Verses 16.21–16.24🔗

Kṛṣṇa ends the chapter with this advice: Shed anger, greed and lust and we will be saved. He calls them gates to hell. These are the qualities of the blocked mūlādhāra cakra. These are attributes that bind us to ‘me’ and ‘mine’. We mistakenly believe that these qualities are essential for our life on this planet. Nothing can be more wrong. tri-vidhaṁ narakasyedaṁ dvāraṁ nāśanam ātmanaḥ I kāmaḥ krodhas tathā lobhas tasmād etat trayam tyajet II 16.21 As long as we are bound by anger, lust and greed, kāmaḥ krodhas tathā lobhas, what He calls the three gateways to hell, we are in bondage; we are in suffering. We do not need to die and be escorted to someplace called hell.

We live in it day after day and suffer. Kāma, krodha and lobha: lust, anger and greed—when we shed these Daivāsura Sampad Vibhāga Yogaḥ You And Me 1175 we are liberated. Rāmakṛṣṇa says again and again, drop kāñcana and kāminī, gold and women, greed and lust, and we will be liberated. Lust for women, and greed for gold, these two desires more than anything else, cause all our sufferings. Krodha, anger, arises out of the suffering. We feel thwarted and we feel angry. The cycle goes on. When these three combine, they create moha, or delusion. At one level these emotions are desires. Anger, greed and lust are expressions related to desires.

Desires are energy. Lust is what drives us into reproduction and it is essential for the survival of species. Greed is the extreme expression of our survival needs. Anger is often the driving force to get things done. They achieve positive results, too. However, Kṛṣṇa refers to the expression of these emotions in the context of self-gratification. He refers to the gratification of base impulses. The baseness of the impulse is related to the intention, the context. As long as these are expressed with the cognition of ‘me,’ they are base and demonic impulses. There are no liberating features. Lust can be transformed when it is expressed in an unselfish and unattached way.

Lust will then totally disappear. Compassion and caring will be in its place. Lust is one aspect of the broad spectrum of desires. Unending desire is greed. When a desire is truly fulfilled, it leaves us. Karma is unfulfilled desires that goad us into action. We can never fulfill our desires because many of these desires are not truly ours. We borrow these desires from other people. There is never contentment. Each desire is the seed of suffering. That is why Kṛṣṇa calls it a gateway to hell. But how do we get rid of these desires? This is what we teach experientially at the twenty-one days Inner Awakening program.

We enrich you in completing with your lust, anger, greed, conflicting desires, and help you identify true desires, the prārabdha karma, with which you are born into this world. You are intiated into the science of creating the space to have the energy to fulfill them. Our karma dissolves. Above all, all the non-mechanical parts of your brain are awakened. Many powers which you have inside and you don’t know, are awakened. People who attend this program say that they cannot hate or even dislike anyone. The ‘I’ blossoms into ‘you’ effortlessly. At this stage, we shed anger as well. Anger and guilt are byproducts of desires. What we cannot acquire makes us angry.

Anger produces guilt. Being angry towards a person is fruitless. Much of the negativity expressed towards others comes back to us. It depletes our energy. Anger or even guilt is also often an expression of one’s inability to do something. It is a self-centered emotion born of one’s weakness, powerlessness. Suppression of anger does not help. It can actually lead to chronic diseases like cancer. When we learn to complete with the emotion of anger instead of controlling it, it becomes energy instead of a disability. Anger needs to be completed with and transformed into the positive energy of authentic action. What Kṛṣṇa asks us to do is to complete with the negative emotions like lust, greed and anger and create the space, with responsibility, to transform them into positive energies.

He tells us that these are gateways to hell so long as we use them from the root cognition of ‘me.’ When we do completion and transform these emotions into energy, by creating the space of ‘you’, these same emotions become gateways to heaven, gateway to bliss. Bliss comes with total trust in Existence Bliss is never an achievement on our part. Whatsoever we do to achieve bliss is doomed to fail. Bliss always comes from the beyond as a gift. We must be passively receptive to it. We are not to be aggressively active for it, just be receptive like a womb. We must be feminine to receive bliss.

We must become pregnant with God. When ego or ‘I’ disappears, anger, greed and lust also disappear. What is left is bliss. Bliss is a by-product of total trust in Existence or in God. God is not a person but the impersonal presence. The very life or Existence is God and the living energy is God. And to trust in it means to stop struggling against it. Struggling against it creates misery; it is trying to go upstream. Daivāsura Sampad Vibhāga Yogaḥ You And Me 1177 Trust means surrender, going with the stream. And going with the stream is bliss. All misery is because of the ego and its struggle, its resistance.

Trust means that resistance has been dropped. You don’t think of yourself as separate from the Whole; you are just an intrinsic part of the great harmony of Existence. Then bliss is natural. My whole effort here is to help you move towards bliss. The way to bliss is through the heart and through devotion. The real transformation happens when your energy moves from the head to the heart. When you reach the heart, you reach the core of your consciousness. Listen, remember the most important thing! God loves us: He has not given up on us, He is not indifferent to us and He is continuously concerned about us, He cares.

The deeper this idea enters your heart, the better, because when you feel more loved by God, you will be able to have love for God, and you will have love for others. That’s how we are able to love: if we are loved, we can love. If we are not loved, we don’t know how to love; we don’t know what love is. God is our substance, our very being. He is not something outside us; He is our innermost core. We do not need to seek and search for Him. Only this has to be remembered: we have forgotten it. God is not lost; only we have forgotten who we are.

Don’t be identified with the body. Don’t be identified with your mind, country, race or religion. Don’t be identified with anything. Don’t think, ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’. Remember, neither ‘this’ nor ‘that’. That is one of the secret teachings of the mystics: neti-neti, neither ‘this’ nor ‘that’. If you can avoid both polarities, day and night, life and death, body and mind, then slowly a third energy arises in you, a third force arises in you. That is consciousness. That’s your reality. That is freedom—freedom from fear, anxiety, misery, freedom from the world, freedom from the wheel of life and death. Then you are a witness, watching, a mirror reflecting but not getting caught in any reflection.

When you are a witness, the ‘me’ and ‘mine’ drop. What remains is identification with your energy, with your state, not your status. In that state, you are one with all. You are in the space of Living Advaita, oneness—living the truth that everything is ‘you’ and ‘you’ are everything. Because ‘you’ is ‘me’, ‘me’ is ‘you’, ‘you’ ‘me’ becomes ‘you-me’. It is ‘you-me’ that becomes the center, no longer ‘me’. You become Divine, daivic. Let us pray to the ultimate energy, Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, the Divine Consciousness, to bless us all with ‘daiva saṁpat’ and establish us in eternal bliss, nityānanda. Thank You. Thus ends the sixteenth chapter named Daivāsura Sampad Vibhāga Yogaḥ, ‘The Yoga of Divine and Demonic Nature,’ of the Bhagavad Gītā Upaniṣad, Brahmavidyā Yogaśāstra, the scripture of yoga dealing with the science of the Absolute in the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇārjuna saṃvād, dialogue between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna.

Authenticity: Straight Way To Liberation Living is about having Sraddha, courage of authenticity to live the Truth. Just reading or listening and thinking one has understood It, is meaningless. Not having a gap between your convictions and your day-to-day life is what I call Living! c h a p t e r Śraddhatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ In the seventeenth chapter, Kṛṣṇa straightaway gives the methodology or technique to imbibe whatever He speaks in Śraddhatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ, the Yoga of Discerning the Three- Fold Faith. After all the words that Kṛṣṇa expressed in earlier chapters, no new teaching is given here. All that Kṛṣṇa has spoken and taught so far is a prelude to what He is speaking now.

Here, Kṛṣṇa speaks about authenticity, śraddha. Let me explain the meaning of the word śraddha. Please understand that śraddha is not faith; always the word śraddha is translated as faith. This is not correct. Authenticity to Live the Truth Listen, human beings do not suffer because they don’t get to listen to the truths. They suffer because they don’t live the truth. Śraddha means faith plus the courage of authenticity to live the truth. Śraddha means the courage of authenticity to live your peak possibility. With authenticity, śraddha you awaken the power of thinking, mano siddhi to live the truth. With authenticity, there is no more space for unconscious thinking, because we will always be aware of the causes and effects that are playing in our life.

With śraddha we will never fail. Understand that there is a possibility that we may fail with faith alone. When we have faith without the courage of authenticity to experiment, to live the truth, it is like going to a restaurant, reading the menu card and just leaving. We miss eating. We never taste the food. We never experience the great powers of thinking and living the truth. However, when we have śraddha, authenticity, there is no chance of missing the truth. A person never misses when he has śraddha. Authenticity: Straight Way To Liberation ŚraddhatrayaVibhāgaYogaḥ Authenticity:StraightwayTo Liberation 1181 Lord Kṛṣṇa explains and now puts all His emphasis on śraddha.

After sixteen chapters of teachings, He has nothing new to add. He has said whatever can be said. He has explained all the seven layers of energy. In the fourteenth chapter, He started with Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yoga—the three guṇas (attributes) of satva, rajas and tamas, the three-folds of root thought patterns. Then in the Puruṣottama Yoga, He explained the causal layer, where the root thought patterns are stored in seed form. The deeper layers of the cosmic and nirvāṇic bodies are explained in the sixteenth chapter. Kṛṣṇa elaborates on the attributes of the Divine and the demon, the no-ego and ego, ‘you’ or ‘me’. The root cause of our identity that separates us from our core space of completion, which is Divine, is explained in the sixteenth chapter.

Now Kṛṣṇa comes to the seventeenth chapter, Śraddhatraya Vibhāga Yogaḥ. Nothing more needs to be added. Whatever can be said has been said. Now all we need is śraddha. If somebody has had a good feast, his stomach is full. All he needs is an antacid, ‘Digene’. Throughout the chapters Lord Kṛṣṇa has given Arjuna a beautiful spiritual feast. All Arjuna needs is ‘Digene’ to digest the whole thing and enjoy. This chapter is ‘Digene’. The whole emphasis is on śraddha: authenticity, integrity, truthfulness and straightforwardness. We may question, ‘Why would He devote one full chapter for śraddha?’ Please understand that we invariably miss Enlightenment because of lack of understanding and intranalyzing of this subject, śraddha.

Let me be very clear, it is not that we don’t know the truth that Lord Kṛṣṇa speaks. We know whatever Lord Kṛṣṇa speaks of and all that He has spoken so far. We know it all. It’s not that we don’t know. Yet why have we not become Kṛṣṇa? We miss one thing—Śraddha. That’s the only thing we need. Our problem is not that we don’t know. Our problem is that we know too much and we are unable to digest and live it. Swami Vivekananda says beautifully that instead of knowing the whole library, we should know just five concepts. We should experiment to live with these five concepts with śraddha, authenticity.

Let the five concepts become your life. That is enough. Nothing else is necessary. Instead of having the whole library in your head, have the five concepts in your heart. Please understand, you might have struggled, spent money, time and energy, and finally passed your driving test to get your driving license, but it will be useful to you, only if you are regularly driving. In the same way, Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s song, His words will directly be useful to you, only if you are living them. Use all the principles. Use all the truths. Don’t deny them in the name of practicality or convenience. No! Be very clear, once you are convinced, you will live the spiritual truths.

Listen. Living has nothing to do with some hard and strict rules. Wherever you can, pull the truths into your thinking. Not having gap between your spiritual understandings and your day-to-day life is what I call Living. Here, Kṛṣṇa emphasizes the importance of śraddha: how śraddha and only śraddha can transform your whole life. Understand, whatever you believe, if you have śraddha, if you have authenticity in aligning that belief in all your identities—inner image, outer image, others’ image and life’s image, you will achieve the Ultimate. Understand, Śraddha, Authenticity. I am giving you deeper definition. Authenticity is nothing but being sincere to the four aspects of you: what you feel as you­ —inner image; what you project you to others— outer image; what you think about others and life—others’ image, and what others hold you as—life image.

Being sincere to all these four is authenticity. Please listen, being sincere in all these four identities! What does this mean? Having the best inner image, having the best outer image, having the best idea about others and life; and being very sincere about what others hold as you. Just create the best image, the most sincere image that you wanted to feel, think and project about you. ŚraddhatrayaVibhāgaYogaḥ Authenticity:StraightwayTo Liberation 1183 Again and again, align your thinking to authenticity. See very clearly: Are you functioning towards the best inner image by constantly developing liberated thinking? Liberated thinking means your thinking should not have or should not lead you towards powerlessness.

Constantly your thinking should be leading you to being in a powerful space. Listen. It is neither difficult nor easy, but you have to do it! It is nothing but tuning yourself to a certain frequency. How tuning or changing a channel is neither difficult nor easy, it is a simple technique; same way, go on tuning your thinking to śraddha, authenticity. Always think about your thinking and align your thinking to authenticity. Kṛṣṇa declares earlier, ‘śraddhāvān labhate jñānaṁ (4.39)—the person who is established in authenticity, experiences the true wisdom, Enlightenment.’ Listen, śraddha, authenticity will become reality in you, only when you live it. Live authenticity! Many people have achieved God, experienced Enlightenment and attained the Truth through the path of living authenticity.

Buddha never spoke of God. Yet not only did He become enlightened, thousands attained Enlightenment because of Him. What you believe is not important, how intense you are is important; how integrated and authentic you are in living all the four identities is important. Working with the truth and creating the most sincere inner image, outer image, others’ image and life’s image based on that truth is what I call Authenticity. Authenticity is not just listening, reading or believing in the truth. Authenticity is working with the truths with responsibility. It is straightaway executing them to your peak possibility, experimenting with them and having the courage to play with them.

Just listening to these truths is not enough; start living them by taking up higher responsibilities. Only then you pull the tattvas into your life, and the tattvas pull you into their life. That is the only way any growth is possible. Possible to Live the Gītā Both meditation and gambling require courage. We need courage for gambling. And we also need courage for meditation. Meditation is the ultimate gamble we take up with higher responsibility. With ordinary gambling, we gamble with money out of irresponsibility. In meditation we take the responsibility to gamble with our ego. We take the highest responsibility to gamble with our whole being to experience the space of possibility, authenticity, śraddha.

But one thing is for sure in the gamble of meditation: if we lose, we win. Only losers win in this game! Spiritual life needs the courage of authenticity. That is why Swami Vivekananda calls his spiritual disciples ‘dhīraḥ’. Dhīra means someone who is courageous, who is courage personified. We might ask, ‘Why do spiritual people need courage? For spiritual life, don’t we need to be silent?’ No! Spiritual life calls for courage to declare completion and live it with integrity, authenticity, responsibility and enriching. We need the courage of authenticity. We need to take the responsibility! Listen! When you landed on planet Earth, so much energy and power is deposited in your bank balance, and the cheque book is available in your hand.

You just need to sign it! The signature is authenticity, śraddha. Reclaim it! In the past sixteen chapters we have heard many different teachings, different understandings and so many different techniques directly from the Master of masters, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. We have heard everything. All of this can help transform our life only if we have the courage to live them. Otherwise they add more weight to our head, that’s all. Please understand that if we receive these teachings and store them in our head, we gain more head weight, nothing else. Now we think, ‘I know the Gītā.’ However, we need to create the space of possibility in our heart and live the Gītā.

We need authenticity to live Gītā. For example, if we eat too much food and we are unable to digest it, what happens? We have a stomach ache and we vomit. Similarly, if we hear all these things and we don’t experience it, we will get a headache. ŚraddhatrayaVibhāgaYogaḥ Authenticity:StraightwayTo Liberation 1185 We will catch people and vomit all these things on them. Please be very clear that unless we have authenticity, unless we experiment to live these truths to our peak possibility, listening to these truths is dangerous. Everything that we listened in the Gītā, all that we cognized inside our minds, should be responded with the idea ‘Possible’!

Possible! Possible! That should be the word, the mantra ringing in our heart, our inner space. Kṛṣṇa’s words are possible! Possible! Possible! Now I am giving one more step. As I said, ‘If you don’t practice, listening to these truths is dangerous.’ We may ask, ‘Why?’ Because now, by and by, even after so many days of listening or reading these great truths, we will start hallucinating that we know, without knowing. That is the most dangerous game. Never ever get caught in that game! When you bring yourself to the peak of you, there is no wastage of inner powers. I tell you, when you waste your love, it becomes lust.

When you waste your responsibility, it becomes jealousy. The lower dimensions of you are nothing but rejected parts of your higher dimension. When your higher dimension is not materialized, when it is not realized, your lower dimension is empowered! Bring yourself to the peak possibility. Listen, it happens! It can happen only when you practice living the truth of Gītā every moment. Spiritual life needs courage to harness the power of words by integrity, power of thinking by authenticity, power of feeling by responsibility, power of living by enriching; and the consciousness of dhīraḥ, courage. BharaṆi—Killer of Thousand Minds A beautiful history: The great saint, Dakśināmūrti Swamigal, lived in Tamil Nadu, South India, near a place called Tiruvaroor.

Let me share a historical incident from his life. A poet from the king’s court met Dakśināmūrti Swamigal and was inspired by his presence. Consequently, the poet wrote one thousand songs in the Bharaṇi style in the saint’s honor. Bharaṇi is a special style of poetry involving one thousand verses. The rule is that only someone who shows courage and power and kills one thousand elephants in war is qualified to have such a song written about him. Here, this poet was so inspired by the saint’s presence that he simply wrote the songs on him on the spot. The king also considered himself to be Bharaṇi. I don’t know if he killed one thousand elephants in war.

Anyway, suddenly, one day in court, out of ego and pride, the king announced, ‘I am the only Bharaṇi in this whole country, in this whole region!’ One of his poets stood up and said, ‘No O king, you are wrong. Dakśināmūrti Swamigal is also a Bharaṇi. One of your court poets has sung a Bharaṇi about him.’ The king’s ego was hurt. He said, ‘What? Who is this person deserving Bharaṇi? Bring him here.’ The poet said, ‘No, no, he is a beggar. He will not come here.’ Beggars can never be forced. We can force anybody but a homeless person to do what we want, because he has no desire.

As long as someone has some desire, he obeys the social system. But, the one beyond desire does not care for name, home, fame or security. In this case, this man was a beggar and a saint. They could not bring him to the king. The king felt deeply offended. He said, ‘What? For a beggar, Bharaṇi! Which fool sang the songs? Call him to me right now.’ The poet was summoned to the court. The king said, ‘Fool, how dare you sing bharaṇi for a beggar.’ The poet replied, ‘O King, please forgive me. Before you say anything, before you abuse that Master, it would be nice if ŚraddhatrayaVibhāgaYogaḥ Authenticity:StraightwayTo Liberation 1187 you would go to see him.’

The king said, ‘What kind of advice are you giving me? Tomorrow morning your head will be cut off.’ That was the king’s usual trend, direct violence. Only foolish people immediately express violence. When they can’t behave in an intelligent way, when they don’t know the truth and they don’t have enough energy to convince the other person of the truth, they take to the sword. Take for example the history of Buddhism or Hinduism. They never converted anyone with the sword. They had intelligence. They transformed through logic, analysis and enriched the other person with the Truth. For example, great Masters like Ādī Śaṅkarācārya and Maṇḍana Miśra had different views on a particular subject, still they did not fight with each other.

Śaṅkara did not say, ‘If you don’t convert to Vedānta, I will kill you.’ They sat together and analyzed what they knew. It was a loving discussion. It was a beautiful scene. Śaṅkara and Maṇḍana Miśra sorted out their philosophical differences with a deep respect through khandana-mandana, positive discussions and expositions without rancor. The person who acted as judge in the discussion was Maṇḍana Miśra’s wife. What a beautiful, loving atmosphere it must have been! Can you believe that the wife of one of the competitors was the judge? Never! And here, Śaṅkara appointed Maṇḍana Miśra’s wife, Bhārati as the judge. And finally, she passed judgment of the debate in favor of Śaṅkara.

The whole thing happened out of love. There was no violence, no cutting, no killing, nothing. It was just a simple discussion. Throughout the history of Eastern religions, there was never any cutting or killing. They never converted through the sword because they did not believe in killing. They had enough intelligence to express the concept. And one more thing, the loser automatically joined the group which expressed the truth more clearly! When Śaṅkara convinced Maṇḍana Miśra, Miśra dropped everything and surrendered his life to Śaṅkara! He became a disciple of Śaṅkara and took the spiritual name ‘Sureśvarācārya.’ He followed the path of Śaṅkara’s teachings. We can never achieve anything by the sword.

Only destruction is possible through the sword, never construction. This king, foolish as he was, straightaway said, ‘Kill him. Tomorrow morning the poet should be killed.’ The poet replied, ‘I have no problem. I have experienced Truth through this master. I am ready to die; however, if you are really intelligent, meet this master at least once. Don’t punish me until you have seen him. Then I will be ready to die.’ The king agreed, ‘Alright, I will see him. If he is not a real Bharaṇi, we will kill him also.’ The king set off to meet the Master with all his paraphernalia: chariots, foot soldiers, elephants, armies and all his warriors.

Kings always travel with their paraphernalia because they lose their identity without their paraphernalia. In contrast, Dakśināmūrti Swamigal was a Paramahamsa, an enlightened Master. Masters always live by themselves. They do not need any paraphernalia. This Master was an Avadhūta, which means he never wore clothes. The king found him sitting under a big banyan tree, without any paraphernalia. This was the scene: This simple beggar sat in a corner without any clothes. He was in bliss and peace, completely soaked in Existence, in brahmajñāna (knowledge of the Supreme). He sat in intense silence and peace. This silence penetrated anyone in his presence. The king appeared with his warriors and entire army to confront this yogi.

The king jumped down from his chariot and advanced towards the Master. The Master did not move. There was no movement in him even after seeing the king and his army and hearing all the commotion. He opened his eyes and looked straight into the king’s eyes. It was the first time that someone looked straight into the king’s eyes. The king had always looked at others straight in their eyes and they had always put ŚraddhatrayaVibhāgaYogaḥ Authenticity:StraightwayTo Liberation 1189 their heads down. For the first time somebody looked straight into the eyes of the king. After a few seconds, the king put his head down. The king clearly felt something happening inside his being.

He felt like a mere beggar in the Master’s presence. He did not know how to act or react. It was a strange situation. He was at a loss. He could not decide what to do. He felt overwhelmed. Dakśināmūrti Swamigal signaled to the king to sit down. There were no words from him. He simply made a sign asking the king to sit. All the ministers and the army dropped their weapons and also sat in silence. In ten minutes the whole army was sitting down. It is impossible to make an army sit. Even the leader of the army can’t make the army sit. But here the whole army sat in silence.

One hour passed. Then three hours passed; then the evening also passed; one day got over. The Master, the king and the entire army sat in silence. Not a single word was exchanged. There were no instructions, nothing. They did not even greet each other. They were merely sitting. Three days got over. Now the Master thought, ‘This is too much. The poor man and his entire army have been simply sitting for three days without food and even without toilet visits! These people must return to their kingdom, to the palace. The king must take care of the country. The Master opened his eyes and said, ‘Now you can go.’

The king fell flat at the Master’s feet, did namaskār (obeisance) and came out of the forest. Then the king summoned the poet and said, ‘Leave alone thousand elephants... You may sing for the Master praises that you usually sing for the one who has killed ten thousand elephants!’ The poet made a beautiful statement, ‘Killing ten thousand elephants is easy. It is not a big deal. You don’t need any powers for it. You just need the weapons and you can simply kill; however, killing one’s mind is the real achievement.’ This Master had killed the king’s mind. Not only had Dakśināmūrti Swamigal killed his own mind, he could kill anybody else’s mind if they sat in his presence.

He made the impossible into ‘i m possible’ with his power of authenticity, the space of possibility. Killing ten thousand elephants doesn’t take courage, but killing your mind requires the courage of authenticity. Courage of Authenticity, the only pre-requisite All we need for real spiritual life is courage of authenticity to experiment with the truth. We typically lack that quality. We listen to everything. Wherever there are discourses and lectures, we go and listen to anyone who speaks. We read all the books. When it comes to facing the reality of putting this knowledge to test, there is no action. Then you tell me, ‘For practical purposes, Swamiji, we must have our possessions.

Otherwise how can we survive in this world?...’ You just compromise cunningly. Compromising is cowardice. Please understand that the person who compromises never experiences anything in his life; not only in the spiritual life, even in the outer world life. He can never experience life itself. Authenticity to experience a single truth is enough. Nothing else is necessary. We don’t need to do big things. Please be very clear, we can’t call somebody ‘a big person’ if he does something big. What he does is unimportant; how he does it is important. As an example, the great saint Nammalvar, who lived in Tamil Nadu, made garlands for Viṣṇu throughout his life.

He did nothing else. He picked flowers from a garden, made garlands and gave it to God. He became enlightened. So many enlightened Masters did not do big things. They did small things in a big way. They had deep trust. ŚraddhatrayaVibhāgaYogaḥ Authenticity:StraightwayTo Liberation 1191 Another enlightened being did not even do that. He did not make garlands to offer God. Instead he threw a stone towards the Śiva liṅga everyday. His name was Sakyanayanar (Sakya refers to the clan of the Buddha, and Nayanar is a name for devotees of Śiva). Somehow he became a Buddhist monk. Because he was a Buddhist monk, he could not worship the Śiva liṅga in public.

Yet he had tremendous respect and devotion for Śiva. In Buddhism, at least one son from every family is given to the monastery at a young age. They bring him up and make him a Buddhist monk. Like that, Sakyanayanar was given away to a Buddhist monastery. Still, he had a deep devotion to Śiva. Everyday he went near the Śiva temple. It was not even a regular temple, it was just a small Śiva liṅga under a tree. From a distance he took a stone, visualized it as a flower and threw the stone at the Śiva liṅga. If someone observed him and asked, ‘What are you doing?’ he would say, ‘I am only throwing stones at the Śiva liṅga.’

He would throw the stones and leave that place. One day when he threw a stone, an old man suddenly appeared and asked, ‘What are you doing?’ He replied, ‘I am only throwing stones at the liṅga.’ The old man said, ‘No, the way in which you throw shows your devotion. You may be throwing stones, but the way in which you are throwing shows devotion. Tell me who are you?’ Sakyanayanar replied, ‘Somehow I was born in a Buddhist family, yet I am deeply devoted to Śiva. Everyday I come and offer my being to him by throwing a stone. Immediately the old man turned around, gave darśan (vision) as Śiva and blessed him with Enlightenment.

Understand that what we do is unimportant; what we think is important. Even if we just clean our house, it is okay as long as we do it with complete and intense authenticity in our thinking in that moment. Listen! Authenticity is the power of thinking. In one moment we can make anything look like God; within the next moment, we can make anything look like a demon in our lives. Please understand, if we bow down to even a small stone, it can become a God. If we are afraid of that, even God will look like demon. Live the Truth Through Words, Mind And Body Understand that spiritual practice does not mean you need to go into a deep forest, hold your nose ten times, and breathe this way and that way.

You will only torture yourself. Do anything, but do it with intensity, with authenticity. Have courage to express whatever you believe. Don’t bother whether the truth you believe is the ultimate Truth. You will never know whether it is ultimate unless you have the courage to authenticity to live it. Without living it, you cannot conclude. If you conclude without living it, it is prejudice. You cannot conclude without living it to your peak possibility. All you need is authentic courage to experiment living the truth that you believe. Tamil has three words for satya (truth). One word is vaaimai, which means speaking the truth through the mouth. Another word is unmai, which is speaking the truth through your mind or heart.

The third beautiful word is meimai, which means living the truth through your body. In Tamil, ‘mai’ means body. Truth means living the truth through the body. All of us understand speaking the truth through the mouth and speaking the truth through the mind. However, what does ‘living the truth through the body’ mean? We have never heard this before. This is where we miss the boat. We continuously think about the truth. We go on contemplating on the truth from morning till night. We speak what we think is the truth. Nonetheless, we forget one important ŚraddhatrayaVibhāgaYogaḥ Authenticity:StraightwayTo Liberation 1193 thing: executing the truth in life, living the truth in life.

That is where we miss. Living the truth in life is the essence. Patañjali gives satya as the first instruction in his Aṣṭāṅga Yoga. This satya refers to truth in thought, word and action. It is vaaymai, unmai and maimai, all the three combined. The authenticity with which we practice leads us to Enlightenment. That is why I have said time and again that it is not necessary to have an enlightened Master as our Guru to become enlightened. Any master whom we follow sincerely with integrity and authenticity can lead to Enlightenment. Even if we truly believe a stone idol will deliver us into liberation, it will do so.

Our approach, our conviction, our courage and our trust elevate us. Śraddha is total conviction in what we are feeling, thinking, speaking and doing. There should be no doubt in our mind about the path that we are following and why we are following it. All great Masters had undivided integrity and authenticity in their thinking and words in whatever they did. They never swerved from their chosen path no matter what challenges and problems they faced, including threats to their lives. Śraddha, authenticity has to be practiced in every dimension of your life, at every level of your thinking, and at every level of your cognizance. I tell you, bring yourself to the peak, whether it is related to your body, profession or relationships.

When you bring yourself to your peak possibility relating to your body, it becomes health. When you bring yourself to your peak possibility relating to your profession, it becomes success. When you bring yourself to your peak possibility relating to others, it becomes happy relationships. When you bring yourself to your peak possibility relating to your whole life, it becomes Enlightenment! Understand that the ultimate step or the straight way to Enlightenment is—authenticity to live the truth. Way To Worship