Verses 16.1–16.3🔗

Kṛṣṇa lists a number of qualities that take us to a higher plane of consciousness; qualities that make us divine. Qualities of the Heart not the Mind Now when we listen to these things with the space of ‘me’, what do we usually do? We start practicing all these virtues. Be clear that if we try to practice all of these qualities, one thing is sure: we will become mad. We will not be able to do anything because we will be fighting with ourselves. We will be controlling our senses to strengthen our ego. When we try to understand these ideas with our ego, with the space of ‘me’, we practice them to strengthen the idea of ‘me’, to improve ourselves and become better beings.

Again and again, Masters prove that they are not better beings; they are totally transformed beings. There is a difference between better beings and transformed beings. Daivāsura Sampad Vibhāga Yogaḥ You And Me 1137 The other day, I shared the story of the lion and the sheep-lion told by Swami Vivekananda. It is a beautiful story. The sheep-lion does not want to realize that he is a lion. He wants to be a good, strong sheep. He asks the lion to give him a technique for becoming a strong sheep. Similarly, if we start practicing these qualities listed by Kṛṣṇa, we may have a stronger ego. That is why so-called tapasvi (ascetics, people performing penances), people who repress themselves, have a strong ego.

People who perform penances or repress desires, radiate ego. We clearly see that they do these things to strengthen their ego. When we are in the space of completion, completely blissful and relaxed, austerity, tapaḥ happens. I have seen many Sannyāsais (ascetics), especially in India, who blame householders for not being pure, for being sinners. When we force ourselves to do penance, we continuously burn inside with incompletions; as a side effect we often have self-doubts about our path and ourselves. This self-doubt makes us continuously do something; we then make others guilty about the path that they are following. Penance is supposed to happen naturally out of completion, joy and bliss.

Just as a natural thing. Anything done by force is not going to enrich us or society. Society teaches us that we are sinners. First of all, this is not true. No enlightened Master who has realized the divinity within is capable of saying this. Secondly, who gains anything at all by calling everyone a sinner? Kṛṣṇa tells us to be without fear and greed. He also says to be without anger. He says to be truthful, simple, meek, gentle, non-violent, and to be without expectations and to renounce. These are qualities of the Divine; these are qualities that you express when you are focused not on your own self but on others.

These are qualities that arise from the heart and not from the mind. These are qualities that arise from love and not from desire. These are enriching qualities that naturally express from completion not compulsion. God, the very idea of God, should evoke love not fear. God in any religion should be portrayed as compassionate. No Enlightened Master has experienced otherwise or expressed otherwise. The concept of a fearsome God with vengeance is a manmade myth. It is created by man, to set one man against another, to divide, control and conquer. We are conditioned to believe in them because this is the easiest way to control us, through fear and greed.

The greatest fear of any religion is that we might start thinking for ourselves. Worse still, they are afraid that we may stop thinking, and drop our mind! The very lack of awareness that we are divine, in my opinion, is a sin. When we got into thinking and started clutching onto our thoughts, we became ignorant. If at all there is an original sin, it is that—the clutching onto our thoughts, associating with our incompletions. God resides in you and me. We know everything that we do. When we do wrong, we know. No one has to tell us. That becomes our sin. The guilt makes our life hell, nothing else.

When we are complete, free and liberated, we are in sheer enjoyment and we are in heaven. If we focus on enriching others, on ‘You’, we expand with the power of living. In fact, the more we focus to create the inner space of completion, the more we open up to enrich others. We move from the ‘me’ to ‘You.’ As we move inwards, our higher intelligence awakens. Our higher intelligence is nothing but the Divine. That completion alone makes us God. Completion is God! Completion is Divinity! Please understand that what we think of as God is not an old bearded man sitting on the clouds, playing on a harp!

God is merely that energy of inner and higher intelligence. That same intelligent energy that is within us also drives the entire Universe. The energy that powers us is the same energy that powers the sun. There is no difference at all. As human beings we have the opportunity to expand into this energy, into this higher intelligence. Unfortunately, animals do not have this ability, this consciousness. Humans do. To ignore this gift, this Daivāsura Sampad Vibhāga Yogaḥ You And Me 1139 opportunity, this consciousness, is our original sin. The entire meaning of our life is to discover this truth and become divine. That is why, if we die without realizing this truth, we are born again.

We go through this cycle of life and death again and again because we do not recognize who we are. As Buddha says, that is the cause of our suffering. When we realize our own Self, our true divine potential, we realize the meaning of our life, and there is no need to be born again. We become liberated. Living the Divine Here Kṛṣṇa gives all the divine qualities, one by one. It is not necessary to explain all the qualities. Let us take a few. Let us take fearlessness, abhayaṁ for example. As long as we carry the instinct to survive, we have fear. Fear can never be taken away from our being, as long as we want to survive.

Surrendering to Existence, surrendering to death is the one and only way to achieve fearlessness. In the Kaṭhopaniṣad, the beautiful Upaniṣad, which comes from the wonderful system of Vedānta, the essence of the Vedas, they have gone deep into the science of death. The West has dedicated its entire energy to understand life, whereas the East has dedicated its energy to understanding death! That is why Ṛṣis live even after they die. They exist; they discovered the science of living even after death. However, people who are caught in the material world die each moment, even as they live. This Kaṭhopaniṣad is the science of death. A young boy, Naciketa, who goes to the abode of Yama, the Lord of death.

Yama was not there when Naciketa went to meet Him. Yama receives him after three days. Yama welcomes him. At this point, we must understand that no one goes to Yama’s abode; always it is He who comes! When we try to escape from Him, He is death as we know it ordinarily; He will take away our ‘I’ and ‘mine’—all our possessions and relationships; we cannot sign our check or drive our car once He takes us. Whatever we think is ours will be taken away: wealth, relationships, bank balance, everything. What we think is ‘I’—the body, even that will be taken away. When death comes to us, everything is taken away.

On the contrary, when we go to death like Naciketa did, fearlessly, death welcomes us! Yama becomes our host! Here, Yama receives Naciketa with love and care. First thing: He becomes a loving host. Next, He offers him three boons. Naciketa first asks for good relationships. He says, ‘When I go back to my family, my father should accept me, love me and take me back.’ Yama blesses him with good relationships, completion with others. After that Yama blesses him with completion with wealth, and shows him how to create wealth, pleasure and comforts. Now, Yama is behaving like a God. Ultimately, Yama gives him ātmajñāna—knowledge of the Self, completion with the Self.

Now, He is behaving like an enlightened Master himself! The third boon He gives because Naciketa asks Him for the secret of death. Understand, Naciketa is the embodiment of authenticity. Pleased with the boy’s integrity and courageous authenticity, Śraddha, Yama blesses him with Enlightenment itself. Look at the paradox of life: When we run away from death, Death or Yama chases us, wherever we are. Death takes away all our wealth, our relationships, whatever we think of as ‘I’ and ‘mine’. But here, with Naciketa, the whole situation is just the opposite! When we surrender to Yama, when we go to Him, He is a loving host. He is not something terrible as we imagine Him to be.

He says, ‘Welcome! You are the form of Agni, fire.’ A guest is considered to be the form of fire that we worship. Yama tells Naciketa, ‘You are my guest and you have come to my house in the form of ‘vaiśvānarāgni’ (the fire Daivāsura Sampad Vibhāga Yogaḥ You And Me 1141 that we worship).’ The vaiśvānara (priest) is considered to be the embodiment of the divine Agni. ‘You have come to my house as the embodiment of the Divine. Let me pay my respects to you. Please forgive me for not being here for three days to receive you.’ Usually we postpone Yama (death). Usually we try to escape from Him.

But when we go in search of Him, He will not be there, as we feared! That is the essence of this whole history. Understand this important point. It has a tremendous truth. When Naciketa went to death, death was not there. Whatever imagination we have about death will not be there when we surrender to death. Now, because of our fear, we try to escape; because we try to escape, He chases us. Thinking about Fear, Liberates you from it Please listen! Listen, I am making a very important statement. Most of your sufferings are because you are afraid to think about some parts of your life, some components of your life.

You are afraid of thinking. You always think that because you are thinking, you are getting fear. No! You are actually afraid of thinking. That is why those thoughts may cause fear in you, you think and then you stop thinking! Listen! Fear of thinking! I am giving an example. Please get it. I am unlocking some of the important self-doubting structures of your being. I am giving you the formulae of life algebra. If you are afraid of poverty, but you don’t want to think about it logically, it is not that you are not going to think about poverty. You will constantly be afraid of poverty and you will be brooding over poverty unconsciously, wasting all your energy; because that is going to be sitting in your unconscious space as a big tumor.

Thinking about fire and its after-effects is not going to burn your body! When you have that clarity, you will know how not to be afraid of thinking. Ironing out your thinking and not being afraid of thinking about anything, taking any thinking to the logical conclusion is Integrity. Whenever you want to think about poverty or death, you are always afraid that if you think about all that, it may come true in your life. But whenever you want to think about being rich to fulfill your desires, you always have the fear, ‘Even if I think about it, I won’t get it.’ See the funny way your brain functions!

See, all the things that you want in your life, you think that you won’t get them, even if you work for it. But all the things that you don’t want, you are afraid that you will get them, even if you just think about them. Please listen! Life is not that unfair with you. Anything happens only when you take the responsibility of inviting it and making it happen. You should know very clearly and see your own hypocrisy. What a funny belief space we create about life and then we go on blaming life! If you create this kind of space, will life respond to you? Ironing out your thinking to the logical flow of your thinking, needs to be done as the first step for awakening the divine qualities.

First thing you need to do—sit with yourself and list out all the areas of your life that you are afraid of. Whatever you are afraid of, write it down and logically think about it. Allow all of them to surface. Let your mind face the fears. Let your mind speak everything. Think intensely and logically about the fears. Give it half an hour. You may feel afraid, tears may roll and your whole body may shake. Let everything come out. What can be done? If you could do anything, you would have done it. Allow the fear come up to your conscious layer without being suppressed. Whatever you are afraid of, sit in a very cool and comfortable way and know very clearly that just because you are thinking, you are not going to have it.

Millions of things about which you thought, you didn’t have them. You also wanted a private jet, but did you get it? No! So, know very clearly, mere thinking is not going to get you the results. Only creating the space is going to get you the results. Creating the space means, taking the responsibility and thinking. Accept that there is a possibility for all these fears to come true: your wealth may be stolen, you may have an accident, a near or dear one may Daivāsura Sampad Vibhāga Yogaḥ You And Me 1143 die, or you may die. All these possibilities are real. Yes. What can be done? This is life.

This is what is called facing reality as it is. So, sit comfortably and tell yourself clearly, ‘Now I am going to allow myself to think to the extreme conclusions, the logical conclusions of any thought-trend which I am afraid of. If I am afraid of poverty, let me sit and think about the extreme possibility of poverty. I tell you, anything that stays in your unconscious as a weight and makes you brood over it, bring all of them out and consciously think through them to the logical conclusion. With integrity, fear of thinking will disappear, and once fear of thinking disappears, they cannot cause fear to you. When you lose fear of thinking, thinking loses fear of you.

When both of you lose fear of each other, you live happily, blissfully, ever after. Having eternal romance with your thinking is integrity. Integrity takes away the fear component in your thinking. You can think about anything; you will take responsibility for the right thing. You Are A Demon If...