Verses 14.5–14.8🔗

Material nature consists of three modes or attributes: goodness, passion and ignorance. These are called Guṇas in Saṃskṛit. Kṛṣṇa explains how we are operate through three different types of root thought patterns. One is satva, the other is rajas and the third is tamas. These are translated as goodness, passion and ignorance; however, these are not exact translations. Let me explain these concepts: Satva refers to the root patterns that lead us to bliss, the space of completion. These root patterns lead us to joy and ecstasy. Rajas refers to the root patterns that lead us to restlessness, excitement and to work intensely. They make us active and materially productive.

The third attribute, tamas, refers to the root patterns that lead . us to depression, laziness and to dullness. Root patterns that lead to ecstasy and bliss form satva. Root patterns that lead to restlessness, anger and emotional imbalance form rajas. Root patterns that lead to depression, dullness and low moods form tamas. Those root thought patterns that automatically arise and imbalance our cognition, and lead to depression are called tamas. Sometimes a thought suddenly comes up, ‘I will not let him off so easily. I will see that he learns a lesson. I will not let him go.’ We may unexpectedly make an angry gesture with our hands while engrossed in this thought.

Patterns that make us active or cause anger or violence and imbalance our cognition are called rajas. We are normally caught between rajas and tamas. Very rarely do we get sātvic patterns. Sātvic patterns do not disturb us. They give rise to a memory of deep completion, bliss or joy that we have experienced. If we are pulled inwards, if we are made to do something good that leads to bliss, ecstasy and peace of mind, it is due to root patterns of satva, sāvtic memories. For example: if we go to the Himalayas for a few days, we may experience joy and peace. Then later when we see pictures of a mountain, the memory of the Himalayan experience suddenly comes up and we think, ‘Oh, I should spend a couple of months in the Himalayas again.

It was so peaceful.’ Patterns that lead us to peace, bliss and ecstasy are sāvtic patterns. The Science of Completion These three different types of root thought patterns or saṁskāras rule our entire life. Knowledge of these root patterns is the basic knowledge that must be possessed by anyone who wants to live successfully. Ayurveda, the Vedic science of health and wellness, is structured around the concept of guṇas and their effect on our body-mind system. Understanding the three different root thought patterns or saṁskāras is the operating manual for the mind, the inner space. The science of completing with these roots thought patterns is the owner’s manual for Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1023 life.

This is the basic life science! Kṛṣṇa calls it Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yoga. When we don’t comprehend this manual, we are not able to catch the whole understanding of life. We miss so many opportunities. We miss expansion in life, growth in life. We miss many possibilities in many dimensions. We miss the actual life itself! Because we have never learned or understood about the guṇas, we live only a very small fraction of what is possible in life. Listen! At the outset, root patterns are not dead memories. Mūla vāsanas are living bio-memories and muscle-memories, not dead memories. The more we travel with these memories, the more we live with these memories, the more they become a part of our being.

They take up residence in deeper levels of our consciousness. They get engraved into our brain structure. Kṛṣṇa explains step-by-step how we become caught in these three levels of root patterns and how, we are pulled and pushed by these patterns. It is almost like having three wives. If we have one woman in our life, enlightenment is a luxury. If we have two women, enlightenment is an option. If we have three women, enlightenment is compulsory! With three wives or husbands, one cannot live without enlightenment. Someone asked me, ‘Why did Kṛṣṇa have so many girlfriends?’ I answered, ‘This is solid proof that He is enlightened! The fact that He survived despite having so many girlfriends is evidence of Enlightenment.

No doubt, that is also solid proof that He is God!’ Here, He gives us an understanding of how to find these root thought patterns and complete with these bio-memories and muscle-memories. Another important point is that because these memories are living energies, they can be used for creating powerlessness, the space of incompletion or powerfulness, the space of completion. Understand, the inner space you carry is such a powerful space. When a person has energies to do powerless acts out of incompletion, we can tap into those energies and make him do powerful acts out of completion. From my experiences of conducting meditation programs in prisons, no one puts in as much effort into meditation as a prisoner.

When prisoners take up meditation, they really take it up. They are intense. When they are transformed, their whole life is transformed! You are hypnotized to believe that your past has influence over your future. No! Till this moment if somebody is a sinner, in the next moment he can become a saint. Till this moment if somebody is a saint, next moment he can become a sinner! That is the beauty of Mahākāla, Time. If we look at the lives of Indian Ṛṣis like Vālmikī or the great saint Aruṇāgirināthar, Pattināthar, Tulasidās and Angulimāla, they and many others were sinners. Look at Vālmikī! What was his history? He just decided for a moment that he is disassociating from all the powerlessness space, he became a saint.

See Aruṇāgirināthar, the great saint who lived in Tiruvannamalai. Till the age of thirty, he was a drunkard! In one moment he decided to live in the space of completion. The whole cognitive shift happened. He became a saint! Same way, there are millions of stories where people decided to be in incompletion only for a moment and fell down. I can give a big list. Hṛdaya Cattopādhyaya in Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s life served him sincerely for almost twelve years. Only for one moment he decided to live in incompletion out of anger and disappeared from Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s life. Perumal Swami in Bhagavān Ramaṇa Mahaṛṣi’s life served him so much. Just for a moment he decided to be in incompletion and fell down.

One moment of incompletion, you can vertically fall down. In one moment of completion, you can vertically fly up; because completion or incompletion does not work logically in a horizontal way, it works in a vertical way. Please understand, how the science of completion and incompletion work, how powerfulness and powerlessness work, how the space of satsaṇga and nissaṇga work. When you associate yourself with powerfulness, you are in satsaṇga. When you associate yourself with Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1025 powerlessness, the wrong association, you are in nissaṇga. When you allow incompletion, you cannot say, ‘Oh! I allowed incompletion only for three minutes, then how can thirty years of completion be destroyed?’

You cannot say, ‘Oh! I put only a drop of poison in the milk!’ Same way, in one minute of deciding to be complete, your janmas (births) of sins will be washed away. You cannot say, ‘What is this? It is unfair. This person was in completion space for only one minute! How can all his sins be washed away?’ When we entertain and associate ourselves with powerlessness, powerlessness is so powerful that it can destroy us. Powerlessness is worst than alcohol and poison. Poison destroys our physiology. Alcohol destroys our psychology. Powerlessness destroys both our physiology and psychology. If we entertain powerfulness, if we complete, the same way completion will raise us so quickly!

See Aruṇāgirināthar! See Pattināthar! See Vālmikī! Please understand, even for a few minutes if we decide to be in incompletion, it can put us in a space where we will stoop so low, all the janmas (births) of spiritual achievement will be destroyed. And the same way, if we decide to be in the space of completion for a few minutes, it can open a new consciousness for us. The powerfulness and powerlessness, completion and incompletion doesn’t work logically, it works miraculously. Miraculous changes happened to these sinners and a cognitive shift took place in their being. The shift usually happens in the way that our mind receives data, processes it and delivers the result based on the root patterns.

Once the cognitive shift takes place, we receive data, process it and go inside instead of outside. We respond from the complete cognition we carry inside and create more and more completion outside also. As long as we operate from the incomplete cognition, we react externally and we work towards depression, powerlessness. However, once we go in and complete with our root patterns, and associate ourselves with powerfulness, we move into bliss. How the Mind and Senses work Kṛṣṇa explains how root thought patterns disturb our inner space and through this understanding, we can transform our being. Before explaining these verses, let me present a small diagram through which we can understand how patterns affect our cognition, our decisions and how to come out of the influence of patterns.

Please understand how we receive information or data from the outer world, how we internally process it or cognize it, and how we make decisions. I am defining Cognition. Cognition is the process of receiving information through our five senses, processing that information internally, relating with it based on our root patterns, and responding to life based on our patterns. This is known as cognition. First, we see something through the eyes. I have taken the example of sight but we can replace it with any other sense: like hearing, smelling, tasting or touching. Among these five jñānendriya (senses of perception), any one can be used here. Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1027 There are five jñānendriya and five karmendriya (senses of action) that are the means of communication between the external world and us.

Jñānendriya are the senses of perception, the five senses of smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing. The karmendriya are five actions of elimination, procreation, locomotion, grasping and speaking. Each sense is related to one of the energy centers (cakras) in our body-mind system. Let us say we see this scene of this discourse happening. You see me talking to you. First your eye captures this whole scene like a picture and this picture goes to the cakṣu (the energy behind the eyes). Understand, we don’t see with the eye, we see through the eye. There is an energy that is inside or behind the eye that actually sees. There is an energy inside or behind the ears that hears.

The ears by themselves cannot hear. That is why when we are engrossed in a book, we may not hear the alarm or doorbell ring. So, there is an energy inside the eyes that sees. We call this energy cakṣu. The whole scene is converted into a file like in a digital signal processor in a computer so that our mind can process the data. The cakṣu is almost like the digital signal processor or DSP in electronics. In a computer, whether it is an audio or visual file, it must be converted into a digital file. In the same way in our inner space whatever we see or hear is converted into a bio-signal file like a digital file.

Then the file starts moving up, step-by-step. The file goes to the part of the mind called citta. If we understand this, our whole life can be transformed. We will know why we do the way we do, and how we react. We will cognize how we make big decisions based upon our root thought patterns, and consequently suffer. The file goes to citta, the place where past bio-memories are collected. Citta means mind, inner space. This area is where the work of excluding happens as—‘Na iti, Na iti’—this is not, this is not. The process of neti neti (this is not, this is not) takes place in this area.

Upon seeing this file, our citta starts eliminating whatever the object is not. Take the example of this scene: First you see me, the whole scene is photographed. It goes to cakṣu and becomes a bio-signal file. The file is then taken to citta, bio-memory. Citta says, ‘This is not a tree. This is not an animal. This is not a plant. This is not this. This is not that.’ The excluding process happens in citta. Next, the file goes to manas, another part of the mind. The manas tries to positively identify, ‘This is a human being. He is wearing a saffron robe. He is standing on a stage.’

The identification process, ‘iti, iti’ (this is it, this is it) identification process happens in manas. In citta, ‘neti, neti’ or the ‘not this, not this’ elimination happens. Once this positive identification happens, the file goes to a third part of the mind called buddhi or intelligence. Buddhi is where the trouble starts. Here the analysis starts, ‘How am I related to this file? How am I connected to this scene? How is it relevant to me? How should I respond to this scene?’ If past bio-memories about me have been good or pleasant according to your intelligence, you cognize and respond in a positive way. You immediately refer to those past memories and review, ‘It was so good at yesterday’s discourse.’

Your intelligence refers to the past bio-memory and muscle-memory and makes a decision based upon your cognition of these experiences. If your cognition about the past experiences with me has been positive, your intelligence tells you to stay and listen. If your cognition of the past experiences has been inadequate, unpleasant and you felt bored, your intelligence tells you that this is not the place for you and that you should leave. These are logical decisions based on conscious memories retained by your mind. Up to this point, your cognition, the transmission of what is perceived by the senses and what is the response based on that pattern is relatively straightforward.

It is a conscious process. From the conscious mind, the information is passed to the unconscious space of the mind, the ego. I call this unconscious space of the mind as the ego, not because it is arrogant, but because it provides you the identity of who you are. Your identity stems from your unconscious incompletions which are Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1029 your root patterns. You project who you wish to be, never who you are. You do not even know who you are. Who you are is deeply buried in your unconscious. All the major decisions that shape your life are consigned to this unconscious space.

This is the repository of all those emotionally-filled memories, the root thought patterns and beliefs about yourself; which constitute what you believe as you, what you project as you, what others expect you to be, and what you expect others or life to be for you and therefore, create your identity. This is what I call the ego. Identify your root pattern! Listen! I am defining ‘root pattern’ once more. Root pattern means the first time in your life when your cognitions were imbalanced, disturbed by some external force; and your terrorized being started defining yourself with a disempowering word and started defining the world in that disempowering powerless state; and to compensate from this death, the disempowering inner identity—the inner image, you create a pseudo alternative compensating cognition—the outer image.

This is what I call root pattern. When your root pattern starts, that is moment you feel yourself as an individual identity. If it starts in an accidental moment, your life will be an accident forever. It is an eternal accident. Till you complete with that root pattern, you will continue to have accidents in your life. Completion takes away the agitated confusion and the alternative compensating image we create in our life. Understand, this example of your life. Please listen! Because we have a very disempowering cognition about ourselves, we go on creating an alternative compensating cognition to compensate with our inadequate cognition. It is like you first declare you are a beggar, forgetting the billions of dollars you have in your bank balance, and then you yourself try to project the rich image to cover your belief that you are a beggar.

But unfortunately, the final thing is you will project that your whole life—that you were a rich man, but lived as a poor man, but in reality you were the richest man. Understand, you project and you try so hard to prove to the world that you are a rich man, but you always believed yourself and lived as a poor man; but in reality you are the richest man. You never knew about the wealth you had in your bank balance. It is like you kept all your money in some Swiss Bank and you forgot the number. To compensate the inadequate cognition which got created unconsciously inside you, which is your inner image, mamakāra, you create an alternative compensating cognition which is your outer image, ahaṁkāra.

Tilltheendyouneverfeelsatisfied,becauseyoufeeltheguiltyoushowed, which is not true, without realizing your true identity is much more than what you can imagine and show. So, your whole life ends in deep incompletion and the trial and error methods you do with these incompletions. If you complete now, the first thing you will realize is that the alternative compensating cognition is a lie and it will melt down. Second thing, your disempowering cognition about yourself will melt down. Third, you will realize that your original self is much more than what you projected as your outer image, the alternative compensating cognition. And you will have complete easeness between what you feel as you, what you show as you, and what you are as you.

The conscious mind does not make important decisions. It makes a few decisions that can be reached by its limited intellect. Anything important moves to the unconscious ego or root patterns. Our unconscious handles all life-threatening situations with the disempowering cognitions, the so-called fight-or-flight decisions. Our conscious mind is too slow to handle them. For example, the file travels to the ego, and the ego makes the decision, and we execute it. If there are more incompletions, the file travels to every table like in a bureaucratic office. Each incompletion stamps, puts its signature and writes its opinion. Take the example of attending this discourse and seeing me. One conflicting pattern says, ‘I had a master in my life.

He was a blessing. He helped me a lot. I think I should sit here.’ So Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1031 this pattern signs, ‘Yes, I will sit here.’ The next conflicting pattern says, ‘I read in the newspapers that these masters do this or do that.’ So, the second conflicting pattern signs off saying, ‘doubt’. Then the file goes to the next table, and the third conflicting pattern says, ‘I attended his discourse yesterday. What he says makes sense, I think I should stay.’ This conflicting pattern signs, ‘yes’. Listen. The effects of your root pattern are your conflicting patterns. Conflicting patterns are the branches which sprout from the root pattern.

When the file reaches the ego, the ego comes to a conclusion based on all the ‘yes’ responses and all the ‘no’ responses based out of your conflicting patterns. Yes or no is not a problem; however, we have wasted so much time and energy on this small decision. Not only that, any decision you take out of powerlessness, restlessness, will lead you to more and more powerless space. Understand, it is very important. Any decision, whether you get into some challenge, or you get into any relationship, or you get into a business decision, any decision, please see to it that you are in the space of powerfulness, completion!

You break relationships, you break businesses, you break partnerships, you break families, you break life itself when you are powerless, incomplete! Powerless moments in life create more and more powerless moments in life. For example, when we sit in our office, not doing anything, just sitting and worrying, we become stressed. Within fifteen minutes, we have pain in our shoulders. Worrying about simple decision-making leads to shoulder pain. Continuously, again and again, look into the reasons for your powerlessness—why are you in conflict? Why are you in a powerless space? Whenever you are possessed by powerlessness, confusion, agitation, and you don’t know what to do, please don’t take any decisions in your life.

All restlessness is powerlessness. The more patterns you have, the more powerless you feel, the more restless and rājasic you will be. Take the example of smoking: According to the data collected at the conscious level, we know smoking is injurious to health. However, when the time comes, suddenly we decide to smoke. How does the file take such a quantum leap? How is the decision totally changed? When the file travels to the unconscious space, patterns say, ‘No, no! The last time I smoked, I felt really good, I felt relieved from all the stress.’ We make countless decisions based upon root thought patterns. We repent and suffer later on.

Suddenly we shout and after ten minutes, we repent, ‘Why did I shout? I always wanted to keep a smiling face. Why did I shout?’ We reacted suddenly due to these patterns. We will see later how root thought patterns disturb and torture our decisions. Kṛṣṇa says that we should ask our being how we missed reality. Why are we deluded by root thought patterns? Kṛṣṇa speaks of satva guṇa saṁskāras that lead us to bliss and peace, rājasic guṇa that lead to restlessness and violence, and tamasic saṁskāras that lead to depression. He further explains how these saṁskāras influence our decision-making process. When we try to work with different types of conflicting patterns, satva, rajas and tamas and all three cross each other, they create hell in our lives.

We need intelligence to even look into our lives to find our root pattern, and see how many times we have carried the same pattern. We usually react out of arrogance or guilt. We say, ‘So what if I made a mistake?’ We brush it under the carpet leaving it incomplete. This is one kind of attitude, the attitude of might is right. The other attitude is that of suffering from guilt. Kṛṣṇa gives techniques on how be complete with these three guṇas. Before entering into these three layers of patterns—satva, rajas and tamas, let me illustrate how we are caught in these guṇas and how these patterns work. Then, we will enter into each technique.

Seven Energy Layers of the Body These are the seven energy layers of our body-mind system. These are seven parts of our inner space, our being. The first is the physical body, our flesh and bones. Next is the prāṇic Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1033 layer, the energies of prāna, vyāna, udāna, apāna and samāna or the five air movements that take place in our body-mind system. The third is the mental body. This is where our mental inner chattering continuously takes place. This is inner chattering or the mental body or caṅcala, which means inner movement. The fourth is the etheric body. This is the space where our intense emotions and painful experiences are stored.

Usually intense emotions are of pain and suffering. The prāṇic layer is the body filled with desires.Thementalbody is filled with ‘I should have’ or guilt feelings. The etheric body is pain. Understand these three. Desire, guilt and pain are the feelings or the experiences stored in these layers. When emotions, desires and feelings arising out of these three attributes are pure, they are called satva, rajas and tamas depending on the quality of the emotion. Usually, they are impure. They are mixed with each other. We should know how to purify them. If we can purify our desires, we will be liberated. We cannot live without desires. We can only cleanse and purify the desires, directing them towards the right path.

Without desires, we can’t breathe. Desires must be handled properly. That’s what we need to work towards, satva. Next comes guilt or rajas. Our restlessness is created by thoughts like, ‘I should have done that’, ‘I should have lived like that’, ‘Because I did not do it then, let me do it now’, ‘Let me teach him a lesson, I know what to do now.’ This is how restlessness or rajas operates. The third is pain. Whether we do right or wrong, we know how to make it painful. Whatever it is, we know how to create suffering through tamas. The first four body-mind layers are influenced by the three guṇas.

The mind cannot experience the remaining three layers beyond the fourth layer. They can be experienced only through meditation. In the fifth layer, the causal body, we sleep soundly without dreams. It is called kāraṇa śarīra, the energy layer that we experience during deep sleep. The sixth layer is the Cosmic layer, filled with joyful memories, and the seventh is the nirvāṇic layer or the bliss body. Please listen! Powerlessness in the level of physical body is tiredness and boredom. Powerlessness in the level of prāṇic body is dilemma. Powerlessness in the level of mental body is worry. Powerlessness in the level of subtle body is depression. Powerlessness in the level of causal body, kārana śarira is inability to trust life.

Just remember the first four layers of physical, prāṇic, mental and etheric energy. That’s enough, because we will work only on these now. Kṛṣṇa has already spoken about the physical layer. Now He works on the other three guṇas of satva, rajas and tamas. Satva is related to the second layer that is the prāṇic layer, rajas is related to the third layer that is the mental body, and the fourth layer is the etheric layer of tamas. As I was saying, satva is related to desires and the prāṇa śarīra. When our desires change, our prāna flow or our airflow changes. It is prāṇa that sustains life in us.

This prāṇa is affected by the changing desires in us. For example, if we are caught in lust or an intense desire, our inhaling and exhaling becomes intense. The prāna going in and coming out increases. With any desire, the prāṇa flow totally changes. If we are in a silent, peaceful mood, the prāṇa flow will be so mild, we will not know prāṇa is flowing. Understand that this prānic layer is filled with desires. What should we learn about satva, about this prānic layer? Let me explain. Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1035 Your Inner Space is Pure Consciousness Whether we believe it or not, accept it or not, we are God.

We are pure consciousness. No matter how many millions of reasons you give, there are some things which cannot be changed. Our inner space is all-powerful! Our inner space is infinite and infinitely powerful! Our inner space carries the DNA of Ahaṁ Brahmāsmi (I Am That)! How many ever arguments we may give, a country’s constitution cannot be changed. In the same way, we may give a million reasons, many arguments to prove that we are not God, and we are not divine, and we are not powerful. You think, ‘I am not even able to get a cup of coffee when I want it. Then how can I be all-powerful?

I don’t even know what is happening in my spouse’s mind. How can I be all-knowing?’ You have very silly reasons to deny the possibility of your inner space. Please understand, you never tried to explore your inner space. How can you deny it before even trying? Understand: if I am expressing the aśṭa mahā siddhis, extraordinary eight yogic powers, it is not to show that I am extraordinary; it is just to show that it is possible for you! It is possible for you! Nothing more is required than carrying the space, with the understanding—‘When Swamiji can do it, I can do it!’ That’s all! Please understand, the space you create inside is so powerful, it can straightaway affect the way you experience life and the way others around you experience life.

Let me define the term ‘space’! How you feel things are going to be— that is what I call the ‘space you create inside’. If you are very clear that your space is already in a low energy, and you have thoughts like ‘Anyhow, whatever I do is not going to work out, it is not going to be successful!,’ then you have already dictated it. You have already given the plan to the Cosmos—‘I want my life to be like this only, as a big failure. Please make it happen for me!’ So Cosmos will stitch it and give it to you. The space you carry inside is not the effect of the happenings of your life, it is the command you are giving to the Cosmos.

You may put the blame somewhere else. You may say, ‘No, no, no! I am in low mood because of the continuous failures that have happened in my life. If you were in my shoes, you would understand why I am like this!’ Please understand, the space is the order you give to the Cosmos to prepare your future. Listen! Just like how you place the order in the restaurants after looking at the menu card, the inner space you carry is also an order you give to the Cosmos, ‘I want this, this, this in my life.’ Whatever you carry in your inner space is a possibility. If you are carrying sadness, you are ordering the Cosmos to bring greater sadness into your life.

If you are carrying joy, you are waiting for more joy to come in your life. If you are carrying an inability, ‘Yes, I have the wrong inner space. I am depressed, but I don’t know how to change it,’ that is one more inner space; it means you are ordering the Cosmos to give you more powerlessness. Whatever thoughts we create in our pure consciousness gain power. This inner space exists in all of us and is called Self, ātman, or inner divinity. Whatever thoughts we create in this inner space, the deeper they are, the more power they get from this consciousness. But, the problem is that we create self-conflicting desires.

We suffer with our desires because of this. Whether our desires are fulfilled or not, the resulting suffering is inevitable. If the desires are fulfilled, there will be emptiness and if they are unfulfilled, there will be restlessness. In both cases, we move towards tamas. Why? It is a subtle understanding. Many times people ask me, ‘How can I complete just by declaring completion?’ You can! You are nothing but the bunch of words you uttered, consciously or unconsciously to yourself and to others. Unfortunately, most of it is unconscious. That is where the problem starts. Many times, you do not recognize the power of the words you utter, especially towards yourself.

Whatever words we repeat unconsciously in our inner space become Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1037 reality in our body, mind and in our world. It is because we have the power to give life to any word. If the words ‘Let me get up and go’, come to our mind, with those words, immediately our body will move, we will stand up and start going. Understand, the first lesson you need to learn is the ability to trust the power of integrity. If you say, ‘I am free,’ then, you are free! If you say, ‘I am a liar,’ then, you are a liar! If you say, ‘I am powerful,’ then, you are powerful!

It is just you! The words you utter to yourself and others is life. What a big relief! It can be great news for you if you start living it. It can be good news for you if you start believing it. It can be bad news for you, if you start worrying about it. But the words you utter towards yourself and to others is you, you, you! One word can make us do whatever we want. Words that appear in our inner space are mantra (sacred sounds). When put together, all the words that appear in our inner space form our life, especially the words that we repeat unconsciously.

Thoughts that we repeat unconsciously are more powerful than words we use consciously. Your inner space is nothing but the words you repeat, again and again within you. So, now decide consciously that you will repeat the right words within you. Whatever mantra or word we use in our inner space, that dhyāna or meditation automatically happens in our unconscious. If we use the word ‘headache’ again and again, we will be meditating on the headache. If we use the word ‘health’, again and again, we will be meditating on health. That is why when we start to meditate upon God, we start with a dhyāna śloka—meditation verse. It is like the invocation verses that invoke god with the right words.

In these verses we verbalize what good things we wish to visualize in our lives. Verbalization of visualization is the dhyāna śloka. Whatever we visualize again and again will be inscribed in our memory, in our inner space, in our inner being. If we have a disease, please never create and repeat a word that carries the name of the disease. Always use these powerful words, ‘Let me be wealthy’; never say, ‘Let me be free from my poverty.’ Declare, ‘I create the space of completion’; not, ‘I am working hard on my incompletions.’ Please do not abuse the inner space or icchā śakti (power of creation).Theprāniclayerisouricchāśakti.Ithastheenergytomakethings happen. It has the energy to fulfill our desires.

Do not waste icchā śakti by creating self-conflicting or self-doubting patterns. Declare completion with all the self-doubting patterns. Complete with Self-doubting Pattern Understand, all of you have one important pattern of self-doubting. Please listen, along with your root-pattern and split-up of your personality, one more thing has entered into you—constantly doubting. This is because any part of your personality decides or does anything, the other part doubts that cognition. Whatever your right hand does, your left hand is doubting. Whatever your left hand does, your right hand is doubting! But, you have to do everything with both hands, only then it will be successful. Self-conflicting and self-doubting patterns corrupt our whole satva space.

The satva space, restful awareness with you is your basic right and I declare that it is possible for you to reclaim your basic right. I tell you, in the cosmic constitution, restful awareness is your basic right. Enlightened beings land on planet Earth to ensure that your basic right is restored to you. We continuously allow ourselves to be exploited by what we hear and see. People who don’t know the truth about how the mind and consciousness influences us. All these problems arise because we don’t know that pure joy of inner space is possible. Let me make a bold statement that no medicine or chemical can help our mind.

All anti-anxiety medicines, all anti-depression medicines are consolations. First, we visualized that we suffered from depression and now we visualize that we have taken some medicine, that’s all. Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1039 How many of you behave like a self-fulfilling negative astrologer for you? You go on telling yourself, ‘My time is not good, I will not be able to do anything.’ And even after you do it, you start believing it so strongly that you fulfill it. You are the astrologer, you are the trainer for you, and you are the judge for you. You first give the self-fulfilling prophecy, ‘I am a failure’. Then you train yourself for that, so that even the Guru should not make you successful, even by mistake!

And you wait for those kinds of responses from society. You do not bother about the support you receive, but you are haunted by the discouragement you get, because you are training yourself to be a failure! So, who is the decision-maker for your life? First, you are an astrologer who declares that you are a failure. Then, you are a trainer who trains yourself to be a failure, and if failure does not come even then, you become a judge and you declare that you are a failure! Listen. Don’t be caught in that self-doubting game. We disturb the satva, the pure space of our being, by creating self-conflicting and self-doubting patterns.

Sit with yourself. Complete with all the negative conflicting patterns. Complete with all the self-doubting patterns. Allow the grace to move in you. Create the right inner space by completing again and again with yourself by doing svapūrṇatva, self-completion. Create the right space, right mood, and right experience. Completion with Rajas Pattern Next, let us see how two desires conflict one another. We want to lead a peaceful life and we want wealth. With wealth comes responsibility as well. If you actually analyze your attitude towards wealth with integrity, you will understand that you are actually afraid of wealth. You hate wealth! The fear of responsibility and the greed for wealth always go hand in hand.

If you look in, you have greed for wealth, but you are not ready to take responsibility that comes with wealth. This is the self-conflicting desire. Either decide to take responsibility or decide to relax from that desire and restore your integrity by completing with it and accept whatever happens. Only one thought should be strengthened when two desires conflict.Whenwehaveboth,wehaveaself-conflictingmentalsetup.Inthe satva space, when we create self-conflicting patterns, we are automatically thrown into rajas. Let me describe what Kṛṣṇa says about rajas. The mode of passion is born of unlimited desires and longings. This is a beautiful verse. Kṛṣṇa says, because of this rajas, mode of passion, born of unlimited desires and longings, the embodied living entity is bound to doing result-oriented actions. rajo rāgātmakaṁ viddhi tṛṣṇā saṅga samudhavam I tan nibadhnāti kaunteya karma saṅgena dehinam II 14.7 He talks about desires and longings.

What is the difference? Desires and longings—rāga means desire; tṛṣṇā means craving, longing. Some memories have our emotional support whereas some memories have been inserted into our being by advertisements. Advertisements are not only on the television or in a movie theatre. If our father repeats something time and again, that is an advertisement. If our mother says again and again, ‘This is right, this is for us, this is for you,’ that becomes an advertisement. Some desires have our mental support. We feel these will give us fulfillment; we feel these are our genuine needs. Some desires have been sold to us by someone else. That is the difference between desires and longings.

Desires, rāga are ours and longings, tṛṣṇā have been given to us by society. Desires are inborn. They are our nature. If we fulfill desires, we feel fulfilled, relaxed and complete. With longings, the moment we fulfill them, we feel empty, incomplete. This is the difference between desire and longing. Desire gives us fulfillment, completion. Longing gives us emptiness, incompletion. Kṛṣṇa shows us how self-conflicting desires lead us to rajas. When Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1041 desires contradict each other, we get confused. We fall into rajas, restlessness. I have a small story for you. One barber asks a man, ‘How did you lose your hair?’ The man replies, ‘Worry!’

The barber asks, ‘What did you worry about?’ The man says, ‘About losing my hair!’ Your worrying makes you lose your hair. And in turn, you are worrying about losing the hair. It is a vicious circle. The more patterns you have, the more time it takes to make a decision. We will suffer and be in a dilemma. Man is a dilemma. Continuously we think, ‘I should have done this,’ or ‘I should have done that.’ I tell you, life is a failure, if in your old age, you think that you should have done all this when you were young. Dilemma is due to too many conflicting patterns Dilemma is what Kṛṣṇa calls rajas and restlessness.

All restlessness is powerlessness. In rajas, we have tremendous anger, violence and inner restlessness. A person caught in rajas shouts at others and experiences an irritable mood. He has a poisonous tongue. He waits to vomit out his irritation and anger on others. What is agitation? Not taking the responsibility for what you mean to others is agitation. When you don’t take responsibility for your commitments to others, you get agitated. You get irritated. If you take the responsibility for your commitments, you will not be agitated or irritated. Please listen. How to complete with the rajas patterns? The first truth you need to know about completion­ —do completion just to be in the space of completion.

All other reasons lead to more and more incompletions. Completion done in the space of completion transforms your personality, transforms your being; the intense, constant agitated violence you carry towards you and others due to rajas patterns. When you drop a stone in the water how the ripples are created; in the same way the moment incompletion is dropped in your consciousness, the ripples of violence towards you and others starts in your being. Worrying becomes your lifestyle. Worrying becomes the compulsive pattern in you. Not only worrying, because of worrying, the inability to handle life. At the most, you only push your life under the carpet. Pushing life under the carpet is not going to be the solution.

See, there are only three ways to handle your incompletions. One, by pushing them under the carpet. Second, by trying to forget them either by alcohol or by other entertainments. Third, by completing them and liberating yourself. Listen! Continuously completing for the sake of completion leads you to the experience of Enlightenment. I tell you, nothing can be done. When you try to push your incompletions into your unconscious mind, unfortunately, it reaches deeper and goes closer to your consciousness. Anything closer to consciousness becomes powerful. That is why a small incompletion that happened in your life when you are young or a small incompletion which you are suppressing without completing it, it explodes in you as a dangerous imbalance of your rājasic guṇa patterns.

Many times, your imbalance is such that you do not care about your destruction. You go on waiting in anger and expecting the other person’s destruction. No! If you drink poison, how can the other person die? It is not possible. That is the biggest foolishness human beings get into. They drink the poison thinking the other person is dying. No! I tell you, all vengeance is rooted in incompletion. Complete it. Trust the Cosmos and complete it. Once we do completion with the rajas patterns, we can make one thousand decisions without any stress, violence or suffering. That is why Kṛṣṇa says that when we don’t expect the result, when we don’t think of karma phala (result of the work done), we can do the work intensely.

Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1043 When we don’t expect or worry about the result, we work beautifully because there are fewer patterns. We will not suffer or be tortured by root thought patterns. We will be in the space of completion, which will lead to more and more completion. Consciousness can never be tired In the next verse Kṛṣṇa talks about tamas. He addresses Arjuna, ‘Oh son of Bhārata, know that the mode of darkness, tamas, is born out of ignorance . It is the delusion of all embodied living entities. The result of this mode is madness, indolence and sleep, which bind the conditioned soul.’ This is a beautiful explanation of tamas. tamas tv ajñānajaṁ viddhi mohanaṁ sarva dehinām I pramādālasya nidrābhis tan nibadhnāti bharāta II 14.8 If there are more vāsanas or patterns, the file does not reach the ego easily or even fully.

A powerful pattern may make the decision on the way. Why does this happen? Why do you decide unconsciously and regret later? This unconscious space is filled with negative bio-memories, and powerlessness, restlessness. All our past bio-memory or root thought patterns are stored in your inner space as files without any logical connection between them. This is what happens. When the file takes a quantum leap to this space, it does not reach the ego properly for a decision. It is as if your computer hard disk is loaded with high-resolution photographs and there is no further scope to work on your hard disk. Like that, when your unconscious is loaded with past root thought patterns and memories, it becomes inadequate, inefficient, and incomplete and makes superficial, illogical decisions.

Take this example: Why does drinking alcohol become a pattern, but drinking water is not becoming a pattern? Both of them, people drink every day. Water people drink more! Then, why does drinking alcohol becomes a pattern and drinking water never becomes a pattern? Because drinking water gives you completion and you are not stuck. After drinking water, you are out of thirst and are more energetic. But unfortunately, all alcoholics are either stuck with elated mood or belated mood, or depressed mood. It is the mood associated with alcohol that makes people stuck, not alcohol itself. Please understand, when a person drinks alcohol, if he feels elated or belated, he wants that mood again and again.

That is why he starts and continues drinking alcohol. Sometimes, people start enjoying even the self-sympathy, the victim mood, the depression! Even for that reason they start drinking alcohol! How do you think I liberate so many people from alcohol and smoking just through meditation, through the Inner Awakening program? Because, first I attack that mood pattern. I make sure neither they feel that elated pattern nor they feel that depressed pattern. When you break the pattern, they don’t feel inspired to drink. Then addiction disappears. Listen. When there are no patterns, there will be no need for the file to drop into the unconscious inner space for a decision.

It straightaway meets the buddhi and ego after the mind. There are no blocks. The time taken for the unconscious process will be less than the conscious process. We will be intuitive or at the level of God. The level of an animal is the level of instinct; the level of man is the level of intellect; the level of God is the level of intuition. The level of instinct is the level of tamas; the level of intellect is the level of rajas; the level of intuition is the level of satva. In satva, our mind works continuously and we make decisions, yet we do not become tired. We can be active for twenty-four hours and yet remain peaceful.

This is what I call action in inaction and inaction in action. Kṛṣṇa says we will be centered when we are in satva. Though lots of activities go on around us, we will remain utterly relaxed in restful awareness. The whole thing is dependent on one thing: our root thought pat- Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ FindYour Root PatternAnd Complete 1045 terns or bio-memories. The number of root thought patterns determines whether we are caught in satva, rajas or tamas. These three are not enlightened states. Enlightenment is beyond these three. If we are caught in tamas, we need to move towards rajas. If we are caught in rajas, make the move towards satva.

If we are caught in satva, it will automatically lead us to enlightenment. How do we do this? For example, we create a self-conflicting desire at the satva level. Because of that we create restlessness, the powerless space in the rajas level. When we feel too restless, we drop everything. We decide not to take any responsibility and we sleep instead. We fall into tamas. Tamas is not only tiredness, sleep or depression, not taking enough responsibility is also tamas. Work does not need to make you tired. It is the wrong idea taught to you by the society. The only two enemies human beings have are boredom and tiredness.

When you entertain them, you build wrong patterns. When you are bored of doing some work, you invoke tiredness—‘Om tiredness swāha! ihāgachha! ihāgachha! (chant to invoke the presence of a deity or a quality). Please come here! Come here! Reside here! Reside here!’ You invoke tiredness! You invoke depression! Scrutinize your inner space with integrity. You will see that whenever you don’t want to take responsibility, you invoke boredom, tiredness, and fear. Sometime, even greed is used as a substitute for enjoyment. Greed and fantasy are used as substitutes for alcohol and drugs. Listen, when you have a pattern of addiction and drugs, you go for it. When you are afraid that they will spoil your health, you use fantasy and greed as a powerful substitute for alcohol.

For example, we are in tamas if we studied to become a doctor and we do not practice our profession out of laziness. If we don’t practice for some other reason, that is fine. However, if we are avoiding because of laziness, we are in tamas. If we drop out because of a spiritual reason such as to meditate, to go on a pilgrimage or to do spiritual work. That is fine. However, dropping out and giving up on you due to tamas means that we don’t have enough energy and we cannot make a responsible decision. Why? Too many patterns block our decision process. By the time we make one decision, we feel tired and want to sleep.

That is why we attempt to escape from life. Escapists are tāmasic people. How many of you struggle with this tāmasic pattern of tiredness and laziness? It is just lack of integrity. Be integrated to your Soul. The Soul can never have tiredness, consciousness can never have tiredness. That is the truth. Whether you realize or not, you are Soul and Consciousness. Guarding The Senses