Verses 18.2–18.6🔗

They should be done as an act of responsibility. That is My final and ultimate opinion. Kṛṣṇa replies: ‘Bhārata, now hear my judgment about renunciation. Renunciation is of many types. Let me explain the truth.’ And then Bhagavān starts. Bhagavān says that some learned masters say that giving up activities Mokṣa Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Drop Everything And Surrender 1253 based on material desires is renunciation, tyāga. Others say that giving up the results is renunciation. Hence some say that giving up activity is renunciation whereas others say that it is giving up the results. No other master is as compassionate as Kṛṣṇa. He is the ultimate Master. He does not merely teach.

He knows it is difficult for people to believe. It takes time to believe. So He gives logic to support His teachings. Again and again, He tries His best to convince Arjuna. Considering the level that He is at, there is no need for Him to come down to the level of Arjuna. He can say, ‘This is the truth. If you want you can follow it, otherwise get out!’ But He does not do that. He is compassionate. Again and again, He comes down and explains the truths step-by-step. Some learned people recommend ritualistic actions, such as killing an animal for a sacrifice. Other learned people denounce that act.

Thus there are different opinions regarding the same action by different Sages. Kṛṣṇa clarifies these opinions now. Enriching Sacrifice is the Path of Completion After all, it is Śrī Kṛṣṇa in the form of the Ultimate who originally created the scriptures and laws. Therefore any explanation from Him should be considered the last word. He says that any process of renunciation should be considered within the context in which it is performed. Renunciation can be of three types: enriching sacrifice, charity and penance; yajña, dāna, tapaḥ. These purify even those who are already evolved and pure. It must be understood that the purpose of performing yajña, enriching sacrifices is the purification or upliftment or completion of the human being on the spiritual path.

They link cosmic energy with individual energy. Kṛṣṇa says that any sacrifice done for the welfare or enrichment of humanity is not to be given up. As enriching sacrifices, yajñas are meant to achieve the supreme, performing charity, dāna is recommended to purify one’s heart and put one on the path of spiritual progress. Sacrifice is normally understood to be rituals such as yajña and homa, etc. These are the fire rituals prescribed in Vedic literatures to propitiate the deities. When carried out with integrity and authenticity, these powerful techniques link us to the Cosmic energy. Here you must understand that Kṛṣṇa talks about the reality of what existed more than five thousand years ago when these rituals were performed with awareness, integrity and authenticity.

In performing an aśwamedha yajña, a powerful king let loose his prize horse to roam as it pleased in enemy territory and waged war with anyone who dared stop the horse. All the land that the horse covered became his vassal territory and those kings accepted the sovereignty of the owner of the horse. This is what we know from the epics Mahābhārat and Rāmāyaṇa that detail these sacrifices. The Upaniṣads talk about the metaphorical significance of these rituals. In the scriptures, reference is made to the inner aśwamedha yajña, meditating upon the sun that is identified with aśwamedha. In our times, sacrifice refers to any selfless enriching service that enriches others and enriches you.

Whatever enriching we do for others out of completion, without expecting anything in return is a sacrifice, an enriching sacrifice or yajña. Unfortunately, many people engaged in sacrifice are more interested in seeing their pictures on the television or in newspapers than in the service. Charitable enriching, dāna is giving out of overflowing completion with no expectation in return. Charity is not giving while posing for a picture that will be published in tomorrow’s newspaper. That is business. Those who are truly charitable never allow others to know what they are doing. That is why it is said that your left hand should not know what your right hand is giving.

Only then charity achieves its authentic purpose of enriching others. Charity should also involve pain. You can call it charity when you cannot afford to give something away and yet you give it away. Charity Mokṣa Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Drop Everything And Surrender 1255 must become a penance, tapaḥ and lead to austerity if it is to be real. Penance, tapaḥ is denying oneself sense pleasures and being complete with the senses. Ultimately, the purpose of all spiritual exercise is to be complete with the mind, body and senses and thereby controlling the mind and senses. Penance, tapaḥ is turning inwards whereas sacrifice, yajña and charity, dāna are focused outwards. ‘All these enriching activities should be performed without attachment or expectation of results.

They should be performed as a matter of responsibility, and this is My final opinion,’ says the Master. Only by enriching others does your life get enriched. Don’t be selfish. Understand, responsibility is the fruit. Enriching is sowing the seed for the fruit to happen. Enriching is sharing the fruit to create more fruits. Every person who eats the fruit is responsible for sowing the seed for more fruits to happen. Kṛṣṇa gives His ultimate opinion. Earlier He explained what others said about renunciation, as either giving up the activity itself or the results of the activity. Now He says that His opinion on renunciation is living withoutattachment,etānyapitukarmāṇisaṅgaṁtyaktvāphalānica(18.6). This must be understood in depth.

Listen! Whether it is spiritual or worldly activity, as long as you struggle with a purpose and a goal, you can never relax. Whether it is the act of purifying your inner space by doing self-completion or purifying your outer space by enriching others, as long as you struggle, you will be in incompletion. Please be very clear about this. The person who surrenders to the flow of life, experiences the inner space and outer space at the same time. He enjoys the inner and the outer space at the same time. Whatever Kṛṣṇa has spoken in these seventeen chapters, He is now giving its gist. Surrender Both Inner and Outer Space Let me explain what I mean by the word surrender.

Then you can understand better. Think of two intersecting lines, axes. The vertical axis is spiritual life. The horizontal axis is material life. The point of intersection is your being. This is the goal you have. You have some goal in your material life and also in your spiritual life. To achieve your goal in your material life, you are continuously struggling and working. You are somewhere on the horizontal axis. To achieve your spiritual goal, you are again working intensely doing yoga, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, etc. You practice spiritual techniques. You are somewhere on the vertical axis. So when you struggle with material goals, you are on the horizontal line whereas when you struggle with spiritual goals, you are on the vertical line.

As long as you are struggling, you can struggle either in this direction or that direction. As long as you struggle in material life, you avoid spiritual life. As long as you struggle in spiritual life, you avoid material life. Listen! As long as you struggle with completion, you don’t enrich. As long as you struggle with enriching, you are not complete! Both are a struggle. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Relax from both.’ You may think, ‘What is this funny instruction He is giving!’ You think that if you relax in both you will lose both. However, the truth is that when you relax in both, you fall into your inner consciousness, your being or your inner space.

When you experience this inner space, this inner consciousness, you will suddenly realize that you can explode in all directions. You do not need to choose between horizontal and vertical lines. You can travel on both lines at the same time! Mokṣa Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Drop Everything And Surrender 1257 Not only that, you can explode in all directions. The only difficulty is that you must surrender at least to your own being. You do not need to surrender to somebody else. To whom you surrender is unimportant. Just relax into your own being. Just relax into your inner space, into your inner consciousness. Just surrender to your own inner space.

Stop your struggle in the material world and the spiritual world. In the material world or my world, the world of ‘mine’, your properties are your goal. You struggle to achieve these goals, such as enriching with wealth, career, success, etc. In the spiritual world also you have certain goals, such as Enlightenment, living in the space of completion, being integrated and authentic, etc. And you constantly run to attain that goal. Actually, spiritual goals create more ego than material goals. At least with material goals, at some point, you realize that you cannot achieve real happiness by running behind them. It can be tiring. But with spiritual goals you do not even understand what you are doing.

Both goals take your being away from your being. When you surrender and relax into your being, you suddenly realize you are neither the body nor the mind, to choose between the horizontal and the vertical lines. As long as you believe you are the mind, you will be forced to choose between the vertical and horizontal lines. You will be in a dilemma because the mind wants to choose. The mind and dilemma are the same thing. The mind ceases to exist once dilemmas vanish. The mind exists as long as you have dilemma. As long as you have confusion, the mind exists. Has your mind existed without dilemmas?

No, never! You may be in a dilemma even to answer this question; that is all! The mind continues to exist only in dilemma. You continuously worry about whether to choose this or that. Whenever you choose something, someday you will definitely wonder and your mind will create self-doubt about the choice you made. The mind only exists because of dilemma. As long as you are based in your mind, you will be choosing between material and spiritual goals. The people who choose material goals will feel that they are missing spiritual life. And those who pick spiritual goals will feel they are missing material life. This is because you choose between the two.

For the first time, Kṛṣṇa gives the ultimate technique for Quantum Spirituality. He is the first quantum scientist of the inner world. He says relax and surrender and you will experience the completion of your inner consciousness. You will understand that you do not need to choose between the horizontal and vertical lines. You can explode in all 360 degrees. You need not make a choice. You experience choicelessness. Choicelessness does not mean that you do not choose anything. When you stop choosing, you will choose everything. Listen! I am asked by my disciples, ‘Should we not become completely complete from our root patterns and only then enrich others? Should we choose to do one?’

Please listen! Enriching and completion, both should be practiced simultaneously. Listen! With more and more completion, more and more enriching will happen. With more and more enriching, completion will happen. Actually, when you complete with somebody, you already started enriching that person. You can explode in all 360 degrees with completion and enriching, both! Enriching starts happening with completion. Without enriching, completion cannot happen. Without completion, enriching cannot happen. When we stop choosing, both start together, one supports the other. You cannot say, ‘First I will operate my heart; and then once the heart starts functioning completely, then I will start operating the lungs.’ No! Lungs are completion. Heart is enriching.

Both have to happen simultaneously. Lungs remove the carbon dioxide—incompletions from your system, and infuse oxygen—completion into your system. Heart circulates that whole oxygen into your blood and enriches your whole body. You cannot separate enriching and completion. If you are not enriching, please be very clear, completion is not happening. You are only fantasizing about completion. When you stop choosing between completion and enriching, your completion will be so powerful that you Mokṣa Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Drop Everything And Surrender 1259 will simply enrich! Similarly, surrender does not mean passive surrender or pretending, fantasizing to give up. Many people claim, ‘Swamiji, I have surrendered everything to God.’ It is mere lip service only.

It is not reality. People come up with odd statements. They tell me, ‘Swamiji, I have given up everything, I have surrendered everything to God. Bless me so that I get a better paying job!’ We sometimes make statements without knowing what the reality is. A small story: A journalist saw a crowd gathered around an accident on the road. He tried to find out what had happened, but could not get through the crowd. He shouted, ‘Oh! My son has been hurt in the accident. Please move out of the way.’ The people gave way. He moved forward, only to see that a car had hit a donkey! Before making any statement, look in, know your thoughts and words, know the situation.

Bring integrity and authenticity! Otherwise, you will suffer! With the word surrender you make that mistake. With real surrender you do not exclude anything. You include everything. You experience everything at once. You do not need to choose between horizontal and vertical lines. You can experience both and something more. You can explode! You experience something beyond your imagination. You experience different dimensions of your being. Again, when I say surrender, you do not need to surrender to any God or Guru. God or Guru are symbols or representations. Just surrender to your own being, to your own consciousness, to your own inner space. The problem is you do not respect your inner space. That is why in the initial level you need an entity called God or Guru. Duty Without Delusion