Verse 12.2🔗

Bhagavān says, ‘Those who are established in their consciousness that expresses devotional gratitude, bhakti, are always engaged in Me. Those who focus on the transcendental faith, meaning the experience that they undergo at the time of Cosmic experience, they are engaged in Me. Both are ultimate. Both are united in Me. Saṃskṛit is a beautiful language. We can make any meaning out of any word. That is why thousands of commentaries on the Gītā are possible, yet the Gītā is still new. No book has been commented upon by so many masters, as much as the Gītā has been. Each master gives his own meaning. Again, I insist that if a person who has not had a spiritual experience starts expressing, lecturing, he will naturally be in trouble and create trouble for others as well.

In the same way that the blind leads the blind, both end up in trouble. A person without any spiritual experience, when he translates or talks, he automatically does only ‘text torturing.’ Real Completion Expresses as Enriching with Love Understand this small example: Let us say I draw a diagram and explain the concept of an experience that I have had to you. Later, you present only an audio CD of this session to a friend who did not attend this lecture. You have not had the experience; you merely translate my experience. How much can you explain? He will not be able to grasp much. He will miss my body language completely.

You can- Bhakti Yogaḥ Love Is Your Very Life 867 not explain accurately either, because you are not the one who had the experience. A person who just has the audio recording or a book copy, cannot understand much. Like that, Bhagavad Gītā is a transcription of the audio recording. Even the voice modulation is not there. How much can you translate or interpret? That is why Vivekananda emphasized, again and again, not to read or listen to anything expressed by a person who has not personally experienced the truth. Most importantly, he said, ‘Bother about who is speaking, rather than what he is speaking.’ He emphasized the personal experience.

He added, ‘All the books in the libraries in this world cannot lead you to the truth. Once you have realized the truth, you do not need books.’ Spiritual experience transcends mind and ego. It is pure, uncolored and permanent. By expressing an understanding of someone’s experience, one may express a fact or an opinion at best, but never the truth. Truth must be experienced to be expressed. Here Bhagavān says, mayyāveśya mano ye māṁ nitya yuktā upāsate I śraddhayā parayopetās te me yuktatamā matāḥ II 12.2 Those who express their experience as devotion, see the world, upāsate. The word upāssana can be translated in many ways. When we see the Divine in everybody, when we express the truth of the spiritual experience, whatever we do is upāssana.

Please be very clear, when we can’t see the Divine in people around us, we can’t see the Divine in any statue or any Master either. If we don’t see the Divine in living beings, we cannot see the Divine in a God or a Guru. If it were not for the great master Rāmānuja, South India would have completely lost its spirituality. Śankara settled in the north even though he was born and brought up in the south. He spent most of his time in North India. Because of Rāmānuja, devotion and spirituality thrived in South India. Until his end, Rāmānuja stayed in South India. Not only that, Śankara lived only until the age of thirty-two.

Rāmānuja lived on planet Earth for a long time and inspired thousands of people in the path of spirituality and meditation. One young man asked Rāmānuja, ‘Master, please tell me how I can achieve bhakti, achieve God, achieve devotion?’ Rāmānuja asked him, ‘Have you ever loved anybody in your life?’ This man was shaken. He said, ‘I am a pure brahmacāri, a celibate. How can you ask me this question? I came to learn about God and you ask me this question?’ Rāmānuja says, ‘First go and love somebody. See how you feel when you love somebody. Then come back and I will teach you about God. I will teach you about bhakti, devotional love.’

This man was naturally taken aback. He could not understand Rāmānuja. Understand, unless we love the person whom we can see, how will we love an entity that we have never seen? If we can’t love human beings whom we see everyday, how can we love the form of God whom we have never seen? What Rāmānuja says is true. We should also understand that unless we radiate love in the space where we stay, we can’t love the whole world. Again and again I tell people, loving the whole world is easy. Loving your wife is difficult. Loving the whole world is easy because we don’t need to do anything to substantiate it!

All we must do is to say, ‘I love the whole world.’ But when we love our wife, we must change our inner space to that of completion. We must change our mind, our words, our feeling and our very living. We must bring integrity to our words. We must bring authenticity to our thinking and our actions; responsibility in our feeling, and enriching in our living. There starts the problem! Listen! You need to know that relationships are not something external. It is an expression of yourself, how you feel about you. The relationship you carry with you is projected as the relationship with the world! I tell you, when you bring integrity in your relationship with others, honoring the words you gave or completing the words you gave, Bhakti Yogaḥ Love Is Your Very Life 869 the way others look at you will be transformed immediately.

To truly love and enrich someone whom we spend our life with, to prevent familiarity from breeding contempt, we need to complete with others and our self, and drop our ‘I’ and ‘mine’. As long as we consider our spouse as a possession, what arises in our mind and heart is violence, not love. We will feel we must control the other being and we will feel we must prove that we are the owner. To even comprehend the meaning of true love, we need to drop the feeling that we possess. Being established in that consciousness of completion or expressing it towards enriching the Universe is the same. When a person is merged, when a person is established, he automatically radiates.

If the love is not happening, if the expression is not happening, the person has not experienced. When the real experience of completion happens, it automatically expresses as enriching. Experience is not something we can possess and keep in our cupboard. No! Experience will possess us and it will radiate as enriching through us. This is because we cannot possess an experience. Only the experience can possess us. When experiences possess us, whatever we do will be a song. Any word that comes out will be a song. Our being will be so light. We will simply float. Our body language will radiate grace. All our expressions will be a great enriching service to humanity.

An Enlightened man never keeps quiet nor does he talk, he just sings. That is why the Gītā is given in the form of a song. The Gītā is not prose. It is poetry. Great truths can never be expressed in logic. They can only be expressed through poetry. Prose is logic. It is bound. It is rigid. But poetry is emotion. It is love and it flows. Kṛṣṇa says that a person established in the consciousness of completion is great; however, the person who expresses, who shares, who automatically radiates the power of living by enriching is as great as the one who is established. The truth is that if a man is established in consciousness, he will radiate, he will enrich, and he will sing.

Let me tell a small story of a great devotee, a bhakta, who lived in Varanasi. This man was a great devotee of Kṛṣṇa. He owned a small copy of the Bhagavad Gītā. That was his entire possession, his only wealth. Every morning he bathed in the sacred river Gaṅgā while reciting the Bhagavad Gītā with devotion. He spent the whole day sitting and meditating on Kṛṣṇa. He was continuously in the ecstasy of Kṛṣṇa. He radiated Kṛṣṇa bhakti, devotional love towards Kṛṣṇa. Of course, we see these types of souls only in India. Society does not disturb people who just sit in ecstasy. Society takes care of them. In any other country such people would be called homeless, hounded by police and the public, put in a shelter and disrespected.

Indian culture is beautiful. If we sit in ecstasy, we are respected and worshipped! This person was in ecstasy, always singing Kṛṣṇa’s name, in Kṛṣṇa dhyāna, in Kṛṣṇa meditation, in Kṛṣṇa smaraṇa, repeating Kṛṣṇa’s name. He was lost in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. One day a beggar came and asked, ‘Oh Swami, please give me something. For the last three days I have not eaten.’ Now this posed a big problem to the bhakta. He himself was a beggar and had only one possession, the Gītā. He owned nothing else. If someone gave him food, he ate. Otherwise, he just sang Kṛṣṇa’s name. His only property was the Gītā. He looked to see if there was something to give.

There was only the Bhagavad Gītā, which he had preserved and worshipped for many years. That was his sole possession, akin to God for him. It was everything to him. Suddenly, he gathered the courage of authenticity and Bhakti Yogaḥ Love Is Your Very Life 871 took hold of the book and said, ‘I have nothing. I have only this book. However, if you go to the city and tell people that this book was my possession, you will be able to auction it. Surely someone will buy it. Many people respect me. To some extent, they feel devoted to me. So Kṛṣṇa’s blessing is there. Go to the market and auction this book.

Take the money and eat and fulfill yourself, and be happy.’ The beggar took the book and went away. The next morning, when he was about to chant the Gītā, the bhakta said, ‘Oh Kṛṣṇa, I have given away your words to keep your words. What is your word? Your word is to radiate bhakti, to radiate devotion. I gave away your word to keep your word.’ This man was a true devotee. He had seen the truth. He had experienced it. So he was able to express it. He translated his devotion to Kṛṣṇa as love to enrich his fellow men. Keeping Kṛṣṇa’s word was more important than keeping Kṛṣṇa’s book. Actually, if we use His words properly with integrity and authenticity, we will have the experience of completion, of devotion. We will radiate His words, we will enrich with His love. They Too Attain Me