized by the Aśvattha, has its roots above, with the leaves and branches spreading below the earth. The leaves are said to be the Vedic hymns.

One who knows this eternal tree becomes the knower of the Vedas.

15.2 The branches of this tree extend below and above the earth, nourished by the three human attributes, guṇas.

Its buds are the sense objects. This tree also has roots going down and these are bound to the resultant actions of humans.

The totality of the seven layers is our body-mind-spirit system. The second layer is the prāṇic body, the body that controls air movements inside our physical body. In the previous chapter, Kṛṣṇa explains that this prāṇic layer is filled with desires. He further explains how we create conflicting desires and suffer with rajas (restlessness) and forced into tamas (inactivity or depression).

The fifth layer is the causal body. It is where all saṁskāras, our root patterns, are stored in seed form. Every night we enter the causal body in deep sleep. We take saṁskāras out from this layer and create the world.

In this chapter, Kṛṣṇa reveals the secrets of this causal layer.

Desires are caused by saṁskāras, root thought patterns or bio-memories of experiences and sense perceptions. Saṁskāras are stored in our unconscious mind layer. Root thought patterns, saṁskāras, drive our actions. The Bṛhadaraṇyaka Upaniṣad says, 'We are our desires. Desires shape our will. Our will shapes our actions. Actions make us what we are.'

Now, Kṛṣṇa moves on to the next layer, where saṁskāras are stored in the seed form. Even if we move beyond the three layers of desire, restlessness and depression, these root patterns, saṁskāras in seed form, called bīja saṁskāra (bīja meaning seed), need to be cleared and completed.

Kṛṣṇa speaks of techniques to destroy these bīja saṁskāras. These may not express themselves in us right now. Yet if they are allowed to be there in seed form, at one time or another, they will exploit us.

form, called bīja saṁskāra (bīja meaning seed), need to be cleared and completed.

Kṛṣṇa speaks of techniques to destroy these bīja saṁskāras. These may not express themselves in us right now. Yet if they are allowed to be there in seed form, at one time or another, they will exploit us.

Kṛṣṇa says, 'The roots of the tree are on the outside; the branches are inside.' From the causal body, if the roots are taken to be outside, it should be in the earlier three layers ending with the physical body. In a tree, the roots feed nutrients to the tree. The tree takes water and minerals through the roots. The roots decide the condition and growth of a tree. That is why Kṛṣṇa says the roots of the tree are in the physical body. The tree of saṁskāra is watered by the five senses of the physical body and our actions. The saṁskāras in seed form in the causal body are formed and watered by the five senses of the physical body.

Understand, when your words are rooted in integrity, the word is Brahma. If it is rooted in Viṣṇu or integrity, it just becomes reality. Integrity is capable of maintaining creation. Viṣṇu maintains creation. Creation is possible only when you are established in the state of integrity and utter your words. When you utter your words from the space of integrity, creation is possible, creation happens!

However, if we constantly complete with the negative words that we use towards ourselves and others to express our feelings, we will get rooted in integrity—Viṣṇu, the space of positivity. From this positive space, we will express the power of words and Brahma, creation happens! With completion the creation of space happens for whatever we want to make as reality.

This tree of saṁskāras, which is in the causal body, lives mainly due to the five senses. Kṛṣṇa uses the word aśvattha which also means that which is transient, that which is not today as it was yesterday and which will not be tomorrow as it is today. It refers to material life where nothing is what it seems to be. Everything is temporary.

Kṛṣṇa says the roots go upwards as well as downwards. He says the leaves of the tree are decided by the tricks of the five senses and the resultant action of mankind. The roots are not only in the physical body, but also in the action. Kṛṣṇa says the tree is deeply rooted because the action of the entire mankind is always result-oriented. It is always guided by greed and fear.

Understand this truth: Whenever life energy expands in you, it happens only through enriching. If we are able to create this right space of enriching, we will find a true liberation within ourselves. We will experience the power of living, constantly expanding! A load will be lifted from our shoulders. The anxiety of constantly looking over our shoulder to peep into the future will be gone. We look at past results to define what needs to be done for the future.

Kṛṣṇa explains that after cutting the tree of root patterns, surrender to the space of eternal silence, from where there is no coming back, tam eva cādyaṁ puruṣaṁ prapadye (15.4). This is the space in which the whole of Existence is established.

One's identity is the collection of one's root patterns, saṁskāras, past bio-memories and incomplete desires that are stored in the unconscious mind. This is in the causal layer of our energy. Through deep and focused meditation, we can access this unconscious causal layer and dissolve the saṁskāras stored here. Once done, we no longer return as the same person. We are free of saṁskāras and liberated.

Vairāgya means beyond attachment and detachment. Rāga means attachment. Arāga means detachment. Virāga or vairāgya means beyond attachment and detachment. It is non-attachment.

That is why Kṛṣṇa uses fitting words: vinivṛtta-kāmāḥ, those who are 'complete' with lust. Nivṛitti is the completion you carry that leads to more and more completion.

Hence, Kṛṣṇa utters the following words to program the causal layer. He gives techniques to create the space of completion and creation in Arjuna.

He says: 'Those who are free from pride, delusion, and attachment, those who dwell in the Self, who are complete with lust, who are free from the dualities of joy and sorrow, who are not confused, and who know how to surrender to the supreme person, attain eternal consciousness.'

Lust is difficult for a man to shed. Even the greatest of sages have succumbed to lust. Lust is of the body and as long as body consciousness remains, lust will stay. Only a person who has gone beyond body

consciousness can drop lust.

Those who go past the causal layer, this layer of energetic darkness, where neither the sun nor the moon shines, nor fire warms, progress onwards to the Cosmic layer and then to the nirvanic layer, which signifies true liberation.

One can meditate upon this technique, upon this truth expounded by Kṛṣṇa, through the darkness meditation in some of our meditation programs. This meditation, which focuses on darkness, liberates one from the fear of death and the fear of loss of identity that causes the fear of death.

Here Kṛṣṇa says, ‘conditioned world, jīva-loke’. Everything is conditioning. Right and wrong, honor and dishonor, are all conditioning, all are patterns. We think of honor or dishonor because we are taught that way.

When the spirit leaves one body and moves to another body, it carries the six senses, ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi, the five physical senses and the mind, in the same way as the wind carries fragrances, vāyur gandhān ivaśayāt (15.8). Just as the wind carries fragrances, consciousness carries saṁskāras, causal level imprints, from body to body.

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.

Kṛṣṇa says that we create our sensory organs, according to saṁskāras in our causal layer. Kṛṣṇa says that living entities create all five senses through the mind or mental setup. This happens not only when we take another body. Every day when we wake up from deep sleep, our senses are recreated. If we change our mental setup, within a short time, our face changes.

. I tell you, just by completing with your past lifestyle, you can get out of all your sufferings of the past. Just by declaring completion with all the past mental setup, you can get out of all the side effects, after-effects, and impact of the past over you. So, completion forms the basic truth, the basic principle. The whole energy field supports you to fulfill your life as you want.

Just for twenty-one days, every night before sleeping do self-completion with all your incompletions for at least forty-two minutes; reliving and relieving your past sufferings and root patterns. This completion process will directly work on your causal layer.

Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Only those whose eyes are trained by knowledge can see the truth of this science, paśyanti jñāna cakṣuṣaḥ (15.10)’. The whole science of completion is before you. He says fools cannot understand and only those with eyes of knowledge, can see. The choice of being a fool or a man with eyes of knowledge, jñāna- cakṣu is left to us. The choice is completely ours.

You are vibrating a magnetic field. There are two frequencies inside you.

There is a self in you which has a frequency of its own, this is what I call the energy of possibility of enlightenment. In Saṃskṛit we use the word jīvātma—individual soul. Then, there is the mind in you which it has the frequency of its own, this is the energy of the pattern and suffering present in you, which derived energy from the ātman.

First, you have a frequency of consciousness in you. Second, you have the frequency of mind in you. The frequency of the mind is the pattern, incompletion, suffering present in you. Third, at any given point in time, you are either used by the frequency of your soul, ātman, consciousness or the frequency of your mind, the patterns.

Kṛṣṇa further expands on His pervasiveness. In the form of light and heat, He is the Sustainer of all beings within this Universe. He says that He is the energy of the watery moon and through this energy He is the life energy within plant life, puṣṇāmi cauṣadhīḥ sarvāḥ somo bhūtvā rasātmakaḥ (15.13)'.

Kṛṣṇa affirms that He is Brahman and through His manifestation of the various natural elements of space, air, fire, water and earth, He is responsible for plant life and therefore for food and human beings.

What Kṛṣṇa implies here as well is that food is divine since it has His imprint on it. We tend to take food for granted. Offering food to other living beings has been considered a form of worship in Hindu tradition. Food has always been considered the repository of the Divine.

Kṛṣṇa says that there are two kinds of puruṣa: one is eternal, akṣara and one perishes, kṣara. The puruṣa that perishes is the body-mind energy embedded in all beings, including humans. This energy has a definite, limited lifetime. It is always changing. There is nothing permanent about it. It is programmed for deterioration and destruction.

The puruṣa that is kūṭastha is the imperishable aspect of this energy. It is the energy of the spirit that is indestructible, akṣara. It is the Soul that is forever, that which cannot be destroyed.

Puruṣa is the energy that pervades us. Puruṣottama is the energy that pervades the entire Universe. Puruṣottama in that sense is no different from Parāśakti, the cosmic energy. It is only a play of words to separate Puruṣa as male and śakti as female, while describing the ultimate Cosmic Consciousness.

Now, Kṛṣṇa presents the great truths about His true representation as the collective consciousness, the Supreme Self.

The first Truth:

All our minds are not individually separated pieces of the Universe. They are all one and the same. All our minds are interlinked. Not only interlinked, they directly affect each other. This is what I call collective consciousness. Anything we think affects people around us. Not only are those near us touched by our thoughts, so is everyone living on planet Earth.

The next Truth:

Not only at the mental level, even at the deeper level of consciousness, the deeper we go, the deeper we are connected. In Existence, there is no such thing as a separate individual identity. Once we know this truth, we will go beyond pain, suffering, depression and disease.

You see, we are a part of the Whole. If we fall in tune with the Whole, the Whole behaves as a friend. The moment we think, discriminate or behave with the Whole in the opposite way, it acts like an enemy. Be very clear, the Whole is not here to kill or destroy us.

The third Truth:

At the ultimate level, at the spiritual level, the moment we understand that we are deeply connected, totally connected to the whole group, to the whole Universe, not only do we experience bliss, but we really live, opening many dimensions of our being.

When we complete with everything, animate and inanimate, we experience the space of non-duality, Advaita, where each one is infinitely powerful and infinitely intelligent. Completion should be carried till we become enlightened. Understand, till we feel we are one with the space of Nithyānando'ham (I am Nithyānanda, Eternal Bliss); till we experience the space of Nityānando'ham.

Let us pray to Puruṣottama Kṛṣṇa, the Ultimate Energy, the Universal Consciousness, the Cosmic intelligence, to give us the experience of Eternal Consciousness; to make us beings with jñāna cakṣu, eyes of knowledge, and establish us in Nityānanda, eternal bliss.

Thank you!

Thus ends the fifteenth chapter named Puruṣottama Yogaḥ, 'The Yoga of the Supreme Being,' of the Bhagavad Gītā Upaniṣad, Brahmavidyā Yogaśāstra, the scripture of yoga dealing with the science of the Absolute in the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇārjuna saṃvād, dialogue between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna.

CHAPTER 16