Verses 13.25–13.27🔗

In this verse, Kṛṣṇa gives various techniques for the path to Self-realization. He says various methods or paths may be used to realize our true Self. People say ‘As many Masters, so many paths.’ Actually it should be ‘As many disciples, so many paths!’ Each disciple can have his own path. This is what Kṛṣṇa says. We can attain the ultimate consciousness through different paths. Kṛṣṇa says that through meditation or yoga or knowledge or contemplation or surrendering to the Divine, you can attain liberation. All the different methods lead to the same goal. Each chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā gives a different technique to realize the Self. After our Inner Awakening meditation program, I give spiritual names to those who ask for it.

I give the names based on the energies of the devotees. The names depend on how they connect to the Cosmic Nithyananda. If I see that individuals act at an emotional level like devotion, I give names that suit that particular energy. The second category is intellectual people. Intellectual people are those who connect at a mental level. They need logical explanations for everything. The third category is of those who connect at the being level. When I ask for their names, I meditate on their energies and give them the spiritual names. The spiritual name gives them a path, and the path is different for each one. The name has significance.

The name reminds you of your path. We generally associate ourselves with our name. So whenever you utter your name or when somebody calls you by your spiritual name, it rings a bell in your head. It guides you to the destination. Kṛṣṇa tells Arjuna about the paths. He gives alternatives: meditation,yoga,chantingmantra,learningandacquiringknowledgeand surrendering to the Cosmos. Follow Your Own Path Listen. You should know which path is good for you. Lots of people take up a spiritual path without knowing what it is. You can have a starting point but you should find out if you are on the right path. You should not blindly follow someone because someone you know is following that guru or that path.

A small story: On a dark night, a man discovered that the headlights of his car had failed. He decided to follow the car in front of him. It was dark outside and he could not see anything. If the car in front took a turn, he also took that turn. He managed quite well using the light from the car ahead of him. After some time, the lights of the lead car switched off and KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 979 came to a sudden halt. The second driver bumped into the car and shouted at the driver of the first car, ‘Why did you stop?’ ‘I’ve reached my house. What do you expect me to do?’ replied the other driver.

You see, if you follow something or someone blindly, you will not reach the correct destination. You must know your own path. There are different paths to realize the truth. However, we must understand what our path is. This is where a true Enlightened Master can enrich you. He knows exactly what the path is for you. He corrects you when you are on the wrong path. In this verse Kṛṣṇa gives different techniques, like meditation, yoga, knowledge. Lots of people do these things. Some people ask, ‘Swamiji, I am meditating daily for 21 minutes. I am still unable to feel anything. Why is it?’ I ask them, ‘Tell me with integrity and authenticity, are you meditating with full intensity and full awareness?

When you are meditating, is your mind with your body or are you thinking about the office?’ Naturally, they do not say anything after that. You see, all the techniques must be done out of completion. Meditation must be done with awareness. Everything you do can be meditation if you do it with awareness and intensity. Kṛṣṇa gives it as a path to attain the Ultimate consciousness. In this verse Kṛṣṇa talks about sāṅkhyena, through knowledge or philosophical discussion. He says you can attain the goal using knowledge. Understand, gathering knowledge and philosophical discussions can be done in two ways. Many people read a lot of books. These people are the intellectuals.

They collect knowledge like others collect stamps or coins. But if you look deeper, the knowledge will be just another manifestation of their ego. They would just show off. They would not have really assimilated the knowledge for themselves. If we discuss for the sake of showing our knowledge and ego, we have made no use of that knowledge. At the end of the verse, Kṛṣṇa gives a wonderful technique. He gives the ultimate technique, the technique of surrendering. He says, ‘Surrender the outcome of your actions to Me.’ This is the most effective technique. He talks about it throughout the Gītā. Just surrender the fruits of your actions to Him, the Universal Consciousness.

Most often, we take responsibility for the outcome of our actions. That is when our tensions and problems start. Just surrender everything to the Cosmic energy of Kṛṣṇa. Once we do, we will feel liberated. We will feel free. This is the easiest path to reach the truth. Listen. A person need not have any spiritual knowledge to start on a particular path. There is no prerequisite. Even if the person is totally new to spirituality, he can follow a spiritual path. Only a cognitive shift must happen. So many Enlightened Masters did not have any prior knowledge about spirituality. They just realized that their cognition is changeable. Let me tell you about the Enlightened Master, Mahaṛṣi Vālmikī who wrote the great epic Rāmāyaṇa.

Before Enlightenment, he was a highway robber. Whenever wealthy people crossed that jungle, he robbed them. One day the sage Nārada was passing through that jungle. Nārada is cosmically known for his devotion to Viṣṇu. All Nārada had was a small stringed instrument that he played while constantly singing the praises of Viṣṇu. When Vālmikī saw him, he stopped him and said, ‘Give me everything you have, otherwise I will kill you!’ Nārada told him, ‘I don’t have anything with me except this small instrument and God’s name. So I can’t give you anything.’ Vālmikī thought he was bluffing. He asked Nārada, ‘How can you not have anything?’ Nārada smiled and asked, ‘What do you do with all these KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 981 things that you rob from others?’

Vālmikī told him, ‘These are for my family, my children, my wife and my parents.’ Nārada asked, ‘You do all this for your children, wife and parents. Do you think they will stay with you forever?’ Vālmikī told Nārada, ‘Yes, of course, they will be with me. I get them wealth and food. They will always be with me.’ Nārada once again asked him, ‘Are you sure they will always be there for you?’ Vālmikī became irritated. He replied, ‘Can’t you understand? I am sure that they will always be there for me.’ Actually Nārada was only keeping Vālmikī engaged in a conversation and made him look at life from a different cognition.

Finally Nārada asked, ‘Okay, you have lots of trust that your family will always support you; they will always be there for you. Will they be there when you die? If you ask them to die with you, will they agree?’ Vālmikī confidently answered, ‘I am sure at least one of them will come if I ask them. I am robbing people only to support them. They are surviving because I get them this wealth. I am sure if I ask, they will die with me.’ Nārada said, ‘Okay, if you think they will do that for you, go and ask them and come back to me. If any one of them agrees, you can kill me.

I will not go anywhere. I will stay here.’ Vālmikī agreed and went home. He asked his wife first if she would die with him. His wife said, ‘Dear, it is true that I am your other half, but I don’t think it is fair to ask me to die with you. When it comes to your death, it is your death only.’ Vālmikī was shocked. Anyway, he thought his children would surely go with him, as they loved him very much. They said, ‘Father, we are young. We haven’t seen the world yet. You have seen everything but we haven’t. How can we die with you?’ Vālmikī became depressed.

His wife and children were saying they wouldn’t be there with him when he died. He then thought his parents would surely go with him as they had taken care of him and had raised him. So he went up to them and to his surprise, they said, ‘Why should we die with you? We are enjoying our life with our grandchildren.’ This shocked him. He went back to Nārada and told him what had happened. Nārada listened and told him, ‘The only person who can be with you always is God.’ This statement changed the whole life of Vālmikī. He realized the futility of what he was doing. He sat in the forest and meditated so deeply and for so long that an anthill formed on top of him.

That is how he got his name ‘Vālmikī’, which means ‘born from an anthill’. When he came out of meditation, he was enlightened! Vālmikī did not have any knowledge about spirituality. He was a robber. That one statement by Nārada made all the difference. He started looking inward after that, and became enlightened. Please listen! Just because someone has spiritual knowledge, it does not mean that he is actually a seeker. Actually, all they have is intellectual knowledge, not spiritual knowledge. When they speak, they do not speak out of experience. That is the difference between an Enlightened Master and a normal person. When an enlightened master speaks about spirituality, he speaks from his experience of the truth.

When a normal person speaks, it is his ego that is speaking. That is what Kṛṣṇa says. You do not need prior knowledge about spirituality to embark on a path. Even if someone simply tells you about it and you start following a path, it is enough. But be very clear, you should know what you are doing. Don’t do anything blindly. In the previous verse, we have talked about it. We should understand what our path is. That’s all. KṣetraKṣetrajñaVibhāgaYogaḥ TheFieldAndTheKnowerOftheField 983 Whatever you see is a combination of matter and energy. The whole Universe is seen as kṣetra and kṣetrajña, māyā and ātman, prakṛti and puruṣa, matter and energy, body-mind and consciousness.

Existence as we see it cannot be with only one of them. If we believe that what we see is simply matter, we are in illusion or māyā. Kṣetra is the body that we associate ourselves with and kṣetrajña is the consciousness. What we see as a human body is a combination of both. If there is no consciousness, the body is useless. The matter that we call a body comes to life because of consciousness. Both must be there. Prakṛti is the manifest and puruṣa is the unmanifest. Kṣetra is like prakṛti. It is the manifested, that which we can see. Along with what you see, there is something behind its existence.

It is puruṣa or the unmanifest, the energy behind the matter, which we do not normally see. We have seen in the earlier verses that all the millions of stars, planets and other celestial bodies exist in perfect harmony. How are they moving in such order? Look at our solar system. All the planets move in perfect paths. If we think they are rocks, dust or ice, if we think they are simply matter, how is such an order maintained in the Universe? They are not solely matter. There is something behind the existence of that matter. There is so much chaos; yet there is a beautiful order in that chaos.

Order is present because of kṣetrajña. If it were solely matter or kṣetra, there would not be any intelligence. There is intelligence in that matter. That intelligence or consciousness creates this existence. So the combination of kṣetra and kṣetrajña is necessary. Modern science has shown that matter and energy are the same. They are interchangeable. The outer-world scientists proved this recently. However, the inner-world scientists proved it thousands of years ago. Matter and energy coexist to create existence. We should understand that kṣetra and kṣetrajña are not separate entities when we analyze them at a deeper level. Kṣetra and kṣetrajña are comprised of the same thing. Kṣetra is the gross form of the energy that also makes up the subtle form of the kṣetrajña.

For existence to happen, both the subtle and gross forms must be there. How we look at things around us defines our lifestyle. We again and again look at things as only matter. When we see only this gross level, fear and greed creep into us. We then want to get more and more of this matter. We live a materialistic life when we think that all we see is solely matter. When we live at the kṣetra level, we live in an illusion or māyā. We want to possess the matter. But when we realize that it is energy also, we think, ‘How can I possess energy? Is it possible to possess it?’ No. We can’t hold energy in a bag. When this realization happens, we recognize the futility of running after different things that we think are only matter. We Are Brahman