SELFLESS ENRICHING LIBERATES🔗

There are two techniques by which one can liberate oneself from attachment to work. One is by telling oneself, 'I am not the doer.' By continuously reminding yourself that it is the senses and not you who is doing something, you distance yourself from the action. This is what Kṛṣṇa explains in the previous verses. The other way is by surrendering the fruits of one's work to the Divine to the ultimate life force that is conducting this Universe. This is the technique that Kṛṣṇa talks about here. When you do work as a sincere, humble offering to the Divine, the very attitude of this surrender will make you do the job authentically to your peak capability and you will be liberated. When you are excessively bothered about the results, you actually think you are the doer of the action! When you see that Existence is purposeless and you are living in the loving, caring arms of Existence, you will relax and surrender to that very Existence. When you are in this relaxed mood, you can function at your best and enjoy every moment of life without feeling like the doer and therefore not worrying about making small mistakes. Real surrender happens when this understanding becomes your experience.

Our relationship with the activity of Nature is a very deep one. Our actions are like oblations offered in a fire sacrifice. Our activities are not just movements of the limbs. When we perform a yajña, a fire sacrifice of enriching the Source, the Cosmic Energy we pour various offerings into the fire. We do so to tap the Cosmic Energy and to flow in tune with Existence, with Nature.

The subtlest, most powerful and all-pervasive Cosmic Energy is invoked through the slightly less subtle air element when we chant the mantra and we connect and enrich the still, less subtle fire energy through the fire ritual. Energy is then transferred to water, a grosser energy, and then the water in the pots is poured over plants, idols and humans as well as the earth, which is the grossest form of energy.

Enriching is the way in which you relate with the expressed component of God, the expressed part of God. Integrity and Authenticity are the ways in which you relate with the unexpressed, avyakta part of God. Responsibility and Enriching are the ways in which you relate with vyakta, the expressed part of God.

When we perform a sacrifice, we perform certain invocations to the higher energies. So, we attract corresponding effects for our actions. Our actions are like offerings in a sacrifice. When the actions are in tune with tattvas of integrity, authenticity, responsibility and enriching, which is the flow of Existence, it is like offering ghee (clarified butter) into the fire. When we do not flow in tune with Existence, it is like offering mud into the fire. You know the kind of smoke comes out of the fire when you offer ghee and the kind of smoke that comes out when you offer mud. Just like you can determine the quality of the offering you gave to the fire from the quality of the smoke, the result of your actions can be determined from the quality of your actions. The quality of the end result is based on our input, our offerings, our enriching.

Integrity and Authenticity are the right ways to relate with the unexpressed part of God, avyakta. Responsibility and Enriching are the right ways to relate with the expressed part of God, the world, vyakta. If you do not enrich, you actively create a selfish pattern and your offerings bring that same result. Be very clear, either you give or you swindle. There is no middle.

Kṛṣṇa says that rains become possible from the enriching sacrifice

Rain is a grosser form of energy that is activated by the subtler unexpressed energies which are influenced by our authenticity in actions and integrity in words, thoughts and vibrations.

Rain is the cause, the source which is responsible for the growth of food grains. Food is the enrichment needed to sustain our bodies and minds, which give rise to further authentic action and integrated thinking. So, you see this cycle now, of how the subtle energy, avyakta, the unexpressed part of God manifests itself in the grosser world as vyakta, the expressed part of God, and how the actions in the grosser world affect the subtler elements.

Understand, this is what Kṛṣṇa says, ‘O Pārtha, he who does not adopt the prescribed, established cycle lives a life full of sins, aghāyur idriyārāmo. Rejoicing in sense gratification, he lives a useless life, moghaṁ pārtha sa jīvati (3.16).’

When you do not enrich every person with the fruit of enriching after constantly being enriched by the sacrifice of the Existence, the Supreme, your life becomes full of sins and you live a useless, incomplete life. That in turn brings the cycle of more and more incompletions!

The Universe is a huge wave of ‘Tathāstu!—so be it!’ So everything is as you create, as you organize, as you arrange! Put a little intelligence, time and energy into creating the right space in you.

Existence has provided, is providing and will provide for each and every one of your needs. Your suffering, your struggle, your incompletion is only because you don’t trust that you are being provided all that you need; because you carry a deep self-doubt and consider yourself separate from Existence, who you think is your enemy.

Here Kṛṣṇa says a beautiful thing:

King Janaka was a beautiful example of a true karma yogi, a man of selfless authenticity in action with a continuous commitment to enriching life in and around him. He was a king. He ruled a kingdom and yet was unattached, liberated. Just like Kṛṣṇa who ruled a kingdom and yet was a Sannyāsi in the truest sense of the word, Janaka was a model king who was complete unto himself, untouched by the external world.

Only when you are completely detached can you be completely involved. Otherwise, your very sense of ownership and emotional attachment will be a hindrance to plunging headlong into the task. Only when you work without any incompletion, can you perform the task authentically to your peak possibility, without expectation and without being concerned about the results.

I would be the cause of creating confusion and destruction.

3.25 Even the ignorant do their work with attachment to the results, O Bhārata, the wise do so without attachment, for the enrichment of the people.

There is a difference between the state of a leader and the status of a leader. Most of us want to attain the status of a leader but not the state. The state of the leader is something totally different. It is the state of the leader born from the principle of responsibility that enriches people to become responsible. Problems of all kinds, ranging from stress to discontentment and violence, result because the leader has achieved the status and not the state.

Responsibility is thinking, feeling, acting, responding and cognizing from the truth that you are the Source of everything!

It is responsibility that makes you realize all possibilities. It is leadership consciousness that brings not just success, but fulfillment in you.' Kṛṣṇa, who owns responsibility, the space of leadership consciousness, Īśvaratva, is making Arjuna own responsibility. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Whatever action is performed by a great person, others follow. O Pārtha, there is nothing that I must do in the three worlds. Neither am I in want of anything. Yet, I am always in action.’

There are only two types of human beings on planet Earth—those who feel responsible for everything and those who don’t feel responsible for anything. People who feel responsible become leaders. People who don’t feel responsible continue to be slaves.

Deep understanding and experiential expression of the truth happens only with taking responsibility for all your actions. Only when the space of leadership becomes your own experience does the responsibility become complete. Otherwise, if the understanding is just based on someone else’s words and experience, then there is always the possibility that anyone can come and shake your belief and you will either hold the situation or others responsible. The roots of responsibility, in this case, are not deep and strong enough to withstand all kinds of questions. Others’ questions are nothing but your own unanswered questions that you chose to suppress within you!

That is what happens to Arjuna as kurusattama, the leader of all Kuru warriors, as bharatarṣabha, the best of Bhārata. Even though he takes the responsibility to fight and avenge the collective irresponsibility of the Kauravas, he falls from his space of leadership and gives reasons to escape his responsibility. Arjuna, the one of taintless, pure fame, becomes a slave to his incompletions. Only when he allows the Master to enrich him does he surrender to the Master of all masters, Jagadguru Kṛṣṇa as His disciple!

Unless we enrich ourselves and allow ourselves to be enriched by the Master, nothing good can happen to us. Allowing the Master to enrich you is the best way of enriching yourself.

There are three types of people: the disciples (or the followers), the Masters, and the leaders (or guides).

The disciple is one who has not yet experienced and enriched himself with the teachings of the Masters, but who is authentically interested and has responsibly embarked upon the path. He needs some guidance on the path. He does not yet know how to practice what is being taught.

The Master is one who is in the eternal space of Īśvaratva, leadership consciousness and is in the ultimate experience of Enlightenment. Out of compassion, He enriches by showing the path of responsibility to reach His state to all those who would like to be in that state. It is not necessary for the Master to practice what He preaches because he is beyond the common rules of conduct. Masters need not follow what they tell you to do to reach their state. They understand the illusion of the physical plane that their body-mind system operates in. Whatever they may do physically is in a state of complete awareness.

A leader or guide is someone who is a spiritual activist, he is between the Master and the follower. He has not yet reached the ultimate state of the Master but he has had glimpses of that state. He is not as inexperienced as the follower. He is the bridge of responsibility to lead the follower to the Master.

In these verses, Kṛṣṇa beautifully explains what walking the talk means through His own example. He says there is nothing in the three worldsthe nether world, earth or heaven, for Him to achieve. There is no duty that binds Him. Even though He has nothing to gain, lose or even to do, He is constantly engaged in action

and enriching the three worlds. Why?

Because people look up to Him as God, they would obviously follow the path He sets. People's anyakāra, the expectation that world has from Kṛṣṇa is that He is God, He is Bhagavān. They would simply follow what He does. He is now responsible to fulfill even others' image about Him for leading them on the correct path. That is Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa's authenticity and responsibility!

When responsibility expresses through your head, it is leadership. When responsibility expresses through your heart, it is compassion. When responsibility expresses through your being, it is Enlightenment, Sātori.

Authenticity

Please understand, what you feel as you, the idea you believe as you, is mamakāra. For example, I can very authentically say I feel that I am a pure empty space.

There is something in front of the pure empty space which operates to create the Sangha. I believe myself as a pure space, I project myself as an Incarnation who wants to give this pure space to you. My belief as me, my cognizance of me as a pure space is my mamakāra. My decision to project myself as an incarnation who shares this space to be experienced by others is my ahaṃkāra.

What others believe and perceive as me, is anyakāra. When somebody looks at me as Śiva, I need to take the responsibility of Śiva and do for him whatever Śiva will do for him by stretching my ability. He may expect some boons from Śiva. So now it is my responsibility to stretch my super-consciousness to give him those boons. That is authenticity.

It is the energy behind the action, the energy of the being that decides the quality and hence, the effect of the action. It is not the action itself that decides the quality.

I always tell people, 'When I am compassionate, I cheat you. When I scold you, I teach you. Either way, you grow.' When I scold you, you are jolted into the present moment. Suddenly, in a flash, you get the awareness that you have been missing your natural space of completion. The energy behind my words is purely for your transformation. There is only pure compassion.

We are all governed by our basic nature, attributes, or guṇa. The mental set-up, patterns from previous births, called vāsana determines what we are, what we do in this birth, and also what happens to us in our future births. The desires born out of vāsana carry their own energy for fulfillment. If you are conscious, you will be able to fulfill them. Once fulfilled, these vāsana and karma get dissolved. One who reaches this state of completion with desires also realizes that he is not the doer.

Karma is nothing but the unfulfilled or incomplete patterns and desires, which are inside your being, that constantly make you travel in the same path again and again, trying to give the experience of completion in your inner space.

Then when you do not take responsibility for these actions, the very actions and their effects bind you into further incomplete actions or desires. Please listen! Any karma left incomplete, any action done out of incompletion is pravritti—incompletion leading to more incompletion. It is

more and more dangerous, and makes you more and more powerless.

To understand, 'I am not the doer,' this concept of 'I' and 'mine' needs to be understood. Śiva says that the concept of 'I' itself comes from the concept of 'mine.' We think, when the sense of 'I' happens, the sense of 'mine' happens. But if you look deeply, our idea of what we think of as 'ours' is what defines what we think of as ourselves. Just imagine, if your possessions, your status, your wealth, your relations all are taken away from you, what will you think of as you? How will you define yourself? Your idea of 'I' is also relative, is it not?

3.30 Dedicating all actions to Me, with consciousness filled with spiritual knowledge of Self, without desire for gain and without sense of ownership, without being lazy or agitated, fight.

3.31 Those persons who execute their duties according to My teachings and who follow these teachings faithfully with authenticity without envy, become free from the bondage of fruitive actions.

3.32 But those, out of envy, who do not regularly perform their duties according to My teaching, are considered all-ignorant, enseless and ruined.

Kṛṣṇa says: Those persons who execute their duties according to My injunctions and who follow this teaching faithfully with authenticity, without envy, become free from the bondage of actions. Understand, as long as you follow the goals set by society, you will be carrying a social conscience. The moment you drop social conditioning, the purposes taught to you by society, you will drop conscience and start living with consciousness. Please listen, conscience will become consciousness the moment you bring responsibility to it. Conscience means struggling with do's and don'ts, guilt and desires. Consciousness means the pure flow of life. As long as you do not take the responsibility, you will be struggling with goals, with do's and don'ts. If you live with goals, you will carry a social conscience in your life. If you realize the beauty of purposelessness you will carry spiritual consciousness in your life.

'The man who lives according to his consciousness, believing in and having śraddhā towards these teachings...' Why does Kṛṣṇa ask for śraddha here? This is the first time Kṛṣṇa says 'śraddha. Why? Śraddhā cannot really be translated as faith. It means faith plus the courage of authenticity to execute the highest level of possibility.

The courage of being established in the peak of your capability, and responding to life from who you perceive to be for yourself, who you project yourself to be for others, what others expect you to be for them and what you expect them to be for you is what is called śraddhā, Authenticity. When you enter into your being, when you experience the purposelessness of life, the so-called material life and spiritual life both drop you and you enter what I call 'Quantum spirituality' or Eternal Consciousness. You are then in eternal bliss. Only then you will understand you don't need worries to live. You don't need your mind. Until you reach the being, you need to have śraddha. The next word is a beautiful word: 'anasūyanto,' which means 'without envy.' This is important. We all think, 'My brother has purchased two houses. My sister is getting a big new car. How can I live like this?' The moment you get such thoughts, 'He has that, she has this,' what happens? All your spirituality, all your authenticity, all your purposelessness, everything just disappears. You are again in the same rat race. If your neighbor buys a new air-conditioner, the temperature in your house shoots up. The man who lives in eternal consciousness, Nityānanda, and allows his body and mind to work according to their nature is centered in eternal consciousness. He is called a karma yogi, one who has espoused authenticity in action without attachment as the ultimate renunciation. But the man who acts out of jealousy, enters his lower dimensions of social conditioning. He is caught in the rat race, and is called a karmi, one who is focused on inauthentic action arising from patterns of greed.

All your joy, the very bliss of living is swallowed by this one illusion called comparison. Just like the Earth is destroyed by the ocean at the time of the final deluge, pralaya, your whole life is destroyed by comparison.

Jealousy and comparison have no absolute existence, they are delusory patterns. There are two levels of reality: comparative reality and existential reality. If you build your life based on existential reality, you will

never suffer. If you build your life based on comparative reality, you will continuously suffer till death. Not only at the time of death, even after death.

Constantly practicing authenticity brings you to the space of possibility. Śraddha or Authenticity continuously connects you with yourself and your highest possibility. Life is for realizing that possibility. Life is for realizing the Self. Life is for realizing itself.

Authenticity is Life! Life is continuous expansion! Add authenticity to your thinking in every step. Constantly go on expanding! Don't settle down with the lower perception. What you know about humans, what you know about the world, what you know about you is all imperfect perception, comparative reality. When you settle down with comparative reality, you make the most horrible mistake of your life. Don't build your inner space on comparative reality. Let your inner space be built on existential reality which is the space of highest possibility. If you build your life on existential reality, you will live your life blissfully in eternal consciousness, as a karma yogi.

By nature, a person with a body and mind has to act in one way or the other. If you follow your nature with authenticity, you can be comfortable and flow in tune with Existence. When you are relaxed, when you are blissful, you express yourself beautifully.

Authenticity is the key. If you bring authenticity to what you perceive as you, to what is happening within you and what you project yourself outside you, you will not be controlled by your unconscious patterns. You will be able to see clearly when lower emotions arise or unconscious reactions arise. The awareness of your inauthenticity will itself bring you to your peak capability. Then, you will naturally drop all your lower level emotions and live what Kṛṣṇa calls as śraddhāvanto anasūyanto, authenticity without envy, the space of possibility.

We have always been trained by society to consider certain acts as duty; some as good and others as bad. Duty and responsibility are totally different. What Kṛṣṇa talks about here is not socially defined duty or conscience. He is talking about responsibility, the leadership consciousness, the law of the cosmos. The Cosmos functions on responsibilism.