Enrollment for this course is full, and admissions are now closed. To be updated on future courses, write to the USR Course Coordinator. Swamiji will soon launch a new advanced Bhagavad Gita course through the University of Spiritual Research (USR). The course is designed for students that already have some grounding on the Yoga of Bhagavad Gita. For more information, write to the USR Course Coordinator.
This course will use Swamiji’s 2022 English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, available from Satyachetana Publications in print and digital formats, and also from Amazon for Kindle.
Inspired and guided by Swamiji’s illumination of Chapter 4 of the Bhagavad Gita, this video shares perspectives on how to practice the Yoga of Knowledge.
The inner meaning of Verses 33-34 of the Bhagavad Gita, from a March 2012 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai. Total audio time: 66 minutes. Click the triangle “Play” buttons to listen.
Krishna and Arjuna, as played by two students at the Universal Veda Gurukulam
Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Verse 122
The Blessed Lord said:
Arjuna, to reach the highest state I have shown two approaches to people in this world long ago. One is through the technique of knowledge for the followers of Sankhya and the other is through the technique of yogic action for the followers of yoga. 3.3
In this verse, the Lord is saying that in this Earth plane, sadhana is of two types. For the followers of Sankhya it is jñäna yoga and for the yogis it is karma yoga. I had explained this to you before, he says. This is Chapter Three. Where did he explain this before?
Verse86: Arjuna, the wisdom that you just received belongs to the tradition of Sankhya; now hear from Me the essence of the yoga of intellect which will enable you to be free from the bondage of action. 2.39
In Verse 86 he had said, “I explained this approach to you through Sankhya.” Sankhya is discriminatory knowledge, that is, discriminating between Self and the non-Self. The Self is all pervading, immutable, free from contamination, pure awareness. Everything else is non-Self.
In the first part of the second chapter he gave the full definition and explanation of the nature of the Self and he showed how to do the sadhana of the Self, the sadhana of the awareness. For these persons the goal is realization of the Self. After Verse 86 he explained the sadhana of the supreme Self as it is manifesting on the non-Self, that is, in matter. In Verse 86 he said, “You have listened to this from the angle of Sankhya; now you listen to it from the angle of yoga.” In Verse 87 he says, “In this approach there is no loss, no fear of contrary result nor is there any apprehension of incurring sin. Even a little progress in this path saves one from great fear.”
There is no fear of contrary result in yogic action, that is, in the second approach. But it is implied that there is fear of contrary result in the first approach. What type of contrary result is likely if one is not proceeding correctly on the sadhana of the self?
Participant: They are afraid they will not reach the Self.
Yes. If he is stuck up somewhere he will take another birth, come as a yogabrashta. But if he is doing it in a wrong way, then a contrary result will come. He will fall back in awareness to the plane of matter.
Sadhana of the Self is the sadhana of expanding the awareness unilaterally. As much as the awareness expands, so much is the experience swallowed by this awareness. But if the person is not doing it in the right way, instead of expanding awareness, he will begin to expand experience. His awareness will be fully swallowed by experience and he will become fully deluded. But a yogi is not likely to be fully deluded, because the progress in yoga cannot be fully neutralized.
In Verse 273 the Lord says, ‘Arjuna, a yogi can never lose everything. If he is not able to reach the goal, he will take another birth and he will be born in the family of the pure and prosperous, or he may be born in the family of saints and seers.’ For this second category there might be material struggle but in the first category there are no worries for any material struggle. Pure means ethical and moral, prosperous means having enough to take care of all your reasonable needs. A yogi only cares about his reasonable needs. If an air conditioner is needed, it comes; if a fan is needed, it comes without struggling too much. If the shade of a tree is needed, it is available.
A yogi does not need anything that is not required for his sadhana. He is satisfied with whatever is available without putting too much effort, without making a desire, without demanding it. That is yoga. If prakriti is providing something less than optimum, the yogi may feel irritated or depressed, but he is able to overcome it quickly. When he advances in the path of yoga, this symptom will vanish totally. He will say, “Okay, that’s fine. It was ordained for me to walk five miles, so I am walking.” But if the person is feeling sad, thinking that because he does not have money, that’s why he cannot go in an air-conditioned vehicle, or if he thinks that he cannot be comfortable in a non-air conditioned vehicle and changes his plan accordingly, he is not a yogi.
If one who is doing the yoga of the Self is misguided and his experience will begin to expand, that yogi will be a hundred times more indulgent in the experiential plane. That is a great loss to humanity. One hundred deluded beings becoming more deluded makes no difference, but one awakened yogi who has really made progress then becomes deluded is a great loss for the Earth consciousness. This is the reason guiding true seekers, giving them inspiration, support or service so that they are able to make progress, is considered the most intense punyakarma. You cannot substitute that punya with any type of charity or service or austerity.
If a yogi who is on the path of meditation, and beyond material desire, material possession and material craving, pursues a wrong direction—and at this stage of sadhana the wrong direction would be changing his track and accepting our path as his path—what will happen to him? Gita says your path is better; others’ path is fraught with danger. Changing one’s track is not allowed in yoga.
If a karma yogi changes the track and turns to only meditation, it is full of danger. When a karma yogi who is sincerely pursuing yoga gets frustrated, or is convinced that he has fallen and there is no chance for him in this life, he will want to kill himself. But if a yogi on the Sankhya path falls, he will fall from awareness to experience, and he will become ten times more indulgent.
I do not want any of my people to make that type of mistake. Our time is limited and our goal is certain, definite. We have to reach it, but our battle should be over at the midday of life. Then the rest of the life we will be the instruments of divine manifestation.
The yoga of the Self can lead you to Self-realization and God-realization. The yoga of the supreme Self begins with your conviction that you are the Self and you are here for something that is the responsibility of the Supreme. You have a role to play as the called and chosen. You are therefore doing yoga so that the supreme Self can manifest on the world of non-Self through you and your yoga.
You are the instrument, the channel, the pure Self and the spark of the Supreme. You have nothing to gain. You the spark have come from that total complete, so you are also inherently complete, full, pure and perfect. Why are you here? Because a crisis has come and you have descended as per supreme will with a commitment to complete this duty so that manifestation will be possible through you.
We are not doing karma yoga, dhyana yoga or Sankhya yoga; these are some of our instruments, our weapons. We are in the battlefield. It is an epochal battle and we are alone, fully armed to face any eventuality and counter any type of uncertainty. Divine has prepared us so that we know which weapon to use at what time: when the discrimination weapon will be used, when the yogic action weapon will be used, when renunciation will be used, when pure knowledge will be used. Do you see the difference? These are all our weapons.
In my day-to-day life I am using many of these weapons when I am interacting with outer prakriti. Sometimes I am so involved that you feel I am only attached to you and nothing else. The next moment I am so far away that even your consciousness cannot reach there; so near but so far. Sometimes I am so compassionate that I can forgive you if you are coming with a cup of poison and telling me to drink it, and sometime I am so ruthless that your ounce of mistake I am magnifying as if it is an ocean of mistake. Sometimes fully involved, sometimes fully detached, sometimes fully embracing and sometimes giving you a severe kick. When you become I, no one can take you for granted. You are friend to all, enemy to none, serving all, attached to none. That’s the state that will come.
Gita yoga is the yoga of collaboration with Divine. Only a divinized human being can collaborate with Divine. Otherwise how can a person be fully involved in an action, knowing for certain that the result is never going to come, that the project that Swamiji is launching with such fanfare is never going to happen, never going to be completed? Why are you getting involved? Because you are not human beings, you are divine beings who are trying to get rid of your human contamination.
We are doing the yoga of the supreme Self, trying to manifest the supreme Self through our own mind, life and body. We are called and chosen; we are not deluded human beings. The idea that we are deluded was fed to us, but ever since anyone has come to me, I am de-conditioning this by constantly saying that you are called and chosen. That’s why you could recognize me and find your link with me.
Our sadhana is to expand the experience on the foundation of awareness without allowing the experience to be expanded more than the awareness. We are not expanding the experience at the cost of awareness. Whereas in the yoga of the Self, awareness is expanded at the cost of experience, so manifestation is not possible, although realization is assured. In our case, realization is assured and manifestation is a struggle. I have nothing more to realize, but I am struggling to manifest what I have realized.
Our job is to manifest divinity on matter. First, we need highly evolved human beings, not deluded human beings. We need seers and saints, jñanis and bhaktas and determined yogis. Second, we need a material foundation. Matter is divine, and it belongs to Divine. ‘All wealth in its origin belongs to Divine, but due to the usurpation of the forces of the ego and the asura it has been under the possession of undivine forces, and because of its long possession it is contaminated and carrying the seal and stamp of I-ness in it.’ From the money chapter of The Mother book by Sri Aurobindo. Whoever is possessing wealth gets contaminated with this I-ness, feeling “This is mine.” It is very rare to find people in Kali Yuga who have a million but who don’t think it belongs to him or her. I am that fortunate master who has found at least half a dozen people in my lifetime who have reached this stage and can say, “It does not belong to me, it belongs to Divine.”
Our yoga is the yoga of manifesting Divine through our mind, life and body. My yoga was to manifest Divine through my form and because this is manifested, you are here listening to jñäna. God is knowledge first. Because it is manifested you are ready to sacrifice everything for me. That is called love. And because it is manifested, I am working for a global mission to manifest Truth consciousness.
My individual yoga is finished; my universal yoga has begun. As a part of that universal yoga I am trying to manifest through your form what I have realized. Now my yoga is to ensure that you are becoming a manifesting channel of divinity, of the Knowledge, the Wisdom and the Love that is manifested through my form. This is very and visible. But compare this with the other goal: a master attains nirvikalpa samadhi, can he transfer the nirvikalpa samadhi to another disciple? No. It is not possible.
Many of you are able to answer questions with clarity and depth that many realized saints are unable to answer. Does it not prove that manifestation is already taking place, as far as jñäna is concerned? Now collectively we are struggling at the second level, love. But if knowledge has come, love cannot be far behind. How soon love will manifest through your reaction depends on how much knowledge you are manifesting through your action.
If action is manifesting knowledge, the next thing that is guaranteed is that love will manifest through your reaction. When love is manifested through reaction, the third thing is automatically guaranteed: truth is manifested through your interaction. The truth is awakened in the person with whom you interact and he or she enters into a higher state of awareness. Some transmission takes place that awakens the force of truth within and the awareness expands. I want each one of you to become a living embodiment of this force on Earth.
Our sadhana is the sadhana of manifestation. You should be a manifesting channel of divine love, of pure Self-knowledge, and you should be a transmitting channel of pure awareness so that whosoever comes in close contact with you feels awakened, looks to the inner being and is bound to think of something other than mere indulgence. This is why our goal and our yoga are very difficult.
This is the reason a Krishna has to be there even at the eighteenth chapter, to give the final clarification, so that the battle is fought with adherence to the law of battle. Victory is attained and then there will be a delightful farewell.
I want you all to take that type of farewell from Earth with sheer delight: my days are over, my mission is accomplished, and I am convinced you are capable to manage the kingdom. Leave like a Bhishma, or leave like a Krishna, either way you are reaching the abode.
There are three stages in the life of a yogi, a sincere awakened seeker. The first stage is when he feels he is doing sadhana and making progress. Next phase is when he feels he is not making any progress—he is either stuck up somewhere, or has entered into some zone where he cannot evaluate or know what is happening. In the third phase he feels there is no need of any more sadhana, or he may feel that the sadhana he was doing so far is not adequate, and he has to change the gear, and do something higher. These are very common experiences of yogis.
One who feels, “I am doing sadhana” and is conscious of what he is doing and of his inner progress, is in the beginning stage of yoga. When a seeker is awakened to the inner call and enters into a path, he goes through a process, and the first stage of this process, the first sign of this processing, is that the seeker will be always aware of his progress. He will be able to discriminate and evaluate. For example, he will be able to know, “Before when I was sitting quietly my mind was very turbulent, but now at least I am able to feel the silence.” Or he may feel, “Before when I was trying to go deeper, I was only able to reach the silence level, but never I was able to lose the body consciousness. Now I am able to lose that, and my awareness of the time. So I am going beyond time and space.” That is the samadhi experience he is having.
At the beginning stage he will also be able to know if he falls down: “Oh, I have fallen, I became a victim of misplaced compassion, a victim of ignorance, a victim of attachment; I got identified with doership, with result: I was trapped by the process of action.” In the very beginning stage he will be able to know that he is making progress and he will not only be conscious of this, he can consciously feel the progress. When sadhana advances farther, then only the seeker will be able to know where he is falling or getting trapped or something went wrong. These are the two stages of sadhana for a beginner seeker. Whether a beginner of one month or ten years, if the experience is within this zone I call it the beginner stage.
Then comes the second stage of sadhana, when the seeker feels he is not making any progress at all, but he does not feel that he is stuck up. It is very delicate. He will not feel that he has fallen, but he feels, “Consciously I am doing nothing. I am not doing sadhana the way I was earlier, I am not having the feelings of this deep state that I was having before. What is happening to me?” He may conclude that he is no more doing sadhana, but this is a higher stage—much, much higher than the beginning stage.
Only when one goes to a higher stage will one be able to sometimes get this type of feeling, “I am not doing any sadhana anymore.” That means he has reached a very high stage, when the “I,” the seeker, is absent. The seeker and the seeking have become one. It is like an airplane that takes off, and the passenger inside is able to feel that the airplane is gaining height. Although he cannot say how much height he has gained, he can feel it: “Yes, it is gaining height, I am going higher and higher.” But when the airplane has reached its altitude, and keeps flying at the same speed and the seat belt sign is turned off, the passenger does not feel even the movement of the airplane. That shows the airplane is at the desired altitude and speed. At that velocity it may appear to a passenger who is sitting inside the airplane that neither it is gaining height, nor it is moving forward, but actually the airplane is safely in its orbit and is flying at a high speed. It is just a matter of time when the plane will reach the destination and make preparation to land. When it is flying at the highest speed and the highest altitude, that is the time when the passenger can’t feel anything.
Similarly, in the second stage of sadhana the seeker will not feel that he is performing any sadhana, but the practice goes on. He is not doing it consciously. It is like a spontaneous response or a habit. It may appear sometimes as mechanical ritual, but if the practice is stopped the seeker feels uncomfortable. For example, if a person has entered the second stage and his habit is to every day sit for meditation at a particular time, or come for chanting or render some service, depending on what type of yoga one is following.
Gita has spoken of four paths, and one is the path of dhyana. Such a seeker who has picked up the habit of meditating at a particular time, if he is not meditating, he does not feel guilty but he feels uncomfortable, like something is not functioning properly. That type of uneasiness will come. But when he sits and meditates then he feels refreshed. It is like after you are exposed to dust and dirt and you take a shower and feel clean. That is the feeling that comes. If they don’t meditate at the right time they feel uncomfortable, but they don’t feel guilty if it was due to some outer compulsion. In the first stage, however, even if there is outer compulsion and sadhana could not be done, the seeker feels guilty, irritated, sad and angry. In the second phase the seeker does not feel guilty, nor he finds fault with anybody due to his lack of practice at the appointed hour. That is a higher stage.
Of the four paths Gita has shown, the path I followed is sankhya yoga, that is vichara, the contemplation. When I began my sadhana, if I was not able to contemplate for some time on a concept on Gita and the day was finished, I felt miserable. This is the reason I always wanted to be left alone. Even if I was surrounded by a group of friends, and they were talking on different desultory concepts, jumping from one topic to another to another, and that was not allowing me to contemplate, what would I do? Initiate an interesting discussion, and when all of them became fully involved in that, I would simply withdraw. Although sitting there, simply nodding my head—yes, yes, no, no—but actually I was busy in my contemplation, because I have never advertised my sadhana, nor my path. Never.
By seeing me outwardly no one could have guessed that this form was doing intense yoga practice. Neither I would regularly go to a temple nor visit an ashram, nor maintain any outer ritual of fasting or pilgrimage, nothing. Yet my sadhana was very intense and it was the sadhana of Gita, that is sänkhyenayogena, the contemplative method. One concept, one word or one chapter of Gita, my contemplation would continue, whether I was riding a bicycle or moving in a train or sitting in a bus or taking food. I would go deeper and deeper, newer and newer meanings would come, then I would apply it to my day-to-day experience: “Am I there? How long will I take to reach there? Will it be possible in this life?” This is how my sadhana was proceeding. Next, karmayogena chäpare, karma yoga. Yogic action. When my contemplative stage finished, I was promoted to the yogic action plane. That period lasted almost seven years, when I was consciously performing action and evaluating whether I got trapped by doership, result motive or the process.
In this second stage, which is a very high stage, the seeker sometimes will not be able to know that sadhana is actually going on. Outer life may appear as just mechanical and ritualistic: “Oh, every day doing invocation, every day chanting, sitting just mechanically for meditation, but nothing new is being gained.” However such a stage will come only when the airplane is flying at the highest altitude and speed. If someone is at that stage, then he simply has to relax, but keep up this practice that appears to be mechanical, ritualistic and meaningless. Just because you are not feeling that the plane is flying or gaining altitude, you should not think that it is stationary in space and try to open the door. That will invite disaster. How can one be sure that he has reached that stage? The outer practice will be spontaneous. There is no compulsion but the person is unconsciously driven towards it, and if there is a continuous lack of outer practice, continuously he will feel uncomfortable. He will not feel sad, nor bad, but he will not feel the bliss. That is the symptom.
Then there is a third stage, when a seeker feels that no longer there is any need for sadhana. That is the stage when I say the seeker has completely entered into the trap of yogamaya. A feeling will come, “There is no need of any sadhana for me. I have attained everything, I know everything, and now I am capable of guiding everyone.” This feeling will come only when the seeker is fully trapped inside. It is just a matter of time when such a seeker will completely fall. This fall is accelerated by the dark forces when the seeker feels to go in his own way, or to change the track. He may say, “This is my sadhana,” or, “This is not the right path I am following, I may go to this other path.” That means he is completely within the shooting range of the dark forces. Gita says, Swadharme nidhanamshreyah paradharmo bhayävahah: it is better to die while pursuing your own path. Don’t be allured to other paths, because that is very dangerous.
In the first phase of sadhana, practice is essential. Without practice you cannot feel your progress. In the second phase, just keep going, keep going, keep going. That is the eighteenth chapter of Gita, yajñadäna tapahkarma… pävanäni manïshinäm. Yajña, dana and tapasya, this is that so-called ritualistic, mechanical practice which does not give you any new feeling. It is purifying in nature and sustains your speed, so you should continue. Nishchitam matamuttamam, Lord Krishna says it is his considered opinion that this should never be given up.
Many of you might not have reached the stage when you can directly communicate with the Krishna the way I am doing. But you are having also the same privilege and fortune to receive this. How? If you ask me. If a seeker feels that he has a guide or a guru, for him the guru is Krishna, Rama, Jesus, Buddha. If you don’t ask me any sadhana-related question, why should I volunteer?
I am teaching you the principle of karma. Any action started from your side is karma, and any response you are giving to a signal is not karma. That will not bind you; that is manifestation. So if you are not asking me and I am seeing that you are interested in some other thing, why should I create a karma by volunteering my advice? This is why if someone says, “I don’t feel to go for chanting,” my answer is, “Don’t go.” If someone says, “I don’t feel any join in invocation,” I say, “Don’t.” What am I doing? I am not actually giving any answer. I am simply responding to you with what you want to hear. If you will change your question pattern—“Swamiji, before I was feeling joy for this, but now I am not feeling it, am I on the right track? Could you please guide me?”—then my answer will come.
If you are not having your link with the unmanifest, and you have cut your link with the manifest—that is, the form may be there, but you are no longer the seeker—what are you then? You are the social being or the material being. Then if you are the material being, why should I be a spiritual being for you? If you are the social being, why should I be a gunatit being for you? Try to understand. When I gone from Earth, there will be none who will make it so clear. I am not only giving you jñäna, I am living that life every moment. Why should I be anyone’s father, husband, or friend? I am I, the all-pervading consciousness, the all-pervading force and the all-manifesting energy. That is what I feel I am.
If you are not trying to reach I, the all-pervading force, energy and love, then why should I impose on you? Wind is blowing everywhere, but wind never imposes it on you. Now think, if this wind will impose even point-one percent on you, you will become powder. So much force is there in the wind. That is why God never imposes, and guru is always a witness. God simply responds the way you want to be responded to; yeyathämäm prapadyante tämstathaiva bhajämyaham. You make God your beloved, he will be your lover. Make God your father, he will protect you. Make God your friend, he will be friendly. If you feel God is your master, he will be demanding service. Everything originates from you only. The way you want it, God will grant it. That is God.
Guru is either the witness or intervening, and will intervene only when you surrender. This word surrender is applicable only to guru, not to God. When Krishna says, “Surrender to Me,” that time Krishna is playing the role of the guru: “Surrender to Me. I shall liberate you from all sin, grieve not.” It is guru. God does not care whether you are coming to samsar for a million births. God as prakriti brings you, God as purusha liberates you, and God as purusha is guru. If you do not want it, God will never impose, nor guru will intervene. Guru will be a witness. If the seeker in you is not there, the guru in me will simply witness, or the God in me will be only granting. Remember, guru grants nothing. Guru takes away everything. God grants everything; God is never a witness. Guru is never a giver. Guru simply takes you beyond.
Those are the three states that the seeker experiences. The first is the beginning, and the second is the very high stage, where one should maintain that velocity, nothing else. The third is extremely dangerous. All those who have remained in ashram, or in our centers, and developed disinterestedness for our path of sadhana, they have not lasted. It is just a matter of time until such people go. Why? Because this is the path, this is the sadhana. If this path has become meaningless, do you think I am such a foolish person that I myself come and continue the same thing? If the war is over, will Krishna on the nineteenth day again prepare his chariot and? No, because the war is already over. If the master is continuing the practice, how could you feel sadhana is no longer necessary for you? If the mother is busy in the kitchen, how can the child say, “I have no need for food?” Mother does not pay any attention, because she knows it is matter of another hour or two when he will suddenly come and scream for food.
All of you are in these categories. Some are in first category, some in the second and some in the third. Some of you are with me soul to soul, heart to heart, some are with me only through mind, and some are with me only through body, means physically they are with me. Whenever any such feeling, or any such thought is coming, you have to remember what I am saying. If you are in the first stage, my advice is never give up, continue the practice. If you give up the practice, you can never go to the second phase. If you are in the second phase, even if you feel you are doing no sadhana, still be inside the airplane. It is just a matter of time when you will land at the destination. If you are in the third phase, God save you.
[From a 2010 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India.]
Verse 176: “Since I have no craving for the fruit of action, actions cannot contaminate Me. One who knows Me as such is not bound by actions.”
In this verse, Lord Krishna is saying, “Actions cannot cloud me, veil me, or contaminate me, because I don’t claim the benefit of the result that comes out of action. A person that knows me as such will not be bound by action.”
There is a hidden meaning. In Gita, Krishna has also said, “I dwell in every heart, in every being, and I am pervading in this entire creation. When someone will realize Me, who is pervading in the whole creation and who is also within him, then he will know that he is not getting veiled or contaminated by karma.” It is Krishna who does not get contaminated by karma, and the entire world is nothing but the manifestation of Krishna in different forms and names.
To realize this, you must first realize the Krishna that is hidden in you. If you can do that, you can also say and feel the same way, that karmas cannot veil you, contaminate you, or bind you if you are not claiming the benefit of the result. From this it became very clear to me, when I was studying this verse in 1974, that karmas and the result of karma are two different concepts.
The result of karma is for the purpose of experiencing or enjoying. Some enjoy the result; others experience it. For example, we are sitting in this closed room in winter. Some are experiencing that it is winter, while some are enjoying it: “Oh, the summer was so hot, so humid. Now thank God it is beautiful weather and I like it.” Such a person is not only experiencing, but also enjoying, and Gita says that the fruit of this enjoyment carries the seed of pain.
Verse 226 reveals that any enjoyment that comes as a result of sense contact always carries in it that seed. This the jnanis have realized; that is why they don’t enjoy, because the moment you enjoy you are throwing the seed of pain. Anything you enjoy that is sensory in origin definitely will also bring you the opposite, and the opposite of pleasure is pain. However, if you do not enjoy it, and simply experience it, and this experience is not throwing you out of your awareness, then the experience does not become enjoyment and the action of experiencing will not cloud or veil you.
Clouding or veiling means losing the consciousness, the awareness of who you are. Depending on the stage of your evolution in yoga, this awareness will be different. If you are a beginner this awareness will be that you are a seeker, but if you are nearing the end of the path, this awareness will be that you are a seer. Seerhood is not an experience; it is an awareness. In this state of awareness the seer does not see himself, he simply sees how prakriti is functioning.
If I will say, “X is angry,” then I am not a seer. If I am able to see how the rajas has overpowered the soul called X, so that X has completely lost her awareness, then I am a seer. A seer is he who is able to see how prakriti, through her gunas, is veiling, covering and trapping the awareness of a purusha. This is the first thing that the seer is able to see. The second thing is to what extent prakriti through her veiling has succeeded in contaminating the state of the purusha. Veiling is one thing; getting contaminated is another, much deeper condition.
Suppose rajas overpowers the sattwa in some form. Rajas creates confusion, so the seer sees that this person is now getting confused and beginning to lose his awareness that he is the being and he is a seeker or a seer. We don’t take up the role; prakriti gives us the role. We only carry the responsibility to discharge the role. But if we are overpowered by rajas or tamas we get clouded and cannot discharge our responsibility, and if we are unable to do that we are unable to play our role, and are trapped by karma. The seer is able to see how a person gets clouded, which means, how the awareness gets clouded by experience and how the experience penetrates to every layer of consciousness and remains there. Then in a similar situation the person will again be attracted to a similar type of experience. Whenever a person is running after that experience, it is called hankering or desire. If experience simply comes and goes, nothing gets stored inside, and prakriti cannot veil, trap or contaminate you, the pure being.
When Krishna says, “Actions cannot veil me, trap me, or contaminate me,” only one qualification is needed, that is: “I have no special interest in the fruit or result of action.” If a person is not having any claim over the result, the question may come, why will he perform action? My answer and Gita’s answer is that everyone simply gets trapped, veiled, and contaminated by action. No one ever performs any action. Actions are performed by prakriti through her gunas. That is the nature of creation.
Actions are performed automatically; you have to simply participate in this process or interfere in it. If you are interfering, you will be creating action from your side or reacting to this process. If you are creating action, that shows you have desire. Without desire, action cannot be created, it simply can be responded to. Those who have transcended the desire plane just respond to action because prakriti wants them to respond. Prakriti wants the response to happen in a particular way. It may be a positive way or a negative way, as far as prakriti is concerned. This is so delicate that even seers are confused.
The safest guide is Krishna himself because he is the only one who perfectly demonstrated this principle all through his life. Let him be our role model. Krishna says, “I never claim the result of the action, I simply respond to action. That is why actions cannot trap me, bind me, veil me, or contaminate me.” One of prakriti’s gunas—sattwa, rajas or tamas—entering into you, the pure being, means you are contaminated, you who are neither sattwa nor rajas nor tamas. You are beyond these coatings, but when any of these gunas enters into you and makes you to dance to its command, you become contaminated and then you are not that pure awareness. When due to contamination you become rajasic, sattwic or tamasic you are not awareness, you are experience, and experience is prakriti.
You are purusha. This is my realization. I am purusha and I must retain my state of purusha. If I have to participate in prakriti’s play, I must participate in such a way that my awareness is not clouded. Without clouding my awareness I can play as long as necessary, but the moment I will see my awareness is getting clouded, and my consciousness is getting injected with these attributes, I will withdraw.
The next verse is 177: “Knowing the secret of this truth, the seers have performed action from ancient times; therefore, Arjuna, you too perform actions likewise.” Knowing that secret, if you do not cling to the result, and do not have any hankering for enjoying the benefit of the karma, then karmas cannot bind you. Liberation means going beyond that type of veiling and trap, and liberation comes only when you are in the body, not after you leave the body. It is liberation from the contamination of all the stored-up experiences. If those experiences are cleansed from your system, you are liberated. The nature of your liberation depends on how much contamination is gone from you. If all of it is gone, and all types of experience have been erased from your system, you are fully enlightened.
If it is erased seventy-five percent, you are seventy-five percent liberated; if it is erased one percent, you are one percent liberated. Everyone is liberated; it is simply a matter of degree and intensity. Every human being is a liberated being, but an enlightened being is one who is completely, one hundred percent liberated, so that no action by prakriti can contaminate him against his will.
Liberation means that while living in the body you are free from all contamination. Then you live life as long as you want as Krishna on Earth. Those who are aspiring for liberation know that the secret is to not be identified with the result. Knowing this, the aspiring liberated beings perform action in the same way that Krishna showed. That is: respond. Don’t act and don’t react.
[From a 2010 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India.]
Swamiji serves dinner at the Universal Veda Gurukulam as the students chant mantras before eating.
Today I will explain Verse 125, the sixth verse of the third chapter. It has a connection with the previous verse: No one can ever remain inactive even for a moment, because all are helplessly driven to action by the modes of prakriti.
The purusha is helpless until it is liberated. This helpless purusha is a slave to prakriti, so whatever prakriti commands, the purusha has to give consent. Through the purusha, prakriti does what the purusha once upon a time wanted to do but could not, so it got stored up.
Prakriti has no will and purusha has no power, actually. The purusha desires everything, without having the capacity for anything. The purusha desires because in order to experience prakriti, the purusha entered the world of maya. What is there to be experienced in prakriti? Only two things: prakriti’s beauty and prakriti’s mystery. Prakriti changes herself in variable ways so that the purusha can experience prakriti in her expanded, extended state, but because purusha is purusha, a time comes when the purusha gets fed up with these repetitive experiences, and wants to go back to its original state. At that time prakriti does not allow that. She does something so that the purusha is again diverted. How she does it, the purusha is not able to know. That prakriti is doing it, purusha is able to know, but the purusha knows this only after losing its identity. Repeatedly the purusha goes through this crisis and knows, “Again I got trapped and again I got veiled.” But how prakriti is doing this, the purusha is not able to know, because that’s the mystery.
The purusha gets fed up with this beauty aspect and becomes determined to penetrate through the mystery of prakriti—how she is doing what she is doing. She is only veiling, trapping and clouding, so that the purusha is losing its awareness. Until and unless the purusha becomes one-pointed to know how prakriti is doing what she is doing, yoga is not possible. Here yoga refers to jñana yoga. Jñana is not possible until the purusha is determined to know how prakriti is doing and how she is veiling: “I was so alert, I was so determined, but again I fell into the trap. How did she do it?”
This mystery goes on and on. Lord Krishna now shows the way out. The first thing he says in verse 125 is that one who outwardly restrains the organs of action but mentally dwells on the objects of senses is verily deluded and is a hypocrite. Anybody can understand what is expressed here, but something is also implied and hidden, and that is to be brought out first.
The normal state of man is to run towards experience and enjoyment, and Gita says there is nothing wrong in that. To run towards objects of pleasure is the natural dharma of the embodied being, because it was for that purpose only that the being entered the body. The purpose was to experience the beauty and mystery of prakriti.
As per Gita, experience is an absolute term, not a relative one. Because of ignorance, man is viewing experience as a relative term and labeling it as good experience, bad experience, pain and pleasure. Experience is experience. Don’t attach any normative or value sense to it. Go through it. For example, if we are driving to a distant place, and it is a long ride through a village road, and the road is uneven, there will be vibrations and jerks. If one of the passengers says, “This is bad, this is bad, I am not going,” and gets down from the vehicle, then he cannot reach the destination. This so-called “bad” will not be lasting until the end. It’s just a bumpy road. Neither the driving nor the car nor the driver is bad.
Similarly, while taking the purusha through the journey, prakriti will sometimes steer the wheel of life through a bumpy road. At that time the experience will be different, and although we may give it a qualitative label like “bad” or “painful,” it is just a different experience.
The embodied being gets identified with the so-called good experience and wants that always, but prakriti is beauty, and beauty means variety. Without variety, there is no beauty. If prakriti always remains the same in every situation that beauty will be gone. Prakriti is variety, so first the experience will be of one type, and then after some time it will switch to a different type. But this purusha clings to the experience that appeals to it, and when a different experience comes the purusha grumbles and says, “I want that other experience.” For prakriti to give the same experience to purusha, prakriti has to change the gear to reverse and go backwards, but the law of life is always a forward march. It has to move continuously upward, so that the journey comes to an end from where it began. It is like a circle. Life’s wheel is constantly moving, and it should move. That’s the purpose.
Prakriti’s target is for the purusha to reach its goal. Reaching the goal means coming back to the point of origin, and the point of origin is the awareness, because the purusha is awareness. The awareness started its journey in the zone of experience, and in the beginning the awareness was more, and experience was less. Then the awareness gradually reduced while the experience grew. That’s the natural way. If you are not prepared to lose a portion of your awareness, you cannot gain the experience.
More experience means less awareness. This is why when you begin from the topmost point and descend, when you are coming right to the bottom point, at that time your awareness is gone. It is circular. When you reach the bottom point, awareness is gone and you are experience. That is why you say, “I am happy, I am sad, I am frustrated, I am depressed.” That indicates total delusion. Delusion is all experience, no awareness. At this point, half of the journey is complete. Next the ascending phase will begin again, back to the point of origin, to full awareness.
When you begin the upward the journey on the other half of the circle, you are leaving behind some of your experience and entering into awareness. Life’s path is always a circle, and it has four stages. According to Gita, these four stages are brahmin, warrior or kshatriya, merchant, and sudra or service. The four stages of life do not mean four classes; they refer to four stages of evolution. Yoga starts only when the beginning phase of brahmin comes; that is the awareness and the awakening.
Natural law says man will always expand in the experiential zone. However, in this liberal time, knowledge is available more freely than light from the sun, and man is receiving many things in his mind, and desiring that for which the time has not come. His inner evolution has not yet come to that stage. It is like if an eight-year-old girl will want to become a mother, because she read many things about the joys and prestige of motherhood, but she is eight years old. In yoga, ninety-nine percent of the people have this problem. They have more theoretical knowledge on yoga, without coming to the natural evolutionary phase to enter into the process called yoga. That is the hidden point that Krishna is trying to bring out, regarding one who outwardly restrains the organs of action, but inwardly dwells on object of enjoyment. If the circle is not complete, some of the residue desire to experience is still there, but due to too much bookish learning, or too much transmission of the outer knowledge, the man will think experience to be bad.
Why did Krishna not reveal Gita to Yudhishthira, who was the embodiment of pure sattwa, or to Bhima, who was in higher rajas and could achieve everything by effort? Instead, he chose someone in the transition phase of experience and awareness, who was fully a householder. This is very symbolic, and shows that you must have come at least halfway through the circle of life before you can really enter into yoga. Until you have transcended the whole process and completed the journey, and you are above this circle—neither in the ascent nor descent phase—you cannot know which point is the point of origin. That is why every point in the circle can be the point of origin. Only after transcending maya you will be able to see at what point the circle began. That is the sadguru. The sadguru is able to see the soul’s evolution, and whether the ascending phase has begun, or the descending phase is continuing. This is the reason every enlightened being, if they are truly enlightened, always has said, “Take it in a natural way. In the course of time, at the right time, you will realize the being.”
The implication of this verse is that it is natural for the senses to run towards the objects. If you have entered into the yoga path, my experiential advice is that if you fall even after taking a resolve that you will not do something, don’t think that yoga is not possible for you. Rather, recognize that some of this unfulfilled desire is still within you, and you have to go beyond it. You don’t know how much is there—it may be one ton or a hundred, or it may be an ounce. You cannot know. Gita says you have to constantly apply your discrimination, and through that your awareness will expand. When awareness expands, experience is automatically absorbed, like blotter paper absorbing ink.
You must reach that stage where you are able to see whether your awareness is swallowing the experience, or your experience is swallowing the awareness. If your experience is swallowing your awareness, you have not actually entered into the phase of yoga. Yoga will wait. Acquire knowledge about yoga, and get ready for it, but don’t give yourself credit that you are a yogi. Be truthful. Gita says one who is not truthful is a hypocrite. In yoga, hypocrisy is a cup of poison, because it will not allow you to see your inner state.
Sri Aurobindo has written this beautifully in The Mother, that when hypocrisy comes the tendency will be to hide under subterfuges, to rationalize, and to pass the blame to others. For example, I may claim that I did not want to go to the restaurant, but Tulsi called me and that’s why I went. Or, I never wanted to shout at you, but you did something that deserved shouting. This will be the normal language of the person: passing the blame to others, justifying and rationalizing, and hiding under small excuses.
Here we are in the third chapter of Gita, the beginning phase of yoga, and first six chapters of Gita make up the sadhana part. Sadhana means effort; you have to put effort. Through effort you must reach a certain point, then only the grace can take you beyond. If you are not putting forth the effort and expecting the grace to just carry you, it is a fantasy. That is what Sri Aurobindo explained in The Mother.
Some people enter into yoga and the next day declare, “I am beyond this, I am beyond that.” If you reply, “You are not beyond that,” then you are the number one foolish person, and he is the number two foolish person. The scriptures say, “If you are giving advice to someone who is not prepared to listen to it, then the first foolish man is you, not he.” This is the reason the more you ascend in yoga, the more you become neutral, and a witness. You don’t run to give advice and you don’t impose, because you are able to see that the system is not ready. Here, Lord Krishna is telling Arjuna to not become a spiritual hypocrite. The meaning of hypocrisy is that you are outwardly saying you have attained something, but inwardly you actually have not attained it. That is a big obstacle in yoga.
Gita says it is very natural for the senses to run towards the objects, and there is nothing wrong in it, but if you are in yoga you have to overcome it. My personal experience was to overcome many of these obstacles by making them known, not by keeping them unknown. People generally advertise their attainment, but I am a person who advertised his failure. I have found from my life that not by hiding, but by confessing I overcame certain obstacles. By confessing, “This is a weakness, yes, I know, but I am determined to go beyond it.” This is the prayer I wrote: “Bestow on me the strength as great as the calamity you send, O Dear Lord, Dear God.” Confession requires courage. Without courage you cannot confess. People say a coward will confess because of fear of punishment, but it is just the opposite. Only a courageous man can confess. Once you confess, if at heart you are aspiring to go beyond, the grace will come.
Committing a sin is a karma, but confessing it with repentance means the karma is washed away. That’s the secret of the Bible’s prayer. People go to churches to confess and it is forgiven—there is truth in that. This is my experience of life, but it must come with repentance. Repentance not because it was a sin and I am a sinner, but with determination that I want to go beyond it, because it is an obstacle for my higher ascension and it is not allowing me to climb to a higher state, that is why I want to get rid of this. I am not getting rid of it because it is bad. In yoga there is nothing bad. Everything is good, if you know the purpose for which you are doing it.
The advice here is to study your system and evaluate the flow: is the inner current towards expansion in the experiential zone or towards ascension in awarenessional zone—at what stage are you? Gita also says to follow your natural path, your innate nature. My system was in the brahmin stage, not because I was born in a brahmin family, but because of my aspiration, my journey had crossed three-fourths, and only last fourth remained. By the time I got awakened I knew my last one-fourth was there, so I was in the brahmin category. That is why I had the pull for mind control, sense control, reading scripture, contemplation and meditation. I was doing these in a natural flow; nobody was compelling me. From that I knew I had entered into the fourth stage of my evolution. Verse 664 lists the signs of one who has entered into the fourth phase, and from my own system I knew it.
For a long time I was still feeling the pull for certain food was because right from childhood, I was habituated with good food, so that memory and relish were there. Gita’s advice is, don’t run away from karma. Face it and finish it. Be cleansed. Then you will be a channel of manifestation of dharma. Until karma is finished, dharma cannot be manifested. Dharma has to wait. If you are not finishing karma and try to manifest dharma, then you will encounter the same as Arjuna: standing in the field of dharma, he had to face the holocaust because karma was not finished. Life will be a battle, and you will be wounded and injured, and become a half-baked yogi and a failure in the material world. Failure is not the purpose of human life, because man is God who has forgotten his divinity.
Gita says look within and find out whether you have come to the stage when there is no more pull for experience, and all the pull is for awareness. If you have reached that stage, don’t dwell on the objects if you have restrained the senses.
Gita is the manifestation path. Krishna never told Arjuna to deny all experiences. Krishna said, have experiences in moderation, not in madness. Moderation is the key word in Gita. You can confess, “Yes, I am trying to overcome, but still it is not one hundred percent.” This is not hypocrisy. It is truth. That’s the advice given in this verse.
[From a 2012 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai, India.]
