Omm Namo Bhagavate
From an interactive international workshop on Chapter Two of the Bhagavad Gita, held via Skype in 2011.
Audio: Chapter Two of the Bhagavad Gita
Gita Verse 533: Transcending the Gunas
Omm Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Yoga means striving, yoga means putting constant effort, even when there is repeated failure. Yoga means trying to find from within why something is happening. Yoga is not what is happening. Yoga is why it is happening. When someone is not putting effort, and is asking me repeatedly what, instead of finding out why, then I say to that person, “Don’t do it.” If I will go on explaining but you all will not apply it to your day-to-day experience, then we will convert vidya into avidya. Vidya is that which takes you towards liberation from this ignorance. As long as there is a prompting to ask something, the person is ignorant about that thing. If I ask someone to teach me how to drive the car, that means I am ignorant about driving.
Material ignorance is natural. Spiritual ignorance is unnatural, because man is spirit, man is the spark of divine. It is that spark, that spirit that consciously entered into this inconscient matter. Nobody compelled the soul to enter. Because man by nature is the spark of divine, freedom is our natural state. We are unlimited, unbound, the imperishable, immutable self. This natural state we left behind and consciously entered into a state which is not natural to us, knowing fully well what we are doing and why we are doing it.
Prakriti is the field of experience; purusha is the field of awareness. Eternally remaining in the plane of awareness, the purusha out of its sweet will wanted to experience its other part. This Brahman wanted to experience the non-Brahman. Brahman is pure awareness, no experience, so this Brahman wanted to experience what is the other side of the Brahman – north pole, south pole. In between these two opposites lies the highest state of satchitananda. The sat that entered into the chit must find some place where it will experience the chit without losing an ounce of the sat. That is the state of satchitananda. All experience is coming but no awareness is leaving. That’s the state. Reaching that stage is the yoga of Gita.
The other yoga is this sat who entered into the chit out of curiosity to know how beautiful or how horrible is chit, got trapped in the attributes of chit and then got fed up with this trap, this veil, this bondage, this torture, this misery, and one day aspired, “Oh, enough is enough, let me run away.” This “Let me run away without looking back” is the path of liberation, the traditional yoga. But Gita does not show that path. Gita shows how to reach that mysterious mystic plane inside the chit where the sat will not lose its awareness even by an ounce, but will experience the chit fully. The goal of the yoga of Gita is to reach the state of satchitananda – sat as well as chit. Yasmätksharam atïtoham prathitah purushottamah. “I am beyond the kshara, higher than the akshara. That is I, the Supreme Being.” That is the state to which Gita is guiding a seeker. When you realize this, you have reached the highest state.
Why do we get identified with each other? Because each human being carries a little of the whole creation within him. We get identified with this creation because you are anything and everything. You are the dust, you are the mountain, you are the drop, you are the ocean, you are light, you are darkness, you are the truth, you are the untruth, sat and asat, both you are. You are the seeker, you are the seer, you are the wise man and you are the foolish man. This is the reason you get identified with everything.
Slowly you will transcend some of it, then some more of it. If a dog will bark outside, you will be a witness until the barking is so persistent that you can no longer be a witness. Then you will open the door and go to see why the dog is barking. But if Swamiji will suddenly scream, you will instantly come to find out what has happened because your identification with Swamiji is much more than your identification with the dog. But even if this swamiji is shouting, a man who is passing by on the road will just look and then he will go, because his identification with this swamiji is much less than your identification.
We get affected to a greater or to a lesser degree with persons, places, incidents, events, actions, opinions, ideas, feelings and reactions because we are the creation. The wave rises from the ocean and falls back on the ocean. Similarly, every human being is carrying within him this vast, infinite prakriti and he is identified with anything that happens in the prakriti plane. Everything happens in the plane of chit, nothing happens in the plane of sat. If the ocean rises due to tsunami, it will affect the land nearby the ocean but it will not affect the sky above it. If your house is near the ocean it may be submerged, but if your house is far away from the reach of the tsunami, you will not be affected.
The gunatita state is to remain in such a height that prakriti’s tsunami cannot touch you. Contrary to what many people believe, it is not a difficult thing to attain. Had it not been possible, Arjuna would not have asked what are the signs and symptoms of one who has reached the gunatita state, and Krishna would never have explained to Arjuna how to reach that stage. God is wiser than man, so how can God explain to man something that man can never attain? This is a great myth that is perpetuated by those who are learned but not wise. Learned men cannot make an ignorant man wise. To make an ignorant person wise, the learned man must attain wisdom, and wisdom is knowledge applied to life’s situations.
Wise men know how to transcend, when to descend, how long to remain, and when to withdraw. This capacity is given to man; it is not given to gods. The man who knows this secret is higher than the gods. His place is above the god plane, in the unity plane of consciousness, although he is dwelling on Earth. That secret is revealed in Gita, and Verse 533 very symbolically, in a cryptic way explains the sequence of how to transcend. I have not explained this because there must be someone who is capable to apply it into life’s day-to-day situations. Situations and opportunities are happening constantly, but unless you have reached that state, you cannot see it.
I am transmitting wisdom every moment. I am speaking nothing but pure wisdom, and my action is nothing but pure wisdom. If you have that inner vision you will always see why I am doing something; next you will see what I am doing. Because I am able to see, I am not shouting or punishing or getting identified with who did what. This is the secret. This is the difference between you and me. I am able to see why first, who next.
There is a beautiful verse in this chapter. Krishna says,
Nänyam gunebhyahkarttäram yadädrashtä nupashyati;Gunebhyashcha paramvetti madbhävam sodhigachhati. (Verse 542)When a person is able to see that there is no doer other than the gunas, he has come to the stage when he is just few steps away from attaining my state, madbhävam sodhigachhati. How close? As close as Chapter 14 is to Chapter 15. How to reach that stage, what’s the necessary preparation, what are the necessary precautions, and what are the signs and symptoms whether one is actually on the right track or not – the key is Verse 533. The secret is nänyam gunebhyahkarttäram yadädrashtä nupashyati. Drashta, means the seer, not the onlooker, drashta means one who has reached a stage when he can see through prakriti’s veil. If you are not able to see through the veil, how can you transcend the veil? You should be able to see; there should be no need for somebody else to show you. That’s the time when you are ready. But if you are expecting me to show you what I am seeing it will not be possible.
A living human being who is with you every moment is showing you the path, not a philosopher who comes to give a discourse for one hour, then runs away. That’s the difference between a sadguru and a teacher. A sadguru is with you every moment so that through his action, reaction, impulse, ecstasy, depression, frustration, his shouting and his embrace, you are able to see. Such a stage has been reached by the yogi by the time he comes to the fourteenth chapter of Gita, the fourteenth step. This is the reason the fourteenth chapter began with Bhagavan uvacha, the Blessed Lord said. What is the Blessed Lord saying?
Parambhüyah pravakshyämi jñänänäm jñänamuttamam;Yajjñätwä munayahsarve parämsiddhi mitogatäh. (Verse 524)Now I shall reveal to you the supreme secret. This is uttama, higher than the highest jñäna, jñänänäm jñänamuttamam.
The soul will feel, ‘Why are you going to reveal it to me, Lord?’ The Lord answers, Yajjñätwä munayahsarve parämsiddhi mitogatäh. The munayah (or muni) are those who are completely established in the pure state of sat. Absolute inner silence has come. What to talk of desire, not even a thought is rising. That’s the state of the muni. They have attained the highest siddhi. These munis will never get distressed when there is dissolution, nor do they ever feel the compulsion to come when there is new creation. That’s the state I am going to show you, Arjuna.
The entry point is Verse 533. Don’t look at the whole universe, look at your system. In this system, which I call the ocean, the waves are rising and falling, but all these waves are classified into three basic types: rajasic, sattwic and tamasic. These triple waves are constantly rising and falling back into the same ocean from where they are rising. Where is the ocean? Your system is the ocean. Who is the ocean? Prakriti is the ocean.
Your system is prakriti. You and your system are two different entities. Your system is the prakriti, you are the purusha. In the thirteenth chapter this was very clearly explained. You are the purusha, your system is the prakriti. Always remember that. Anger is coming, you are saying, “I got angry.” Ecstasy is coming, you are saying, “I had gone through ecstasy.” That’s not correct. When you are inside a boat on the ocean and the waves are rising, do you say, “I am rising?” No, you say, “The boat is rising.” Why? Because the water in the ocean is rising. It is so simple; you understand that much. But when your understanding will be pinpointed, like Swamiji’s, you will also be able to say, “Now this rajas is rising. Maybe it will be very difficult for me to maintain my tranquillity, so you be careful. I am in a very high rajas voltage now. The way you are talking, the way you are working, maybe I will not be able to handle my rajas. Maybe I will shout at you if you don’t do the work perfectly.”
When your normal dialogue, feeling and thinking will change to this type, you are able to see. I conceptually understood this but it took me ten or twelve years to be able to see what is happening. I was able to see that it is prakriti, it is sattwa, it is rajas that is rising.
Every human form is an un-insulated electric wire. If you touch it there will be current, there will be transmission of energy. If you are a sattwic person, you are transmitting sattwa energy, and if I come close to you I will receive sattwa. If you are radiating tamas, I will receive tamas, if you are radiating rajas, I will receive rajas. This is the reason you maintain a gap. In the initial stage this should be a physical gap, because that is where you are, in the gross. If I will embrace each one of you now, nothing will happen to me, but there was a time, what to think of embrace, by merely thinking the energy will come to me. Thought is also an opening for receiving the energy. Not only purusha is all-pervading, prakriti is also all-pervading.
Just as we put on warm clothes to protect our body from cold, so also we should put on something to protect our system from contamination by this energy which is contrary to our dharma. Now what is my dharma? I am in a gunatita state most of the time, beyond the gunas. If I don’t stay in that state I will die physically but I have to function in the world of prakriti, so I should consciously be with those people who are radiating sattwa energy, because sattwa is least harmful. I should consciously avoid close proximity with tamasic people, and I should always be alert as to how much time I will expose myself to rajasic people.
How can the yogi practice it until he is able to see what is happening within him? That is why the fourteenth chapter is so important, and this is the beginning verse of that process. What happens, why it happens, how it happens, how long it will continue – that whole secret is revealed in the fourteenth chapter, and this is the entry point.
It says rajas, tamas and sattwa try to subjugate the others, rajastama schäbhibhüya sattwam bhavatibhärata. Sattwa tries to overpower rajas and tamas, rajas tries to overpower sattwa and tamas, tamas tries to overpower sattwa and rajas. This battle is constantly going on. Why are they fighting with each other? Because prakriti is attached to purusha and purusha is attracted to prakriti. Sattwa, rajas and tamas are attributes of prakriti. That means prakriti’s attributes are fighting against each other. Why? Because prakriti is attached to purusha, and each of these prakritis wants to say, like children, “This is my purusha.”
Whatever is happening in the prakriti plane, I have always said, “Prakriti is always right. Simply from our angle we are not able to see that.”
You have to reach that stage where you understand that everything in the prakriti plane is being done by prakriti. I am supposed to be linked to the purusha in you, not the prakriti in you. Being a sadguru, my role, my responsibility is to lift the purusha in you from the clutches of prakriti in you. If I am not seeing the purusha in you, if I am getting identified with the prakriti in you, how can I save you, how can I liberate you, how can I guide you?
Here Gita is saying that, by defeating rajas and tamas, sattwa predominates. This is the entry point. Cling to Gita word by word. Don’t disturb the sequence. This means it is natural for the human system to have more sattwa, less rajas and even less tamas. The permutation combination differs in each system. The amount of sattwa in my system may be more or less than the amount of sattwa in your system. Every system is different, but the dominant energy in every human form is sattwa, so every human being, every yogi, should make a conscious effort to prolong the cycle of sattwa. This is the entry point.
Depending on your system, the sattwa phase may continue half an hour, forty minutes, twenty minutes, one hour; first find out when the sattwa phase is beginning and how long it lasts. In my system the sattwa phase begins around two o’clock at night, so I made it a habit to get up at two-thirty and sit in meditation.
Find out when your sattwa phase begins, note it down and watch it for a week. When you find it is continuously correct for seven days, that’s the beginning point for you to track your guna cycle. The gunas come in a regular consistency, so once you find out when sattwa begins, then remember what Gita says: sattwa will rise, defeating rajas and tamas. So before sattwa in your system, there will be rajas. This is the reason we experience dream before we get up from bed. Dreaming leads to sleeping, and waking from sleeping is preceded by dreaming. This is the natural stage. We have tamasic dreams and sattwic dreams, but dreaming itself is a rajasic activity. Without rajas, there is no dream. It is natural for the system to have rajas prior to sattwa. Prior to rajas is tamas. You cannot change this sequence.
Once you find out when your sattwa phase is rising, then find out how long it remains. During the day, these gunas change many times, depending on your elemental composition and your guna cycle. When I began my study I found that my sattwa was remaining longer because I was basically a sattwic person. Then after sattwa it was rajas, then tamas. I found the sequence, but due to my non-yogic lifestyle, what happened? I was fond of eating fish and meat and Indian mixtures and fried foods, and tamasic drinks like Coca-Cola. These are all tamasic foods. I noticed that in my system, after my sattwa phase, my tamas easily overpowered my rajas. I was procrastinating by nature, and because of my jñäna I knew procrastination is a tamasic habit and was coming to me because tamas was dominating. For example, I would know something was important and had to be done, but I was not able to do it. Then I would repent, “Oh, it should have been done.” That I knew it should have been done was because of the sattwa. The will is there so that means there is rajas, but if effort is not there it means tamas has overpowered sattwa and rajas. Constant pending work is a warning signal for the yogi.
Find out how prolonged is the tamas in your system. If tamas is your constant companion, what you should do? Your goal is sattwa, but if you suddenly inject sattwa into your system which is dominated by tamas, you will be a spiritual hypocrite, giving empty advice that will carry no force. Sattwa on the foundation of tamas builds hypocrisy and falsehood, so you should inject rajas. Expose yourself to rajasic persons, a rajasic environment, and take up rajasic action.
Sattwa pushes the being to sukha, happiness, the happiness that comes from the state of self-awakening, that comes from pure jñäna. You all are in a state of pure happiness now because you are receiving jñäna. Why are others not coming although they know an interaction is going on? Okay, five o’clock morning they were sleeping, I understand, but it is seven o’clock now. Their system is not allowing them to be pulled here because tamas will not be attracted to pure jñäna.
So find your sattwa phase, your rajas phase, and your tamas phase. Then find out how long each cycle lasts in your system. If your tamas is longer than rajas and sattwa, you will find that you are procrastinative and you will have a pull for gross tasty food, and for a companion. Children always feel the pull towards the mother’s or father’s lap. Why? Because tamas feels the pull for a physical companion. Animals want to be near their master’s feet, because tamas wants to cling. Animals are basically tamasic.
Once you understand, then prolong your cycle. If you are in tamas, prolong your rajas cycle; if you are in rajas, prolong your sattwa cycle. And if you are in sattwa, keep the sattwa cycle unbroken; you will go beyond sattwa. Sattwät sanjäyatejñänam, if you prolong sattwa it will push you to jñäna, to awareness. This push will come little by little, drop by drop. Five minutes, then ten minutes, half an hour, one day, three days. When you first go beyond sattwa you will have a crash, because until you achieve full stability you cannot remain in a gunatita state always.
When you are beyond sattwa all the secrets will be revealed. When you are in sattwa, one symptom is the pull to read spiritual literature. In rajas you will feel a pull for action drive, for ambition, ego, achievement, success, and you will get identified with failure. When you have tamas, the symptoms will be sleep, sloth, heedlessness and pull for physical company.
Gita is full of this crystal-clear guidance. Man gives what you can carry, but God gives so much that you will be carried away by it. So much light comes that you become light itself. That is why it is called enlightenment.
Cling to Gita, and if you are not able to cling to Gita, cling to the guru. That’s the only way to become gunatita. Cling to Gita, be linked with my force, the gunatita, transcendental force that is manifested through the form. That’s the secret. I am determined that during my lifetime some of my people will reach the stage where I am. The guru is capable to push you beyond prakriti, provided you are linked.
Verse 533 is the entry point to the gunatita state. The master must be able to show you how to enter, where to begin, how to sustain and what to do if a crash is about to occur. All my interactions are directed towards this. Step by step I am decoding Gita and showing you this clear, eternal path, the path that was shown to mankind long ago by the Supreme Lord himself.
[From a 2010 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India]
Gita Verses 540-541
Omm Namo Bhagavate
From sattwa comes jnana. Jnana is awareness, and awareness is the nature of the self, the being, the purusha. Experience is the nature of the becoming, or prakriti. Jnana is of two types: experiential and revealed. Experiential knowledge we call jnana. Revealed knowledge we call vijnana or wisdom. Awareness comes from sattwa, but sattwa is an attribute of prakriti, an attribute of the becoming. Why does an attribute of prakriti bring awareness to the purusha? Because prakriti and purusha are the same. Prakriti is the manifest aspect of purusha; purusha is the unmanifest aspect of prakriti. Both are beginningless. Wherever there is purusha, there must be prakriti and wherever there is prakriti, there must be purusha. The difference is that the prakriti is visible, and purusha is always invisible. This is the reason we cannot see or feel the awareness. We can simply be aware about awareness. When someone says, “I feel my awareness,” he is actually feeling the highest form of experience.
Experience is of three types. One is gross, higher than that is subtle and the highest is so subtle that you cannot describe it. The grossest is called tamas. Experience in the subtle format is the rajas. Thinner and subtler than that is sattwa. Sattwa is the experience that takes you beyond experience. You become awareness and remain in awareness. That’s the nature of the being. Every human form is both being and becoming. As becoming, the jiva experiences the world; as being the jiva is completely detached from the becoming. Sattwa is the mode, power and force that brings the being to its own nature. It proceeds in two stages. One is the knowledge; the second is the revelation or wisdom. Knowledge is the awareness of the being. Wisdom is the awareness of the being while experiencing the becoming. At the level of knowledge, one will be able to witness the becoming, but at the level of wisdom, one can enter into the becoming and be a part of it, without losing the awareness of the being. In Gita that is called the supreme state.
This will come with sattwa. Sattwa is the natural state of the being, although it is an attribute of the becoming. This is the reason there is no need to consciously put effort to enter into sattwa. It is produced naturally. Rajas requires effort, and tamas comes through contamination. If a person is allowed to remain alone and does not perform any type of activities or have any contact with the outer world, and does not invoke any type of desire, he will automatically go back to his state of sattwa. That is the natural state of prakriti. Below the sattwa is the rajas, and below rajas is the tamas.
Tamas is a very unnatural state of prakriti. This is the reason anyone who remains in a tamasic cycle for a long time is heading for self-destruction. Tamas brings self-destruction, rajas brings self-expansion, and sattwa brings self-ascension. Through sattwa one can transcend the zone of becoming. In yoga we always recommend the seeker to curtail the cycle of tamas, intervene in the cycle of rajas, and remain in sattwa. If you remain in sattwa, it increases automatically. That is why tamas is to be consciously reduced, rajas consciously controlled, and sattwa consciously maintained. When Arjuna asked how one can proceed to the gunatita state, Krishna told him to maintain the level of sattwa. Maintaining means it automatically happens. Consciously you can activate rajas or tamas, but sattwa comes naturally and you should simply maintain it.
In the main ashram we have tried so many experiments just to make people sattwic. We ring the bell, reward them for attendance and punish them for absence–all this to motivate them but they cannot attend programs regularly because their nature is not sattwic, so that pull for sattwa is not there. They have so many excuses: “I cannot come for chanting because my leg is in pain, my back is hurting.” What type of excuse is this—tamasic, rajasic or sattwic?
Participant: Tamasic.
Swamiji: Yes, tamasic. “I cannot come because at that time I am in a very deep state.” What type of excuse is this?
Participant: If it is true it is sattwic.
Swamiji: In Verse 535, Gita says rajas increases greed. The symptom of greed is the consciousness of more and less: if I go there I will gain more or lose more. So this excuse, “I could not go because here I feel more in a deep state,” is not sattwa. Sattwa knows no comparison. It is beyond all qualification.
Knowledge is awareness, and it is produced within. Sattwa simply makes it visible and clear; when someone is in the state of sattwa the clarity comes. When the person is in rajas there is confusion and the person is not able to make a decision. When the person is in tamas, only the outer is visible: “All the defects belong to X. I am flawless.” That is pure tamas.
The phase of sattwa comes and goes. If you know how to maintain the level of sattwa, then its cycle will be prolonged automatically. If you bring a tamasic person near a sattwic one, the tamasic person cannot become sattwic. In the presence of a pure sattwic person, a tamasic person will feel tamas activated because sattwa is more powerful, although it is subtler. Since it is more subtle, this sattwa energy enters into the system of a tamasic form and activates the guna cycle. Tamas is dominant there, so when sattwa enters the tamas is activated. The little rajas that was in the gross physical plane is overpowered–that little wakefulness will go, and the person will sleep. This is the reason people sleep when there is an Interaction, or during meditation. The bombardment of the surrounding sattwa activates that guna which is dominant in the system, and tamas drives one to sleep and sloth.
To maintain sattwa, you have to begin with the outer universe, the outer prakriti. Outer prakriti enters into the sattwa phase automatically at three o’clock in the morning. It continues up to forty-eight minutes after sunrise, when the rajas phase begins. The rajas phase continues up to forty-eight minutes prior to sunset. Then the tamas phase starts.
The yogi should see from his own system when the each guna phase begins. Suppose your sattwa cycle begins at three-thirty in the morning. If you force yourself to get up when your system is not conducive to it, you will become sick. That might be your tamas phase but if you force yourself to get up, thinking that is yoga, it all bogus. You will be sick and miserable, you cannot do yoga and you also cannot do bhoga, that is, you cannot experience the good things of life.
You have to find out your cycle. Note it down, because these cycles come and go with systematic regularity. If your sattwa phase begins at, say, three-thirty, it will always begin at that time. Prakriti is in perpetual harmony. In India, in the early morning hours we study the scriptures, meditate, and contemplate on scriptural concepts because when outer prakriti is in sattwa phase it is easier for a seeker to dive in to the inner meaning. Swadhyaya and discourses by the guru to the awakened seekers occur during early morning.
What you are now receiving is knowledge. It makes us aware of the being. Vijnana, or wisdom, gives us the capacity and strength to intervene with prakriti. First is knowledge, then comes wisdom, but wisdom will come only if you apply knowledge to life. If you don’t, you will never become wise. Having knowledge is good, but to become wise is best.
Knowledge applied into practice will push you to the level of wisdom, but how can you practice it if you are not able to maintain the level of sattwa? You can practice it only if you are applying it when you are in a sattwic state. The sattwic cycle prolongs itself if sattwa is maintained.
If you attain wisdom, you will get the strength and capacity to intervene. The intervention must begin with your own prakriti, in your own system. When the sattwa phase is active, that is the time this should be applied into life situations. That’s the secret of entering into the gunatita phase.
Next is rajas. It produces hankering and greed. Rajas is to be controlled. If you don’t put a brake on it, it will produce passion, because rajas is passionate by nature, and passion will create hankering, greed, and a sense of not having enough. That’s the first symptom. After the phase of sattwa, when rajas begins, that will be the first feeling: “My meditation is not enough. Let me sit some more time.” Greed, hankering, the feeling of insufficiency, and scarcity consciousness are clear examples of rajas. Feeling poor is good, but the feeling of not having enough is terrible. I welcome poverty, but I hate scarcity. Not having is better than having a little because that will corrode your system. This is the reason, if I have a little money and you ask me for some, I am happy to give you everything. That makes me feel that now at least I am zero, so that another person with scarcity consciousness will not come to me. Rajas is passionate by nature. If you don’t control it, it will drive you to unimaginable consequences. Multimillionaires and billionaires commit all these economic crimes because rajas is continuously fueling the greed.
Next is tamas. From tamas comes attachment, heedlessness and callousness. That is very dangerous because it leads to ajnana–ignorance, clouding and veiling. Ajnana is lack of awareness, getting fully identified with the experiential state and feeling that only that is real. If you are feeling happy now and conclude that this state should always remain, that’s ajnana. States come and go. The state of happiness will give way to the state of unhappiness; the state of joy will give rise to the state of turbulence. This is natural. A jnani is able to see that through the eye of experience because he has gone through the cycle.
When tamas enters the system of a sattwic person, the first thing that will happen is the person will feel he has too many works to do and too little time. That shows that tamas has entered into the mental. From the mental it descends to the vital: that is, after swallowing the mental it begins to swallow the vital and the person will feel restless: “Don’t disturb me. I have so many things to do.” That restlessness means the vital is now being swallowed by tamas. Next it will swallow the physical and the circle will be complete.
Another symptom of tamas is the need to justify and rationalize. These are two different things. Rationalizing means the person knows he is wrong, but he is advocating the principles of ethics, morality and ideology. Rationalization is pure tamas. To mix with a person who is rationalizing is more harmful than to mix with a person who is justifying, because a person who is justifying may be ignorant. He is still not able to see clearly so he is justifying, thinking that he is right. Whereas a person who is rationalizing knows fully well what is wrong. That’s the most poisonous person. Company of this type must be avoided altogether. The Mother of Pondicherry says, don’t even remember these people, because their vibration is contagious. If they come to mind, consciously divert your thought to other things.
Now comes the intervention. How to cut tamas to size and put rajas within the track? When tamas is coming be one hundred percent sure that rajas is already there. Without rajas, tamas cannot stand, and without tamas, rajas can never reach this unchecked speed. If rajas is uncontrolled, it means tamas is assisting. If the rajas is on the foundation of sattwa, the rajas will drive the seeker towards higher and higher realization and experience of the awarenessional world. But rajas on the foundation of tamas will bring the consciousness down to the world of maya, matter.
Tamas can be curtailed by reducing your rajasic activities. All the activities that cater to the ego are rajasic. Ego is ego, whether it is sattwic, rajasic or tamasic. Ego is not soul. Its uncontrolled expansion is not allowed. This is the reason many a time I have said, if you want to do certain things but you do not have the money or the manpower, be thankful. Prakriti knows best. There is a reason why it is not happening. Don’t put too much effort because that will mean you are interfering in prakriti’s play. Study the situation as a symptom of prakriti’s signal.
Tamas produces heedlessness. Heedlessness means that you, the pure awareness, are being covered by something, and you are not able to see through it. Heedlessness is like quicksand. It appears to be firm, but once you plant your foot it sinks and is trapped. The same is true of moha, or attachment. These two are very sneaky and slippery. A yogi should not prolong them. Descend, but only for a purpose, and when the purpose is served, immediately ascend. Otherwise it will push you to the ajnana state of complete veiling, and fully cloud the awareness. If that happens, the first thing that will come is I-ness. When that arrives, so does duality.
If you maintain the level of sattwa you will go higher than experience, to awareness. You are naturally pushed to the awarenessional plane when you transcend this duality, comparison, scarcity, poverty and plenty. These are all in the relative plane. You will them transcend naturally and automatically as per natural law. Those who are in rajas remain in between. Below is the gross, above is awareness. In between is the experience of maya and its solidified form of matter, like money, property and fame. This is all rajas that gives us the identification with the experiential world. Those who are in tamas continuously go down, until they acquire a horrible, unspeakable nature.
The nature of prakriti is to expand. Tamas expands with the company of tamas and rajas expands in a rajasic environment. Sattwa maintains itself, rajas needs a fertile environment, and tamas is transmitted. This is the reason in our ashram I don’t allow two people to stay in one room. The human body is like a machine constantly manufacturing energy. Tamas is outwardly docile and silent, but very dangerous. Like the king cobra, tamas will silently come and swallow you. Rajas will hammer you. It is painful, so you will immediately notice it, but tamas is painless– slow poisoning. This is the reason in all the ashrams where there are true yogis and true seers they are extremely choosy about whom they will allow to stay.
One person’s transcendence carries hope for the whole humanity if that person is consciously willing to calmly endure the turmoil of maya. Great bhaktas are always the foundation for divine’s descent. This is why great bhaktas always suffer. Divine does not suffer; divine comes to relieve the suffering of the devotees. If the devotee is not suffering, divine has no excuse to intervene. If the Pandavas will not be tortured and poisoned and banished and humiliated, Krishna has no entry point to do his massive intervention in prakriti’s plane.
These two verses reveal the secret entry-point to practice the gunatita stage. The first to be taken care of is tamas. That requires maximum effort. If you are in rajas, it is easy for another rajasic person to put you in check. If you are in sattwa you don’t need the help of anyone, because sattwa maintains itself. But one tamasic person requires the effort of a dozen sattwic people to break his tamas. Tamas is most dangerous. This is why Krishna told Arjuna that the force that compels man to commit sin against his own will is the desire and anger that come from rajas. Which type of rajas? Tamasic rajas. If rajas is allowed to dwell on the foundation of tamas, it will smash everybody.
A yogi should always be alone, because company is contamination. You might be a very sattwic person, but I may be in a rajasic phase, so my rajas will contaminate your sattwa. I may be in a sattwic stage and you might be in a tamas or rajas phase. That is why yogis should meet with each other for functional necessity only. But social beings cannot stay alone; they will feel miserable.
Tamas is to be curtailed, rajas is to be controlled, sattwa is to be maintained. If those are done, then you are entering the ladder of gunatita and beginning the process of transcendence.
[From a 2010 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India]
Audio: Gita Verse 512
Omm Namo Bhagavate
From a January 2012 Interaction on Verse 512 (13.23) of the Bhagavad Gita, at Satyachetana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai, India.
Gita Verse 509
Omm Namo Bhagavate
Prakriti is said to be responsible for cause and effect and the sense of doership, while purusha is said to be the cause of the experience of pain and pleasure.
Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Verse 509
Prakriti is the source of all action drive. She creates the process for action and arranges all the factors for the completion of the action. Purusha does nothing. When someone says, “I feel to do this,” that “I” is actually prakriti. Likewise, when we say, “He is not doing this,” the “he” is also prakriti. There is no agency other than prakriti.
Verse 542 says, “When one is able to see that there is no other agent than the three gunas and knows that which is higher than these gunas, he attains My nature.” Between these three factors—seer, sight and the process of seeing—the seer is purusha, and prakriti is the sight. The seer is seeing. Purusha always sees prakriti. The process through which the seer sees the sight is called action. If the purusha, the seer, slightly deviates from this, then the purusha falls from his state of seeing.
Where is the purusha? In the seventh chapter of Gita, Krishna says, “O Mighty-armed, the above eight-fold division is My lower nature. Apart from this there is My higher nature, the universal soul, which is immanent in the embodied being and supports the whole world.” The lower prakriti is the five elements, then mind, intellect, and ego. Among the elements, the first layer is earth, and the attribute of earth is smell: all the sweet fragrances, bad odors, and everything perceived by the nose, which is the organ of smell.
Next is water. The attribute of water is taste—“I am the taste in water”—and tongue is the organ of taste. Fire is sight; its organ is the eye. This is how it goes, layer after layer.
Here is an example. Devashish-the-scientist is the manifestation of the seventh layer of lower prakriti, the intellect. Devashish-the-yogi is which layer—prakriti or purusha? The yogi is the higher aspirational part of prakriti, and it is the higher prakriti—Mahamaya, rather than Yogamaya. Yogamaya is that prakriti that always keeps the purusha in a state of being veiled. It is that aspect of the Mother that always ensures that the purusha is in this eight-fold maya described in Verse 284.
All these eight layers comprise one aspect of maya. Yogamaya is also the mother, and mother grants every wish of the child. If the child is in the level of maya, mother will grant the wish of the purusha who is in the plane of maya. Through her gifts and her charity, Yogamaya ensures that the jiva is in the maya plane.
Anything that is coming from prakriti is targeted to the purusha, whether it is the bonded purusha, the liberated purusha or the supreme purusha. Which prakriti, which mother, will be involved depends on the state of the purusha. If the purusha is focusing on Mahamaya, then it will come from Mahamaya. If the seer is linked with Yogamaya it will come from Yogamaya, and Yogamaya means expanding the maya. The desire for gaining more fame, power and wealth—that is Yogamaya.
If X receives a million-dollar gift, and that purusha then feels that he will purchase a new house or do something for his wife or for his parents, that means it has come from Yogamaya. He has been targeted by Yogamaya. But if the feeling is, “Maybe this money has come for a purpose, and there is a reason for mankind,” then it is from Mahamaya. If the seer is in a state of perfect neutrality, Yogamaya cannot give anything because the seer has transcended the zone of Yogamaya. You can be neutral to maya only when you have transcended maya. Desire, feeling, ambition, aspiration, these are all prakriti, and unless prakriti enters to purusha, purusha is not able to know. Purusha is pure awareness only.
Prakriti has to ascend to enter purusha or purusha has to descend to prakriti for this feeling, desire, ambition or thought to come. Gita says they are the two aspects of the Supreme. One is the manifest; the other is the unmanifest. Their position is parallel. Both are Supreme. When either one goes up or comes down, the state of parallel is disturbed and maya begins; creation starts.
In the beginning these two forces are all-pervading, and it is not possible for either prakriti or purusha to go up, because there is no up and down at that stage. When there is some movement, either in prakriti or in purusha, then two dimensions will come. Until then, it is uni-dimensional.
Who will first make that movement for the unity to become duality, prakriti or purusha? Both are beginningless, but purusha is free from all attributes and prakriti is full of all attributes. Purusha will make the first move because prakriti will send a signal and the purusha will respond to that. Sending the signal is the dharma of prakriti, so we cannot consider that as prakriti’s initiative. If the oil lamp is burning and I put my finger in it, will it spare me because I am the master here? That’s the dharma of fire—to burn. So if I am giving you jnana I am doing nothing great; I am just performing my dharma. If I don’t then I am not a master. If I am clouding you, trapping you, or doing romance or business with you, it means I am not doing my dharma. If I do my work, it is not a karma for me. I am eternally in the state of no karma. Sun giving light, wind blowing—it is their dharma. That’s the highest dharma. That is why Gita says, better to perish while performing your own dharma, but don’t accept others’ dharma.
Prakriti’s dharma is to send signals to purusha. Purusha has no dharma. Purusha is attributeless. All attributes come from prakriti. As many attributes as purusha accepts from prakriti, to that extent purusha becomes prakriti.
In the beginning stage purusha is responding because purusha is the higher Self. Both prakriti and purusha were unmoving in the beginningless beginning. Remaining in that all-pervading stage, prakriti starts movement. Purusha’s response is first to witness, remaining very close, watching what prakriti is doing. Then to consent: knowing fully well that this signal is a call, purusha allows prakriti to give the signal. Then purusha makes the move, coming a little closer to prakriti. They are still in a parallel position. Purusha is moving, not prakriti. Purusha is attracted to prakriti; prakriti is attached to purusha. Anything in us that is attracted is purusha; anything in us that attracts is prakriti.
You all are attracted to Swamiji so you all are purusha and Swamiji is prakriti. At first, you could not know why you were attracted. When the seerhood, comes, you will be able to know why you are getting attracted. Now you are not able to know why because all answers come from the mental plane, but you are attracted by something in me that mind cannot hold nor intellect can measure. That which is beyond mind and beyond intellect is the soul, the awareness. The awareness in me is attracting the awareness in you. If I am not a bigger awareness, how can you be pulled towards me? Like gets attracted to like; the self gets attracted to the supreme Self. That is why, when the merger comes, he who was being attracted withers away in whom he got attracted to, and the duality is gone.
In the beginning, purusha, the attributeless, is getting attracted to prakriti. Prakriti sends the signal. Purusha is first a witness, then consenter, then supporter. Purusha is changing his position, coming very near, until purusha becomes the experiencer or enjoyer. If the purusha becomes the experiencer, then the purusha does not lose its awareness, but if the purusha becomes the enjoyer, it loses awareness. Then a portion of prakriti enters into purusha. This is how the first contamination begins.
You experience or you enjoy a portion of prakriti. Only yogis can see the difference. I can experience the water or I can enjoy the drink. If the purusha becomes the experiencer the purusha will experience, but prakriti cannot enter. When the purusha becomes the enjoyer, it means the purusha forgot his dharma at that time so a portion of prakriti entered into purusha. A hole was made; a little of prakriti entered. Prakriti is attributes. Into the attributeless, an attribute entered. Since the attributeless is a vacuum, this attribute gets a fertile ground to multiply, like cells multiplying. This is how life begins.
Think of how a child is born. A man and woman meet together. A drop of semen is released, and in that drop the sperm race towards the egg at lightning speed. One is able to reach the egg, and fertilization takes place. Similarly, this awareness is coming through millions of rays and entering the tranquil experiential ocean. The union takes place and prakriti gets ecstatic and swells to receive this. A drop of pure awareness from me throws you into ecstasy when it enters you, and hours go by. You are not aware. That is a union. A constant union is happening. Purusha gets surrounded by the swelling prakriti and is overpowered. A portion of prakriti enters into purusha. In this attributeless vacuum a portion of attribute enters. Since there can be no vacuum anywhere in the universe, that which has entered will want to fill the space. Prakriti is now working.
What am I doing through yoga? Like a bottle filled with water, your system is full of attributes: all your samskaras, with a little bit of empty space. The advantage is that you came as a bottle without a lid. An opening was there for me to enter. The bottle is full of experience; only a little is vacuum. That is allowing me to enter. I am experience—not water, but nectar. I, the nectar, will enter if there is a little opening for me. That’s why god is called experience first—the highest experience. That is love. First God is love.
I am entering into you, so I-the-experience is of a different kind than you-the-experience. Because there was an opening in you I am entering, and there is only one way I can enter: that is love. Knowledge is awareness only, whereas the current experience needs to be replaced with new experience, or it needs to be transformed into new experience. That new experience must be love and it must be different than what is already here. Otherwise it can neither transform nor replace this current experience.
I will try my level best to make you me. But you will try your level best to make me you. This is how the play goes. Prakriti will always wants purusha to enter into prakriti, so that it will be all prakriti only. In the ultimate analysis, there is only one absolute. Prakriti wants there to be no duality, so that there will not be something called awareness; it should all be experience. Purusha wants that there should be only awareness. So also, a guru always feels that every disciple must become a guru; every disciple should be a manifestation of the sadguru. And the avatar wants every person to be an instrument.
Since there is an opening, I-the-experience will enter into this experiential container. Only so much room is there, so I have that much freedom, but you have much more freedom. Your resistance will be more, because with that much strength you will resist me. Me, the visible part will be only a little, but me the invisible part is infinite. When a little of Swamiji enters into this bottle of you, the outer forces of maya and darkness and the inner forces of resistance will try to smash this little bit that is visible. If I really am little, these forces can smash me, but if I am not little—if only the tip of the iceberg is visible—then these forces, as much as they want to smash, so much I will enter. This is finite but I am infinite, so these forces will get annihilated, and a time will come when this whole bottle will be filled with I-the-nectar.
Those who have not become one with that infinite, when they enter into the bottle they get swallowed. This is why we see many teachers and masters that have been swallowed by their own people. Without attaining the state of infinity, they wanted to enter into the finite. Purusha loses its awareness when purusha is delinked from the source of awareness, and that delinking happens if purusha will begin to enjoy the attributes of prakriti, rather than experience the attributes of prakriti.
Verse 214 in Gita says: As the lotus leaf does not get wet, although it floats on water, so also, one whose consciousness is linked with the Brahman, the absolute, and is performing all the action—experiencing everything in the plane of maya—cannot be contaminated. If the purusha is experiencing the attributes of prakriti while keeping the consciousness focused on the absolute—that means retaining its state of absolute—the purusha will not be swallowed by prakriti. When prakriti sees that purusha is not getting swallowed, then prakriti will salute purusha. That is Verse 511. Prakriti will acknowledge the purusha and say, “O Great Lord.” Only the prakriti can say it, because beyond that there is no prakriti. Beyond that both become one. After “O Great Lord,” she discards her role as maya, merges in the purusha, and both become paramatma, the highest Self. Remaining in this body, the purusha becomes the highest Self when the supreme prakriti has joined with him. That is why we say the guru is mother and father, but God is mother only. That is why guru is greater than God.
This drama unfolds when Prakriti, who is all attributes, sends the signal and purusha responds. Purusha’s first response is watching what she is doing, not why she is doing it. The moment this “Why?” comes, a portion of prakriti has entered and you are now prakriti, not purusha. Asking, “Why is Swamiji shouting at me,” is prakriti. Whereas just witnessing means you are retaining your state of purusha. As explained in Verse 511: witness, consenter, supporter, enjoyer.
The consenter feels, “Let Swamiji shout.” That is second. You still retain your purusha state. Then the sustainer: “Swamiji, don’t feel tired. Please keep shouting”; still retaining your purusha state. Then experiencing and taking that force that is coming at you but not getting perturbed from the original state. These are all stages in sadhana.
Prakriti is the source from where this action and this instrument of action come. Purusha experiences happiness or sorrow. Prakriti does not experience anything. “I felt sad.” Why? You, the purusha, feel sad because you have violated any of these five principles. You are not in your state of bliss. A portion of prakriti entered into you and to that extent you are not able to experience your state of bliss. No experience is constant. Every experience is changing and recurring in nature. It is prakriti that is recurring and ever changing.
Purusha is never changing. There is neither sorrow nor happiness, failure nor success, fame nor defamation, gain nor loss, death nor birth, near nor far, dear nor enemy. You are receiving blows from someone but you are simply responding with your original state of bliss. You lose a million dollars when the stock market crashes and all your stocks are wiped out, but you are simply witnessing. If a million has gone, it is because the door for a billion has opened, because prakriti will always be restless to use you, the purusha, for her purpose. Purusha has no purpose; only prakriti has purpose. If you are able to retain your state of purity, prakriti will use you and at that time prakriti is Mahamaya, not Yogamaya.
This same Mahamaya becomes Yogamaya when the purusha changes position, until it is now merged in the prakriti. When purusha forgets its state, prakriti descends one foot and the mother throws the purusha from her cosmic womb. This happens again and again.
This is very clearly explained in the beginning of the eighth chapter: “At the beginning of the new cycle I will throw them.” Then in the ninth chapter comes a verse that says, “By using my material nature, repeatedly I send forth these helpless beings at the beginning of a new cycle, taking into consideration their innate nature.” Innate nature means how much of prakriti they have swallowed. Lord says, considering that, I send them where they deserve to be, and from there I give them the freedom either to ascend or descend. Whatever they want, I will grant that.
In order for the cycle to be broken, so that the purusha can begin the journey of ascent, this purusha who is in a form must see another purusha who is also in a form but is actually the formless. Through the mirror he will see the reflection of his own Self. First you see the Self in you; that’s why you see a seer here. If you stop seeing the Self in you, Swamiji is just an ordinary human being. This is the reason masters don’t descend. That’s the only hope you carry. The mirror reflects the Self, so it is your duty to keep the mirror dust-free. Prakriti will throw dust at the mirror, so even if it is inside your air-conditioned room, your duty is to wipe the mirror clean every day.
[From a 2011 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India.]
Gita Verse 117
Omm Namo Bhagavate
As the sea remains unchanged even after receiving all the waters, so also a man of equanimity continues to experience peace even when desires enter into him. This experience is not possible for one who is driven by desire.
Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Verse 117
The sea is already full with water. It is also completely stable, meaning it does not change its course or exceed its limit or overflow. The example of sea is given here for two reasons. One is its vastness, and second is its nature of not exceeding its shoreline or limit. Tsunamis and other things are very limited exceptions. This example of the ocean is used rather than a river because every year the river exceeds its limit and floods; it is a recurring phenomenon.
The sea is ever full of water and always stable, and never changes its course nor exceeds its limit, even though constantly receiving water from every source—not only from rivers, but also from drainages, streams and rain. Most of the rain goes to the ocean. Land receives twenty percent of the rain, and the remaining eighty percent falls in the ocean, because of the majority of the Earth’s surface is made up of water bodies. Only twenty-eight percent is land. As the ocean is always full of water and never exceeds its limit although continuously receiving water, so also one who is fully stable in experience is not at all perturbed even when all the desires enter. Only such a person can experience peace.
The word experience is used here in two connotations. One is experiencing the desire; the other is experiencing peace. These two experiences are different in nature. Desire-prompted experiences are all sensory in origin. You cannot have an experience that is not sensory in nature. Now you may, I am sitting quietly closing my eyes and the thought of my beautiful house and its garden, and all these beautiful flowers is coming to me. Which sense is this? It is the mind, and the mind is the king of the senses, so mind is also included in this category. As the king is also a human being, so also mind is called a sense organ, although it is the king of the senses.
Sensory experiences can never give saturation. They can give satisfaction, while denial of sensory experience can give dissatisfaction, and this dissatisfaction may be pain or sorrow. Any experience that is sensory in origin, that gives satisfaction or dissatisfaction, pleasure or pain, sorrow or happiness, is desire-prompted. We are sitting here in a closed room and our consciousness is not distracted anywhere else. We are not identified with what we are seeing, with the sense of touch, whether we are sitting on the hard surface or on a soft cushion, or with any outside noise. When you continue to experience this peace even when your senses are active, that is still higher peace, and when you will be able to retain that state of peace even when your senses are tormented, that is the highest type of peace. Like if you are feeling severe pain and your sense of touch is very agitated, but this pain is not so impactful that it will bring you down from your highest state of bliss. That is the state referred to here and that is the state to which Gita wants the seeker to reach.
The ocean that is already full with water: symbolically it means, this yoga is applicable to a human being who already has all types of experiences. This is the reason the yoga of Gita is not for children, nor for one who has not experienced all aspects of life. If I will teach this yoga of Gita to an adolescent boy, he may understand it fully, and he may have some sort of conceptual clarity, but he can never reach that state. The ocean must first be filled with water, and here water symbolizes the experience of man.
Experiences are recurring in nature. Lord says in this chapter, this experience comes and goes, endure it calmly. This refers not only to unpleasant experiences but also pleasant ones. If you are enduring them calmly it will push you beyond. Yoga is a constant forward march and a constant struggle to retain your state and not be thrown out of the track. When you are struggling like that it means you are fighting the battle.
This verse uses the attributes of the ocean—vast and full of water—to describe a person who has already experienced everything that is desire-prompted. Desire-prompted means that which is sensory in origin. That is why Gita yoga is for an adult; it cannot be for an adolescent. Adult means a mature human being, and maturity here does not refer to age, it here refers to experience. Mature means one who already has the experiences of all the five senses, the vital and the mind, and whose intellect is expanded. Such a person can practice the yoga of Gita.
The first condition is full with water, and the second is stable. The ocean is not only vast and full of water, but also it is unmoving, not changing its course. Waves come in the ocean, but only up to the shoreline. Beyond this wave will not come. Similarly, a person who has attained equanimity will respond and it may be with a smile, an embrace, a kick, shouting or an irritation, but it will not exceed the limit. Depending on the nature of the signal, a person of equanimity will respond. Whatever type of response is needed, only that type of response he will give.
If someone comes to hit him with a stick, a person who has attained equanimity will resist, because he has not lost his common sense. He may hold the stick, or may be able to snatch it away, but he will not hit back. You greet him and he will also greet you—he will not be stoic, he will recognize you and your greeting, but he will not be trapped by your smile. That is within the shoreline, like the sea is within its shoreline, firmly stable. A person of equanimity knows how to respond, how much to respond, when to respond and to whom to respond. That is not a violation of the equanimity state. The ocean has waves that rise and fall within its limit, but the ocean is firmly stable. So also a man of equanimity is stable and firm in his response. This firmness does not always mean roughness, rudeness or stoic neutrality. It is lively, but will not exceed the boundary line.
One who has not reached this state is called kaamakaami, one who is struggling for desire fulfillment and still desires desire. You cannot say, “I am aspiring that Swamiji should come with a bucket full of fruits so that we will eat.” That is not an aspiration. It is a desire. All desire is sensory in origin. All aspiration is extra-sensory in origin.
A desiring person can never experience peace, and even if he feels that he is experiencing it sometimes, it cannot be called peace, because when peace comes it never goes. Experience comes and goes, but peace comes and grows. It keeps growing to such an extent that it can grow no more. That is the state we call yoga siddhi, and that is what I call realization.
When you have realization, your experience cannot grow further because you have reached the state of unmoving and you are stable, like the infinity of the sky and the vastness of the ocean. In this vastness, waves and ripples come and go; that the yogi is able to experience.
Many people ask me what happens in these three to four hours when I sit in deep samadhi: “Do you go to sleep, or are you fully awake? Whether thought comes?” My answer is, “Thought does not come in the way that you understand what thought is. Awareness comes and goes.” It comes from nowhere, because you are awareness; you simply transcend the experience. When experiences are transcended you enter into awareness, which is all pervading. Experience is not all pervading, awareness is.
Unmoving and stable: unmoving means you are not going anywhere because you are everywhere. You have become awareness. Experience only comes and goes; it has a direction and a dimension, and it goes from here to there, to there, to there. Awareness has no direction. It only has dimension. Experience has a depth, but awareness has a height. It does not have any depth. A person of equanimity has dimension and height and although remaining on the desire plane, he is not in desire. Experiencing everything, identified with nothing, because he is in the state of stable peace. Such a person radiates the state of peace.
This is what the seekers experience when they come near an enlightened being. He may be just sitting, or doing his work, and you come and sit at a distance. After some time what you will experience that you are feeling calmness and silence. It is becoming deeper and stronger, and after some time it will be difficult for you to look towards the enlightened being or the seer, and you begin feeling drowsy. Many people feel guilty when they feel drowsiness but they should not, because that is a natural state. From waking state you go to dreaming state, from dreaming to sleeping, and from sleeping you go to transcendental state. Drowsiness will lead to sleep, so some people go to sleep. The person that disturbs another person who is in a drowsy state or is entering to sleep state, by saying, “Hey, don’t sleep here,” is creating a karma. Depending on the system of that drowsy seeker, the force that is transmitted from the seer is taking him to different zones. He should never be disturbed. If the person himself is becoming conscious that is a different thing, but you should not make another person conscious that is sitting in front of an enlightened being.
This is the reason I say to those who come to me, “If you feel sleepy, sleep. If you feel drowsy, let it be, don’t feel guilty.” Prakriti is pushing him to a state of sleep, because he is receiving more in that state. His consciousness was a parched land before. Now it will receive the drops, and after it absorbs them and becomes a wetland, the stream will flow. That is the secret.
One should be stable in awareness. If you are a poor man and you come near a billionaire, you will never experience that you have become rich. But whosoever has come near an enlightened being has certified that they experienced peace, joy, tranquility and calmness. A rich man cannot transmit the power of affluence. Only one who has transcended richness can transmit affluence. As the ocean is filled with water, a person that is in the state of affluence will feel affluence everywhere. This state of being a millionaire or billionaire is a state of consciousness only. If you reach that state of consciousness and you are able to remain there, then you have reached the state of the ocean: filled with water, unmoving and stable. Remaining in that state of consciousness, respond to prakriti. From my experience I am telling: remaining in the state of being, respond to the world of becoming. Discharge your responsibility in the state of the becoming, but remain in the state of the being. In Verse 214, Lord Krishna says, he who performs action being linked with Brahman is not contaminated by sin.
One who, like an ocean, has reached the state of stability and is full of experience, experiences peace. Not one who is still struggling for desire fulfillment, or who continues to hope for some desire-prompted experience. As long as there is any pull for desire-prompted experience, one will not experience that unbroken stable peace. That is the highest state, Verse 117, and if one is able to maintain that state, one is established in Brahman. This is one of my favorite verses in Gita.
[From a 2010 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India]
From Swamiji’s Sadhana Journal
Omm Namo Bhagavate
My life is an open book
but it has a cover page.
Blessed Yogis,
I know that some of you are determined to reach the goal during this lifetime. And I also know that some of you are more determined than I am that you should reach the goal. There are also some who are as determined as I was during the time when I was consciously doing yoga sadhana. Since I am going to share with you all my life’s experience, I want to first assure you of one thing, that I will speak the truth and only truth, and only those things that I have truly experienced. I am going to open up everything and share all. If you have any questions after reading this journal of my sadhana life, you can ask me and I promise to answer truthfully. I believe sharing is true guiding.
My life is an open book, but please remember it has a cover page too.
This is how I begin.
What was my goal when I consciously began my journey?
I cannot be sure when I began my journey. Maybe it started from my last life because many things I attempted, I easily achieved. In yoga you cannot have easy victory unless you have really put in a lot of practice before. This is the reason I feel my journey began long ago, before I knew it.
However, when I consciously began my journey, I fixed a goal before myself: to win over the six enemies in the yoga path. These six enemies are kama, desire; krodha, anger; lobha, greed; moha, attachment; mada, egoism or I-ness; and maschharya, gossip and negative discussion about others.
To be very frank, in those initial years I did not care about God, nor did I care for any realization. To me the world was beautiful, family was joyful and life was challenging. I wanted to see this beautiful world, experience the joys of family surroundings, and be successful in everything I sought to do. Thus, life for me was just like that. Common. I did not see myself as uncommon but I was feeling something different from other children of my age.
When did I start my Journey?
I would say my conscious sadhana began around my 8th standard in school, when I was 14 years old. Perhaps it began in the summer vacation of my 7th standard. My exams were over and I was waiting for my results and thinking a lot about high school.
How did it begin?
A sadhu had come to our village and was staying in our other house at the end of the village. This house was built by my father just for visiting saints and sadhus. I noticed that the sadhu was receiving royal treatment from all the villagers, especially my mother. I felt she was paying much more importance to this old man with his long beard and ochre robe than she paid to me or to my father. She insisted that all food must first be offered to this sadhu. Then only we were allowed to eat it. She also made it compulsory for me to go and serve the sadhu, clean his house, wash his clothes, and even massage his feet, which were definitely dirty and ugly. I thought, “What is this old man having that everybody gives him so much importance?”
One day I asked the sadhu, “Do you know algebra?”
He looked at me and had a big laugh. “I have no need for it,” he said, while handing over his dirty clothes to wash. As I was washing them, I thought, “Let me find out what he knows.” I brought the clothes and asked, “Do you know English?”
He again laughed and said, “I have no compulsion to know that.”
I asked, “Do you have money? How much do you earn every month?”
This question made him laugh and laugh and laugh. I felt as if he was not going to stop. Suddenly he became serious and said, “All money of all people belongs to me. I have no need to earn it or keep it. I have everything.”
This answer made me angry and I asked, “Then why do you beg for food? Why do you not have enough clothes? Why do you sleep on the floor? You poor man. You do not know algebra or English. You have no money but you receive the attention of all? What is it you have that I do not have and my parents do not have? Why should you be served food first, even before my father? You old lazy man, I am not going to serve you.”
After vomiting these words, I felt very uncomfortable, almost crying. I did not know why, but I felt as if I had made a big mistake. But the sadhu was not only calm, he was smiling.
He came towards me, lifted me in his arms and said in a most loving voice, “Dear child of God! Your words have not in any way hurt me. I do not need your services. I also do not need to eat first. From today, I will ensure that you are eating before me.”
Instantly I realized that the sadhu had something extra that I did not. What it was, I could not determine.
I was afraid that my mother would shout at me. I thought, if the sadhu reports to her, then she will not only rebuke me, she will immediately stop eating food for several days to neutralize my sinful act. It is not my mother’s anger, but her penance that was frightening for me. On several occasions I had seen my mother stop eating in order to neutralize any bad karmas of her children.
As a child I was disciplined not by fear of punishment but by the fear of being the cause of my mother’s fasting. Naturally at that stage of life, eating delicious food was the most attractive reward for me and being denied that was the worst punishment. From this I can safely conclude that I was an ordinary child, like many of my age group.
One day, long after the sadhu had gone from our village, when my mother was in a good mood, I asked, “What is the specialty of that sadhu to whom you gave so much importance? In what way is he superior to you, Mother, and also in what way is he more knowledgeable than me? He does not know algebra and cannot speak even one English word. Why should he receive so much importance?”
I told her how the sadhu did not have a single penny with him but was boasting that he is the owner of all wealth.
My mother looked at me in disbelief. She could not imagine that I had asked these questions to the sadhu. She told me in a serious tone, “First, go and eat tulsi leaves. Your mouth is spoiled from criticizing the sadhu. First cleanse it.” She was demanding and I had to obey lest she would declare a two-day fast.
Immediately I ran to the back yard and brought several tulsi leaves and ate them in front of my mother to make sure that my bad karma was neutralized. Then she became relaxed, although not comfortable, and said, “The sadhu has six great siddhis which none of us have. That is why he is receiving everything without asking for anything. To have attained those siddhis, he must have done severe tapas, austerity. He has divine powers and he talks with God directly every day.”
With a sense of disbelief, I asked, “Then why is he not asking God for food, and to teach him algebra and English?”
My mother laughed at my foolish question, but because she was in a good mood, she did not shout at me. She simply said, “Sadhus have no need to ask anything of God. God ensures everything for them. They also have no need to study algebra or speak English. Those who cannot talk to God need to earn money, study algebra and speak English.”
My mother looked at me and said with a commanding voice, “Don’t you see? Even if you demand, you do not get everything, and the sadhu gets everything even if he never asks.”
I asked my mother in a penetrating voice, “What is it that this sadhu has attained? Please tell me and I will attain that.”
My mother was stunned. She said, “He has conquered kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada and maschharya. Can you conquer these six enemies?”
I told her, “Definitely in this life I will do it. I swear in your name, my loving mother, I will conquer these six enemies before you leave your body.”
She simply looked at me in disbelief. She was moved. Tears started flowing from her eyes. She put her hand on my head, took me to her lap and said, “I believe you can.”
To be continued….
Guru Purnima 2022: Morning Message
Omm Namo Bhagavate
Here is the recording of the morning message from Swamiji on Guru Purnima, 13 July 2022, spoken at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India.
