Verses 13.19–13.24🔗

Kṛṣṇa delivers this discourse of the Bhagavad Gītā to Arjuna standing in a chariot on the battlefield of kurukṣetra. If you look a little deeper, this is a beautiful picture of each of us. Kṛṣṇa represents the Self, the charioteer, knower of the field, kṣetrajña, the one who runs the show. If the charioteer does not know how to take charge, the horses start to pull the chariot in different directions. These horses symbolize the senses and the mind pulling us to different places as they please, thus leaving us in a state of confusion in everything that we do. If we are not ready to control the horses, the horses will control us.

This is what happens in our lives. Due to our lack of understanding about how to drive the chariot, we conveniently give the horses the authority. The very understanding about the kṣetra, meaning the material things around us, teaches us how to control them. The minute we understand the kṣetra, the body-mind, we realize we are not the kṣetra! If we are the kṣetra, then how can we understand it? You see, we can read this book because we are not the book. There is a separation between the book and us. In the same way, only when we understand the kṣetra, do we understand that we are not the kṣetra.

This understanding that we are not the kṣetra brings with it the understanding that we are the kṣetrajña. When we realize that we are the kṣetrajña, we have transcended the kṣetra. How do we understand the kṣetra? It is important to gain knowledge about our material world. Until then, we are in ignorance. When we are in ignorance, our senses and societal conditioning drive us. Life Is A Dream Actually, there is no such thing as kṣetra. It is a projection of the mind, just like a dream. You see, when we go to bed we know that we are so-and-so, husband or wife of so-and-so, working in such-and-such company, etc.

We know our whole identity with solid clarity when we go to sleep. We know that even if we have dreams, they are not real. We will wake up the next day and continue our life at the office, with our children and so on. KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 969 But the minute we drift into the dream state, we start to think that the dream is real. The more we get into the dream, the more our identity completely changes to suit the role in the dream. What happens in the dream may not be related to what we do in real life. Yet we start to believe it all. If a lion in the dream attacks us, we feel fear and worry and we may even sweat as though it is really happening to us!

In the same way, we think this life is real. If I tell you now that the life that you are leading is nothing but a creation of your mind, will you believe me? No! You are so immersed in this dream that you think is real. See, when we wake up from a dream, why do we suddenly understand that it was not real? It is because suddenly we perceive a separation between the dream and us. The understanding that it was merely a dream, puts us into reality. Similarly, the understanding that this world is nothing but a projection of the mind, the understanding that this is not our real identity, will put us into reality.

Let us say we dream of winning some award in front of thousands of people. The mind is so powerful that it can create the entire picture including every detail of the auditorium, all the thousand people sitting and clapping, the speeches, everything that we would normally see in an auditorium. The mind is so powerful to be able to give life to the scene around us and not just to our identity in the dream. This is what the mind does in the so-called real world also. The only difference is that we wake up easily from our night dreams. However, we do not know how to wake up from this bigger day dream that we now think is reality.

As long as we think this world is real, we suffer. The minute we realize this world is not real, we create a distance between the suffering and us. Only an enlightened Master who has experienced the truth can awaken us to reality. Out of their compassion, these masters descend on planet Earth to tell us that everything we see around us is a projection of our minds. The understanding of the kṣetra, the illusory world created by our minds, is important in helping us to differentiate between reality and non-reality. Kṛṣṇa says that we need to understand what kṣetra and kṣetrajña to realize the truth. Until then we blindly believe that the projection of our mind, the drama, is reality.

We have created our own drama and are acting in it. By and by, we forget that we created the drama. We forget that we are not the roles or characters we enact onstage. We start judging and reacting to everything about it. If a child is constantly reminded about the divinity within right from birth, it grows up to be a jīvan mukta, liberated while still in the body. This is how children were brought up in the vedic tradition. That is why the level of consciousness was so high. Prakṛti, the material world that we see, is without beginning. Puruṣa or supreme consciousness is also without beginning. All changes and transformations are produced by prakṛti.

All the transformations that we see, such as the change in seasons, concepts of time and space, our body, mind or anything that changes are different attributes of prakṛti. It is like the ebb and flow of the waves in an ocean. These attributes rise and fall. The time and space of the rise and fall is totally relative. The duration of the rise and fall of these attributes is also highly relative because it is purely a concept created by our senses. Our senses perceive time as moving. Our senses perceive the motion of time with respect to the material world, with relation to the speed of the planets, etc.

We have created this concept of time for our sensory perceptions. We have created the space and location also with the concept of comparative reality. For example, if we are sitting with someone we love, no matter how much time passes, we feel as if we were with that person for a short duration. We will not be aware how time passed so quickly. On the other hand, if we are sitting with a person who bores us or bothers us, we will feel like looking at our watch constantly. We would feel that time is not moving at all. As long as our mind moves, time moves. When we look deeply, we realize that the mind is a constant movement between past and future.

KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 971 The mind is a dilemma; it is constantly reviewing the past and planning for the future. We are constantly pulled towards the past or future and are never in the present moment. When we fall into the present moment, we fall into eternity and that eternity is a combination of past, present and future. There is no distinction. In this state we become the witness of all time and space-related happenings. We become the witnessing consciousness. We become the knower and we witness the field or kṣetra with complete detachment. We realize that everything in the outer world is a drama or a dream, and anything that we attempt to do in our lives is housekeeping in this dream.

Any effort that we make is another act in this dream. The whole idea is to not become entangled or emotionally attached to the housekeeping in this dream. The idea is to enjoy it and watch it by becoming one with our true self. Knowledge about the material world is necessary to help us step back from the dream and realize that we are unnecessarily attached and entangled in the field, kṣetra. All transformations in the field are related to time and space, which are in turn related to our mind. All transformations are the play of prakṛti or the field. Mind is a part of prakṛti. ‘Nature is the source of all material causes and their effects, whereas the living entity is the source of things such as sukha (pleasure), duḥkha (pain) and everything that is of the world.’

Kṛṣṇa puts us back into our consciousness through these words. This contains the gist of what He has been saying in the previous verses. He makes a clear statement that whatever we see is not us. He says, ‘Go beyond and beyond and beyond and beyond. When you are able to see the body, move beyond. If you are able to witness your thoughts, go further beyond. If you are able to see your moods, go further beyond. If you are able to witness your emotions, go further beyond. You are not that either.’ Witness the consciousness that is witnessing. When you watch, detach from the thoughts, sit back, relax and watch.

Do not try to create, nourish or destroy the thoughts. The ultimate consciousness that witnesses is beyond Brahma (Creator), Viṣṇu (Sustainer) or Śiva (Rejuvenator). When we learn to welcome thoughts and allow them to complete, they merely come and go. It is like watching clouds in the sky. Even if there is a thought saying that you are witnessing, watch that thought also. Watch the witnessing until that thought also disappears. Go beyond and beyond, deep into your being. Go beyond the thought that you are witnessing. Please listen. As long as you think in your mind that you are witnessing, you are not witnessing. When the thought that you are witnessing exists, you are not witnessing.

You are now caught in the thought, ‘I am witnessing.’ Drop that! This last thought that you are witnessing is like a bridge between you and God, between you and the thoughtless space. Initially, when you try to witness your actions and your thoughts, it is natural to think that you are watching. Let it be. Having this thought is better than having a hundred incomplete thoughts bombarding your inner space. But go beyond. Do not stop there. Witness the thought that you are witnessing. Then the pure, uncorrupted and untouched complete inner space happens in you. It is only in the uncorrupted and pure inner space of completion that God manifests and the Divine consciousness is perceived.

Understand, Completion is God. Witnessing is the Master Key Here Kṛṣṇa gives us a technique. As of now, we are like 18-carat gold, copper and gold mixed together. When we repeatedly put the 18-carat gold into the fire of witnessing consciousness, eventually it becomes 22-carat gold. If we continue to put that gold into the fire, the 22-carat gold becomes pure 24-carat gold. In the same way, if we put ourselves into the fire of witnessing consciousness, we become purified to a certain extent. Again and again, if we constantly put ourselves into this fire of KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 973 witnessing consciousness, our inner space eventually becomes completely pure, like 24-carat gold.

The essence of all religions and all spirituality, the whole thing is contained in this single verse that Kṛṣṇa presents here. Kṛṣṇa presents the master key that opens all locks, in this chapter: upadraṣṭānumantā ca bhartā bhoktā maheśvaraḥ I paramātmeti cāpy ukto dehe ‘smin puruṣaḥ paraḥ II 13.23 Witnessing the body and the mind, witnessing your being. Witnessing is the master key. If we can enter the witnessing technique and experience the witnessing space of completion for at least a few minutes, we will get a taste of it. However much we hear about witnessing, however much we talk about witnessing or however much we analyze the art of witnessing, unless we experience it ourselves, it is of no use.

You must test it on yourself. You must test it with your being. Reading or listening will not transform you. Reading or listening is like reading the menu and leaving the restaurant without tasting the food on the menu! If you listen to what I say without testing, it is like going away from a restaurant without eating. So now since we have read the menu card, it is time to taste the preparation. Your Cognition is Transformable, Be Complete Kṛṣṇa goes one step further. All along He told us how to cleanse our inner space and how to realize the Divine consciousness within. Now, in the last verse He says that one who does so attains liberation, regardless of his present position, sarvathā vartamāno ‘pi na sa bhūyo ‘bhijāyate (13.24).

Every being is moving towards the Divine, whether or not the being is aware of it. We take on this body to fulfill certain desires. If we truly put our energies into dissolving these desires, we have no reason to take another birth to fulfill these desires. The incompletion happens when we start to lead somebody else’s life and forget we are here to live our desires and not others’ desires. We constantly borrow other people’s desires and accumulate them in us. Then, before we start realizing our true nature, it becomes time to leave this body. We take with us the entire baggage of unfulfilled desires and take another body again.

The universe again and again tries to help us dissolve our desires so that we become free of them. But we resist by not feeling responsible for what happens within and around us. Kṛṣṇa says that an understanding of kṣetra or prakṛti straightaway liberates us. We are caught up in pursuing sense pleasures and accumulating desires as long as we associate ourselves with this body. The minute we understand that we are beyond the body and mind, we suddenly realize, ‘What stupidity to run in this rat race!’ All our problems, all our incompletions arise due to the ignorance of our true nature. The understanding that we are beyond all petty things like fighting for name, fame, money or power liberates us from them.

A cognitive shift happens that transforms and frees us from the bondage of material things. This cognitive shift can happen at any time, to anyone. It is not necessary that you be brought up in an ashram, listening to God’s name all the time. You could be anywhere, doing anything. And when it happens, it is a quantum jump in the level of consciousness. It does not happen gradually. It is spontaneous enlightenment. It is like pressing a switch and the whole room is lit up in one shot. Understand, your cognition is changeable, transformable is the first cognition you need. Whenever people realize that they are beyond the bondages of body and mind, that their cognition is changeable, spontaneous Enlightenment happens.

When people who go on doing completion, with their body and mind, along with the basic root-pattern that their cognition is not changeable; then finally, at one point, they break and understand that cognition is changeable, they become enlightened. That is called Enlightenment process, gradual KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 975 Enlightenment. People who immediately understand that cognition is changeable and awaken, are people who have become spontaneously enlightened, they have instant Enlightenment. Please listen. You go on believing that because you are seeing from the time of your birth, seeing is hardware of you like the eyes. You don’t separate eyes and seeing, you don’t separate ears and hearing, you don’t separate tongue and tasting.

You don’t separate kṣetra and kṣetrajñya , the one watching the kṣetra. You think that if it is there, it is there, which is not the truth. Cognition is changeable. Cognition is transformable. With this clarity that the cognition is transformable, now decide and be liberated. Just an understanding that our cognition is changeable and transformable, that we are beyond material pursuits is enough to liberate us. I tell you, just know your incompletions with this clarity that cognition is changeable, the incompletions of kṣetra will lose power over you. Incompletions will have power over you as long as you feel cognition is not changeable. With this understanding of kṣetrajña, start living and thinking.

Regardless of your present position, your very thinking will be completion. This is the science of spontaneous completion, instant completion. Technique For Spontaneous Completion Completion does not mean blindly accepting everything that happens in your life, in the kṣetra. It simply means not resisting life as it happens to us. The root of all our incompletions is the idea we carry— Life should not be this way. That is why we spend our whole life asking, ‘Why, why, why? Why is life so bad? Why did this happen to me? Why do bad things happen to good people?’ Spontaneous completion or instant completion means simply dropping the wrong understanding that is creating conflict for you in a particular situation.

It is possible! Next time you face a crisis or conflict in life, don’t ask, ‘Why is life this way? Instead, decide: this is life, so now what? Do I want to accept it and move on? Do I want to reject it and move on? Or do I change it the way I want? Whatever decision you make out of this cognition will be right for you. When you act out of completion, you are empowered to resolve any conflict that happens inside you or outside you. Manys People, Many Paths