Verses 13.1–13.3🔗

Kṛṣṇa explains, ‘O Kaunteya (son of Kuntī), O Arjuna, this body is called the field, kṣetra; the person who knows this body is called the knower of the field or kṣetrajña.’ śrī bhagavān uvāca idaṁ śarīraṁ kaunteya kṣetram ity adhidhīyate I etad yo vetti taṁ prāhuḥ kṣetrajña iti tad-vidaḥ II 13.1 Whatever you know is not you. If you know something, it is not you. For instance, you can read this book because it is separate and apart from you. Similarly, if you can know your body, then it is not you. If you can know your mind, then it is not you. If you can know your thoughts, then they are not you.

Whatever you know is not you. You are separate from that or above that. That is why you are able to know it. Whether it is the body, thoughts or emotions, whatever you know is not you. KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 929 Now we need to separate these two, the field from the knower of the field. Once we separate these two, the body will be complete, blissful and joyful! Consciousness will be liberated. When these two join, that is where the problem starts. A one-liner that I read somewhere said: A man tells his friend, ‘My sign is earth and my wife’s sign is water. Together we make mud!’ Water and earth are beautiful as they are.

Only when they are mixed do we get mud! Similarly, consciousness, as it is, is beautiful and so is the body. When the two meet, that is where the trouble of incompletions starts. All we need to do is understand and create the right cognition about the field and the knower, that is, what we are and what we are not. The problem in our lives is that when we identify ourselves with something, we believe we are that. Instead of understanding that we possess a mind, we believe we are the mind. The mind then becomes ‘I’. As long as I think this table is mine, there is no problem.

If I start thinking that I am this table, the problem starts! As long as we think that our body and mind are ours, there is no problem. But the problem appears the moment we identify with them. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘We must understand that whatever we know is not us.’ Inch by inch He starts to explain the difference between kṣetra and kṣetrajña. When we understand that something is separate from us, we never feel that we must renounce it. We simply need to renounce the inadequate cognition that we are that particular thing, that’s all. We will simply know that there is nothing to renounce just by being aware of the way in which our body or mind works.

Neither will we feel tortured by them, nor will we feel like torturing them. The people who are tortured by the body and mind are caught in this world and its troubles. Another group of people continuously torture the body and mind in the name of tapas, penance. I have seen people in India practicing yoga by sitting or standing on nails for five years! There are people who torture the body by standing on one leg, rolling on the ground or walking on fire. There is no need to torture the body in such ways. Actually we torture the body because we think that it is torturing us. We take revenge.

At one extreme, people are caught in pleasures of the senses and killing themselves. At the other extreme, people torture the body in the name of penance. Neither knows how to handle the body and mind. A person who knows how to handle his body and mind enjoys the whole thing. He is totally at ease with himself. He feels completely relaxed with his body and mind. He intensely enjoys all pleasures and comforts and he never abuses the body. Enjoying and abusing are two different things. Enjoying is when the mind and the body are in tune with each other. We feel ease, comfort, a deep sense of relaxation and a feeling of being at home with ourselves.

Another category of people tortures the body for the sake of the mind, in the name of penance or tapas. These people are in search of peace and bliss. They go on disrespecting and torturing the body: going without food for months together, standing on one leg, or walking on fire. They continuously abuse the body or mind in one way or the other. Torturing others happens when we torture ourselves. If we torture ourselves, naturally we will torture others. Please understand that we torture others when we do not feel comfortable and complete within ourselves. Torturing others is directly related to torturing ourselves. If we think that we are the mind, we torture our body; and if we think we are the body, we torture our mind.

The person who knows the secrets of the body and mind neither tortures nor abuses them. He knows how to use and enrich them and live blissfully in completion with them. His inner space overflows with bliss, and his outer space enjoys comforts and real pleasures. Kṛṣṇa reveals the sacred secrets of how to enrich the body and mind in beautiful and blissful energy, and how to create the inner space of completion, flowing in blissful consciousness. Kṛṣṇa says further, ‘O Bhārata, I am also the Knower in all bodies— kṣetrajñaṁ cāpi māṁ. To understand this body and the knower is called KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 931 knowledge.’ Beautiful! Here, He makes two statements.

He says, ‘I am the Knower in all the bodies, and to understand the knower and the body is knowledge—kṣetra kṣetrajñayor jñānaṁ yat taj jñānaṁ mataṁ mama.’ He says that understanding the field or the body-mind and the consciousness is knowledge. He says, ‘I myself reside as the consciousness inside the beings—sarva kṣetreṣu bhārata.’ kṣetrajñaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi sarva kṣetreṣu bhārata I kṣetra kṣetrajñayor jñānaṁ yat taj jñānaṁ mataṁ mama II 13.3 Our consciousness is God and there is no separate thing as God. The problem arises when we start carrying an inadequate cognition thinking that we are the body and the mind. A person who carries the right cognition and understands that he is consciousness liberates himself.

He is enlightened. He becomes the Buddha. Consciousness is God. The Equation is: God + body mind = man man – body mind = God! You Are Consciousness, Kṣetrajña Whether we believe it or not, we are consciousness. Let us see how we miss it, how we miss and mess our life! Here is a beautiful story about knowing the body and the mind and how we miss realizing that we are consciousness. A pregnant lioness was hunting for food one day when she came across a flock of sheep. She tried to attack the flock but the effort was too much for her. She fell on the ground, giving birth to a cub and also died due to the pressure she exerted.

The flock of sheep saw the newborn lion cub. They started playing with him. They felt that they should take care of this cub, as one species often does for a newborn of another species. They just took pity on him and adopted him. The sheep started taking care of the cub in the same way they care for their young ones, feeding him with goat milk and grass! The cub started behaving like a sheep and grew up along with the sheep. He lived happily amongst them, not knowing that they were different from him. After some time the problem started slowly. It had to. The mother sheep started receiving complaints about the behavior of the cub, ‘He is too arrogant,’ ‘He is too strong and rough,’ ‘He is not playing properly with us.’

Naturally the cub was sidelined. Whenever any argument arose, they decided to punish him. After a few days, the lion cub started to wonder, ‘What is this? I don’t feel that I am really living. Is this all a lie? Is this all that there is to life—eating grass, jumping around and bleating, just going around the grasslands? I don’t feel I am leading a full life.’ He felt that he was unlike the others, that somehow he was different. He did not feel that he was being himself. Whenever he saw a forest, he was tempted to go and explore the forest. But his sheep mother had warned him that it was the one thing he should not do.

She forbade him from straying away from the flock, obviously now considering him to be one of the sheep. She cautioned him that if he did so, the lions inside the forest would kill him. This whole story is actually about the spiritual seeker! It is about how a person takes birth, starts seeking and how he achieves fulfillment. It’s a wonderful story. I love this story. That is why I repeat this story whenever I can! The mother sheep said, ‘You cannot go there, there are lions out there.’ The cub somehow managed to suppress his search or feeling of emptiness even though he felt drawn KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 933 in and was tempted to go into the forest to explore.

After some time he decided, ‘I think this life is not for me.’ But somehow the mother sheep managed to pressurize and control him. She played a big drama—weeping, crying, convincing, and finally she got this lion married! The lion cub got married and a few years passed by. After some years he again started thinking and analyzing, ‘What is going on? I am leading the same old life, eating, bleating and jumping around! I feel something is seriously missing! I have found whatever best one can get—a good mother, good wife, nice life—but deep inside me, there is only emptiness. I don’t feel fulfilled. What is happening to me?’

Again he started searching. The seeking started. Then suddenly one day, a lion from the nearby forest attacked the flock of sheep. When this happened all the sheep ran away. This sheep-lion neither felt like running away, nor did he have the courage to stand and face the lion. He knew the lion was trying to attack, but he thought, ‘He looks so graceful. Something about him is different.’ He had never seen such a majestic beast before. So, slowly, somehow, unconsciously this sheep-lion felt attracted and drawn towards the lion. Because of the attraction, neither did he run away, nor did he have the courage to face the lion, because he thought he was a sheep under attack.

He started walking away slowly but kept his face and gaze fixed on the lion. The lion straightaway came near him and caught him. The sheep-lion started bleating, ‘Oh, please leave me alone and do not kill me!’ The lion said, ‘Fool, I have not come to kill you! You are a lion, why are you bleating and shouting for help? Why do you think I will kill you?’ ‘Lion?’ the sheep-lion suspected that the lion was trying to cheat him and take him to the forest. He became frightened and cried, ‘No, leave me.’ The lion again said, ‘Fool! You are a lion, why don’t you understand that?’ The sheep-lion refused to believe the lion.

He escaped and ran away. Even though he ran away, the sheep-lion was unable to forget the lion. For a week he was afraid. Fear is usually there after the first glimpse, after the first experience. He had had the first glimpse of the lion! This is how Arjuna felt after his first experience of the Divine, his first glimpse of Kṛṣṇa. It is an experience that evokes fear as well as a blissful attraction. A week passed by and the fear slowly subsided. He felt drawn to the lion once again. The sheep-lion felt like meeting the lion. ‘I think I should meet the lion once more,’ he thought.

One part of his mind was saying, ‘No, no, no, I am afraid that he may kill me,’ while another part was saying, ‘No, it was such a blissful experience with him. He is so graceful and I want to meet him again!’ Please be very clear that unless you have Enlightenment within yourself, you will not feel attracted towards an Enlightened person. If we feel attached or connected to an Enlightened person and feel we are in tune with him in some way, understand that it is a sign that we have Enlightenment within us already. However, if we have not matured or grown to the level of feeling the Enlightenment within us, we may not feel even a slight connection with an Enlightened person.

There are millions of people living in this city. Why are only a few hundred sitting here for these discourses? Not only that, thousands came at least once and have not come back the second time. Why do only a few come regularly? The moment you feel attracted to an Enlightened Master’s teachings, be very clear that the Enlightenment in you has started expressing or flowering! That is the reason why the sheep-lion remembered the KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 935 lion and felt attracted to it. He felt the intense urge to see the lion again and finally decided to meet him. But how would he meet him? The lion never sent out flyers saying, ‘In such and such a place, I am doing a program!

You can meet me here.’ The sheep-lion came to the edge of the meadow where the forest started, and waited expectantly every day for the lion to appear. After a few months the lion appeared. The moment the sheep-lion saw him, his fear surfaced and he was caught in the dilemma once again despite having waited for months to see him. This time the lion came towards him and asked, ‘How are you doing?’ The sheep-lion started bleating again, ‘I am, I am, I am….’ He was unable to answer, but did not run away, as he had done earlier. The lion said, ‘Don’t worry. If you are afraid, I will go away.

I am not going to eat you because you are a lion. And because I can’t eat you, I won’t kill you. Also since I see no use in you, there is no reason for me to stay here if you are afraid.’ Saying this, the lion started walking back towards the forest. The sheep-lion immediately pleaded with the lion to stay and spend a few moments with him. He also added, ‘Don’t come too close. You can stand at a distance and talk. Please stand ten feet away and I will stand here. But please spend some time with me.’ The sheep-lion was now neither able to forget the lion and escape, nor did he have the courage to go near him!

This is the next phase of growth for a seeker. With around ten or fifteen feet between them they stood and talked. However, again and again the lion said, ‘You are a lion. Fool! You think you are a sheep! You are not like the friends you live with. This is not the way you are supposed to live.’ The sheep-lion started to think about what the lion said. Slowly the doubt he had that the lion was going to take him to the forest and eat him disappeared. Now the sheep-lion was convinced that the lion did not have an ulterior motive. He thought, ‘I have nothing to offer him and I am of no use to him.’

Only when this confidence comes into the mind of the disciple, he starts trusting the words of the Master! That is why in the Vedic system spiritual knowledge is free. We start trusting the Master only when we realize that we cannot contribute to the Master in any way, that the Master has nothing to gain from us, that he is not missing us. The trust between the Master and disciple starts when the disciple understands that he has nothing to add to what the Master already has in his being. The Master has everything and he is sharing because he is overflowing. He is not giving in order to take something from us.

His very being is overflowing. Only when you understand that, will you start trusting the Master’s words. The sheep-lion developed that much trust on the lion. He thought, ‘The lion is not going to kill and eat me. If he wanted to do that, he would have done it long ago. One thing is certain. He is not going to gain anything from me. So why does he say I am a lion?’ Then, the sheep-lion thought about what the lion had said. When we understand that we have nothing to give the Master, that he is overflowing out of his ecstasy and he is only sharing the joy and bliss, we start experimenting with things more deeply.

Until we understand that whatever the Master says is only for our own benefit, we never try to experiment with his words. The sheep-lion thought about the lion, ‘He looks so KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 937 courageous, so graceful, so bold, and he is radiating so much confidence. It doesn’t look like he is lying.’ We can clearly tell whether someone is lying or not by seeing the eyes of a person. We don’t need a lie detector! All we need to do is look into his eyes. So the sheep-lion thought, ‘He doesn’t look like a liar. Then why is he again and again telling me that I am a lion?

I know I am a sheep.’ The lion then said, ‘I think you are not interested in believing me. Anyhow, I am not interested in wasting my time. I am going.’ But the sheep-lion begged, ‘No, no, no! Please, at least give me an appointment.’ The lion asked why he wanted the appointment. The sheep-lion replied, ‘I will go home and think about whatever you have told me. Then I will come back and clear my doubts with you.’ The lion agreed, saying he would meet him at the same place in one month’s time. The sheep-lion then started to contemplate, ‘How can I be a lion? I know for sure I am a sheep.

I eat grass. I bleat like a sheep and go around with sheep. So, how can I be a lion?’ He thought and thought. He considered all the great philosophical questions, the very same questions that I have been answering all these days! There must have been some books: ‘sheep-philosophy,’ ‘sheep-Gītā.’ The sheep-lion read all of them and thought of all the possible questions. He made a big list of questions that his mother and father never answered. One important thing though is that he never told his mother that he met the lion because if she knew, she would stop him! She would not have allowed him to go to the edge of the forest.

She would have told him, ‘Never go there! You must stay in the meadows. You cannot go to the other side into the forest.’ Parents are afraid for their young ones. They send their children to the temples but never to a Swami, never to a spiritual master! To them there is always a danger. See, Swami Vivekānanda is great as long as he takes birth in the neighbor’s house, not in our house! Anyhow, finally after one month, the appointment date arrived. The sheep-lion collected the best grass, whatever he thought was best, as an offering to the lion. He gave it to the lion saying, ‘Please have all these things.

I preserved them carefully for you.’ Seeing the love of the sheep-lion, the lion also acted as if he was eating and enjoying the grass, just so that he could please the sheep-lion and make him feel more connected. He was zeroing down the distance. He wanted the sheep-lion to feel comfortable and connected in his presence. Only then could any transformation or transmission of knowledge happen. Just to make the sheep-lion comfortable, the lion acted like he was eating the grass. Naturally, the sheep-lion asked, ‘Is it good? Is it tasty?’ The lion said, ‘Yes, yes, it is tasty. I am happy. You cook well. You have done a great job.’

Some compliment is given! After accepting the grass offering, the lion started to slowly say the same things to the sheep-lion, ‘I am telling you again and again, but you are not ready to listen. You are a lion, not a sheep.’ By now, the sheep-lion knew that what he was thinking was wrong. Still he was unable to accept what the lion was saying as right. How could he be a lion? He knew by now he was not a sheep. He applied logic, ‘My color is different. If I am a sheep, I should be like my friends. I think differently. I do not feel satisfied or comfortable with that life.

This means I am something more. But I am unable to understand how KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 939 I could be a lion.’ He was not able to comprehend what the lion said. At the same time he was not sure about what he had been thinking all along. One day, the lion said to him, ‘Come, let us go to a nearby lake for a picnic.’ By now the sheep-lion was comfortable with the lion and agreed. When they reached the lake, the lion suddenly grabbed the neck of the sheep-lion, dragged him to the water, and told him to look at the reflection in the water. The lion asked him, ‘Do you see an image of a lion in the reflection?’

The sheep-lion replied, ‘Yes, I see your reflection. You are standing.’ The lion asked, ‘Do you see another reflection?’ The sheep-lion said, ‘Yes, I see another small lion, your baby. Where is the baby? Your baby is not here but his reflection is here. Is he inside the water?’ The lion roared and said, ‘Fool, it is you!’ The sheep-lion refused to believe and said, ‘No, no, no, maybe your baby is hiding inside the water. Call him.’ The lion said, ‘Fool, it is not my baby. It is you.’ The lion then told him, ‘Look, I am now moving away. Only you are standing there. See what is happening!’

The sheep-lion then saw the reflection. Suddenly, the first shock happened to him, ‘I think there is some truth in what the lion says.’ Again, he was frightened, ‘If I am a lion, I must live in the forest. I cannot take that responsibility. If I am a sheep, I am so comfortable. Already, I know all my sheep friends and I get regular food. I know where food is available. I know where I cook. I know where I eat. I know where my house is. I know where my wife is. I know where my life is. I know all these things and I am completely accustomed to the life of a sheep.

But if I understand that I am a lion, the whole thing must be dropped. I must renounce the whole thing. I must take a big jump. It’s difficult.’ That fear pattern again came up and he simply ran away; he escaped one more time. The First Experience After a few months, the lion came in search of the sheep-lion. This time the sheep-lion did not have any grass offerings. Instead the lion brought an offering of meat for the sheep-lion! When he saw the sheep-lion, he didn’t talk. There were no intellectual discourses, philosophical discussions or question-and-answer sessions. Straightaway, he caught hold of the sheep-lion, opened his mouth, and put the meat inside.

The moment the sheep-lion tasted the blood, the moment he tasted the meat, something reeled inside him. Something happened to his being. Something happened to his consciousness. Suddenly he swallowed the meat and roared! The roaring is what we call Enlightenment! Most importantly, the sheep-lion realized that he had been a lion from the beginning, from day one! The same thing happens in our lives. Again and again, we wrongly think we are sheep. At some point, we start suspecting, ‘I am not feeling satisfied with this life. What is happening?’ And after some time, suddenly we see a lion that teaches us, ‘You are God. You are that energy.

You are consciousness.’ We get scared and run away. At home we start thinking, ‘I think he has some plans. He wants to build an ashram and he needs me for it. That is why he says these things.’ After a few days we realize that he already has an ashram; we don’t need to build one for him or contribute to his ashram. We KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 941 realize that he has everything and doesn’t need anything. Then slowly we start analyzing, ‘Why is he coming everyday and saying the same thing? Everyday he comes and for two or three hours he says the same thing in a loud voice.

Why?’ After a few days we think, ‘One thing is certain, whatever I think about me is wrong. But I don’t know whether whatever he says is right or not.’ During meditation, one glimpse of Consciousness happens. When that happens we again run away with the fear, ‘No, no, no. This is not for me. If the same thing happens again, I may leave everything and go after him.’ At this stage, the Master suddenly catches hold of us and puts the meat of solid spiritual experience into our mouth. Something happens in our system, in our consciousness. Suddenly we open our eyes and roar, declaring the experience that happened in our being.

We realize that from day one, from the beginning, we have been That. The sheep-lion has always been a lion. But it requires another lion to make a sheep-lion realize that he is indeed a lion. From day one, we are the knower or the kṣetrajña, the Consciousness. But by mistake we start carrying the inadequate cognition thinking that we are the body-mind, in the same way that the sheep-lion thought that he was a sheep. Suddenly a person who has already experienced that he is Consciousness guides and enriches us saying, ‘This is Consciousness and that is body-mind. Understand that you are Consciousness.’ Here, the same story is happening between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna. Kṛṣṇa explains kṣetra and kṣetrajña. He tells Arjuna that he is not a sheep but a lion; he is not merely the field; he is the knower of the field. Consciousness And Conscience