Verses 4.21–4.25🔗

Asense of ownership over possessions or your body is the same thing. What are your possessions? You came with nothing at all. Can you claim that you were born with anything that is your own property? In the same way, you are going to leave this world empty-handed. Can you say that all your possessions will go with you when you leave this body? No! Jñānakarmasannyāsa Yogaḥ The Path Of Knowledge 311 This very prāṇa, the life breath going inside your body is not your property. It is the property of Existence. Your very life is a sheer gift to you from Existence. When you realize this, you will immediately see that all your fears and worries and greed are so baseless.

You are running behind something, thinking it is yours, but of what relevance is it really? When your very life is a gift to you, how can you claim that anything else is your possession? Please listen! Real knowledge comes with experience, not through words. The moment you internalize any single dimension of truth and internalize it authentically, truthfully, it can do wonders for you. Vivekananda says beautifully, ‘Even if you memorize all the books in all the libraries of this world, it will not help you in any way other than increasing your ego. Instead of having a whole library in your head, just realize five concepts in your heart.’

I tell you, enrich yourself with only one idea and try to internalize it in your being, experience it in your life. Your life will be transformed by just a single idea. In Tamil Nadu, South India, they describe beautifully the lives of 63 enlightened Masters in Periapurānam, a Tamil literary work. If you study the lives of these masters, you will find some masters did not really do anything. They just plucked flowers and offered them to God. Yet they achieved enlightenment! Understand, it is not what you do that is important, it is the space from which you do that matters. How integrated and authentic you are with the act is what really matters.

When they performed the act of offering flowers, they were in the space of completion; integrated and authentic to the action. You may ask, ‘We also offer flowers everyday. The only thing we get is the extra expense of maintaining the garden!’ The problem is that we don’t take responsibility for our space and we are not in integrity and authenticity with thoughts, words, and actions. When these Masters plucked flowers to offer to God, they were thinking of Him. They were complete, totally devoted to the thought of the Lord. I have seen these people who do rituals regularly. Whenever they are doing any rituals, they will be thinking of something else, either their office or their home.

There are some who regularly chant the 1000 names of the gods as in the Viṣṇu Sahasṛanāma. Even while chanting, they start looking at the verse count they have reached. Four Great Powers of Your Space Create the space of completion. Complete with your patterns! Bring integrity into every step! Nothing else is going to help you. There is no shortcut; this is the shortest cut! Complete and create the space of integrity and authenticity; they have no replacement. Whether you live a spiritual life or a regular life, integrity and authenticity form the basis for life! The space you carry, the attitude, the intention, and the thoughts behind the action actually decide the energy behind the action.

The power of space and thought is immense. In fact, some of the latest research shows how our DNA can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies. When a group of people focus their thoughts on something similar, like chanting peaceful, healing Vedic mantras every morning, just listening to these words coming out of completion, you will suddenly see that those very words change your inner space. The collective declarations to bless the world—lokāsamastā sukhinobhavantū, let the whole world be prosperous, can change your entire inner space. That is the power of completion! I tell you, all the so-called natural calamities are nothing but the effects of global negative thoughts born out of collective incompletions.

Your space, your thoughts and energy directly affect your body, your cell structure, your decisions, your capacity to fulfill your decisions and outer world incidents, even accidents. You create a pattern that creates and attracts similar incidents to you. If you can complete with your greed and fear patterns, which is what we have normally, and create the space of bliss or Ānanda, then your energy flow will start brimming and your thoughts will be authentic, your words will be integrated and you will be more in the space of completion. When you do this, you have every power to control outer world incidents Jñānakarmasannyāsa Yogaḥ The Path Of Knowledge 313 because you and Existence have a very deep connection at the energy level.

When you are blissful, when the space you carry is not one of worry, fear and greed but one that is in the present, always complete and joyful, you will automatically attract all good things to yourself. When you practice Integrity with integrity, Authenticity with authenticity, Responsibility with responsibility, and Enriching with enriching, you will simply have the four great powers—the power of words—vāk siddhi, the power of thinking—mano siddhi, the power of feeling—prema siddhi, and the power of living—ātma siddhi. When you unlock the power of words, you will have the spontaneous intelligence to use the right and most effective words towards yourself and others. Next, what is Authenticity?

The decision of authenticity has to come from your very soul. Your soul has to awaken. Till then, you may be practicing a little authenticity in your yoga, or in your waking hours. But that is not completely authentic. When your soul wakes up, only then do you become a completely authentic soul. When you start practicing authenticity, your soul wakes up. Your being wakes up. When you discover the power of thinking, you will be able to focus on your thoughts to achieve success in your job, relationships, education, finances and life itself! See, when you are so integrated with your words, your words just move the world. When you are completely authentic, your soul can simply express anything because energy and matter both listen to your soul.

Matter listens to energy. Authenticity is nothing but remembering that all powers are at your disposal. You can just possess and express any power you want. With responsibility, the power of feeling, you will learn to express these powers. The power of feeling teaches how to launch yourself to the next level of life through empowered responsibility. And with enriching, you will truly be enjoying the power of living when you realize that the greatest rewards come when you live your life for others. Your Inner Space is connected to the Universe All our minds are not individually separated pieces of the Universe. They are all one and the same.

Not only interlinked, our minds directly affect each other. This is what I call the ‘collective consciousness.’ Though each one is independent in his consciousness, when one is conscious of one’s true nature, one feels that one is part of the whole Universe. Each one’s thoughts straightaway affect the others around. Not only are those staying around you touched by your thoughts, everyone who is living on the planet is touched by your thoughts. Understand, the inner space you carry is such a powerful space! It is hiranyagarbha, the space where the planets get created! Your inner space is so powerful; worlds can be created or destroyed by it. You may be an individual, but your inner space is not individual; it is well-connected with the whole Universe.

So, anything you decide in your inner space becomes a reality in the Cosmos, reality in life. The next truth: Not only at the mental level are you connected; even at the deeper conscious level you are connected to every other being. Your body is not just one body. Actually, there are seven layers or bodies. The first layer is the physical body. Jñānakarmasannyāsa Yogaḥ The Path Of Knowledge 315 The second is the pranic body. There are seven such energy layers or bodies. These energy layers can be represented as concentric circles, with the physical layer as the outermost circle and the seventh layer and the nirvanic body as the innermost layer.

At the physical layer, you, God and I can be represented as three different points in the outermost concentric circle. At the physical level, the distance between these three is more. At the pranic level, the distance is reduced. If you come down deeper, to the mental level, the distance between you and I is still reduced and so is the distance between you, God and I. When you go deeper and deeper, these three entities finally merge into one at the innermost nirvanic layer, the ultimate consciousness. At the deepest point of all these layers—God, you and I are one. There is no distance between the three. Once you become aware and realize that you are a part of the collective consciousness, that you don’t have an individual identity; you realize that you do not have a separate ego.

You think you own your individual identity. In Existence, there is no such thing as a separate individual identity. Once you know this truth, you go beyond pain, suffering, depression and diseases. As long as you are individually conscious, you will be continuously suffering. Why do you think you are continuously resisting Nature? Whatever Nature offers, you resist. You think you are different from Existence. I have seen Sannyāsis and monks living in the Himalayas, almost nude in the cold. I myself have lived in such conditions, but the body was never disturbed. I never had the feeling of separation from Nature. When you think you are different from the atmosphere, you start resisting it.

When you are in tune and become a part of the collective consciousness, Nature is your friend and it will protect you. As long as you think you are an individual consciousness different from Nature, it will protest. There’s one very simple thing you can practice now. If you are feeling cold, just relax and witness the area where you are feeling cold. In that area, don’t resist the atmosphere, don’t resist Nature. Just say to yourself, ‘I am not going to resist Nature. Let me relax and be complete.’ Consciously decide this. With this you will see the body relaxing and the idea of cold disappearing from that part.

You become completely comfortable. Wherever you want to achieve success, in a social or in an economic context, only when you feel complete with the whole group and fall in tune with the collective consciousness will you be able to achieve what you want. As long as you feel you are an individual, be very clear that you will be resisted and you will be resisting. Whether it is at home or at work, this will happen. If you disappear into the collective consciousness, you will be protected and taken care of. Not only will you attain social and economic success, but you will also experience a deep feeling of completion.

Even in the physical layer if you think you are separate, you will invite diseases. If you think you are separate in the mantal layer, you will be sowing seeds of violence. With collective consciousness you unify, but with individual consciousness you cut things into pieces. If you think you are an individual at the soul level, there is no possibility for any spiritual growth. Even at the physical level, you are not an individual. Your body and the body of the sun are directly connected. Any small change in the body of the sun can make changes in your body. Any small change in your body can change the body of the moon.

Even if you are not able to relate to this logically, it is true. Even in the mental layer, you are not alone. Any thought put in anyone else’s head comes and touches you and any thought created in your mind goes and touches someone else. It is like ripples created in a lake. If you are creating a strong wave, you will be creating an impression with your thought. You will be leading and inspiring others with your thought. If your thoughts are not solid enough, other waves will impress you. When you bring complete integrity into your thinking, the words you utter to yourself and to others will be experienced as your very life.

That is the power of words! Even though your child is out of your body after you deliver it, it Jñānakarmasannyāsa Yogaḥ The Path Of Knowledge 317 is not like you are disconnected from your child. His good or bad experiences continue to affect you as long as you exist. In the same way, the words that come out of you continue to have power over you, whether they are fulfilled or unfulfilled, respected or not respected, listened to or not listened to. Understanding that the word you utter continues to have power over you even years after it is uttered makes you utter the words with responsibility. Either you live like a leader or you will be a follower.

There is no in between. You always think, ‘I will not be a leader, I cannot do that much; I will not be a follower either; I shall maintain my own stand.’ This is simply impractical. There is no such thing as ‘my own stand.’ Either you lead or you follow. At the spiritual level, the moment you understand you are deeply connected to the whole Universe, not only do you start experiencing bliss, but you also start really living in the space of oneness and opening many dimensions of your being. See, just with this body you can think so much, you can enrich and enjoy yourself and others so much.

If you disappear into the collective consciousness, you will experience so many dimensions, so many possibilities, you cannot imagine it! During the Indian festival of Holi (festival of colors)—Rās Pūrnima, Radhā and the gopīs, experienced the collective consciousness of Kṛṣṇa. This is referred to as rās līlā, when Kṛṣṇa gave them the experience of collective consciousness. Some people have the wrong idea of this rās līlā and think it signifies Kṛṣṇa having relationships with women. Kṛṣṇa was just ten years old then! What actually happened is that He gave the experience of collective consciousness to the whole group of gopikās and Radhā. This collective consciousness is what I call God.

Throughout our Inner Awakening program, you will realize you are a part of the collective consciousness. Not only are you a part, you are the collective consciousness. When we go deeper layer by layer, you will realize that you are one with everything. So automatically the diseases disappear. You start feeling the well being in the mental layer, the pranic layer, and all the other layers. You think you are an individual consciousness but if you peel the individual layers, you will experience that you are nothing but the collective consciousness! In Inner Awakening, that is what we do—the opening of your minds and inner space. You are taught the science of completion with yourself, with others, and with life.

You are initiated into the completion process to complete with your pains, desires, guilt and pleasures. You intensely write down and relive your own incompletions to relieve them permanently. People ask me why I ask them to write and relive all this when they already know it. Listen, by writing them down, they are opening their inner space in my presence, so that I can heal their space and initiate them into creating the right space. First of all you should understand that I do not heal; my presence heals. When the sun rises, the lotus blooms by itself. The sun need not go and open the petals of the lotus.

Similarly, in the presence of the Master, healing happens. Healing is not done, it simply happens. I can heal your body while it is in my presence. In the same way, if you open your mind and inner space and expose your incompletions, it can be healed. If you open it, the sun can heal it; the energy heals all the wounds. Inner Awakening is about opening up your energy layers one by one. When they open up, you experience completion with them and you experience God. Not only do you search for God, but you experience God as well. Completion is God! A pure mind is God itself and not something separate from it.

The Essence of Life is ‘Enriching’ We are all taught from childhood that there is a purpose to life. We are guided to work towards goals in life, which are almost always material goals. We are expected to live up to the expectations of our parents, later our teachers, much later our spouses and finally our children. There is no purpose to life, except to live in completion and to enrich others and yourself with completion. The purpose of life is to enrich life with completion. Life is for Enriching. Enriching is Life! How can we enrich and enjoy life if we get saddled with a bagful of goals that Jñānakarmasannyāsa Yogaḥ The Path Of Knowledge 319 bind us down to duties and obligations?

We are so deluded by incompletion and stressed out by all that is expected of us that we have no time to enrich ourselves and enjoy what we are doing we have no energy to enrich others for their expansion. Life is not about purpose or goals. Life is not lifestyle. Life is not about impressing people with how rich, clever, beautiful or skilled you are. Life is about enjoying the journey. It is not about the stressful incompletion of looking for the destination. When the path is right, when you enjoy the path, the destination is always right; it will always enrich you and others. Please listen from the space of listening!

I am giving you the essence of all my teachings and satsangs. Listen! Satsang means infusing the Truth again and again into you, helping you wake up and realize the decisive component of life. This is the essence of life itself! Please listen: Life is all about increasing your capability to infuse the Truth in you and others. That is all is the essence of life on planet Earth. The essence of life in the Universe is neither money nor infrastructure development, nor just some social power or relationships. The essence of human life is expanding your ability to infuse the great spiritual truths in you; the ability to enrich yourself and enrich others!

Only the person who realizes the purposelessness of life can have the strength to enrich himself and others, only he can go beyond duality and surpass envy, only he can be satisfied in any action with whatever profit comes from that action of its own accord, what Kṛṣṇa calls—yadṛcchā lābha santuṣṭo dvandvātīto vimatsaraḥ (4.22). Understand: Life has no purpose but it has a meaning. Living in completion and enriching others with completion is the meaning of life. You need to know this truth: if you are enriching with a vested interest, you will give up on people. Don’t have any vested interest. All the time, we are taught that life has a goal, a purpose, and we run behind various goals hoping to achieve satisfaction in life.

But life has no goal; the very life, the very path itself is the goal. When you realize this, you relax into the space of completion, you expand in your ability to infuse the great spiritual truths, enriching yourself and others with them, and you are unaffected by success or failure, although doing actions, as Kṛṣṇa says beautifully, ‘samaḥ siddhāv asiddhau ca kṛtvāpi na nibadhyate (4.22).’ Kṛṣṇa says here, ‘One who works for the sake of enriching sacrifice, mergesintotheknowledge—yajñāyācarataḥkarmasamagraṁpravilīyate (4.23).’ Enrich just for the sake of enriching. All these parasite patterns of jealousy and envy come when you think life has a goal and somebody else has been given something more than you to reach the goal.

When you understand that you are unique and Existence has equipped you with all that you need to fulfill all your desires, you will actually be able to live life in completion and work sincerely for the sake of enriching. Otherwise, you will only be running behind some goal or the other. You will envy others who you think are closer to that goal towards which you are running. You will be caught in this roller coaster of success and failure. Understand that the goal of life is like a mirage. It does not exist in reality, but it continuously creates illusions of its existence. Live life every moment in bliss and you can see the tremendous difference it makes to the very quality of your life.

A small history: This has happened as per the history at my native place, Tiruvannamalai, a cosmic spiritual ‘nerve center’ in India. The history goes that once Lord Śiva appeared as jyotistaṁbha, an infinite column of light to settle a conflict between Brahma, the Creator, and Viṣṇu, the Sustainer as to who was greater. As per Lord Śiva’s orders, Lord Brahma had to find Lord Śiva’s head and Lord Viṣṇu, the Sustainer, was asked to find Śiva’s feet. Whoever found their part first would be declared the greater one. The story has a beautiful meaning. Brahma is the consort of Sarasvatī, the goddess of knowledge. Viṣṇu is the consort of Lakṣmi, the goddess of wealth.

The history says that Brahma started searching for the Jñānakarmasannyāsa Yogaḥ The Path Of Knowledge 321 head. Viṣṇu started searching for the feet. Viṣṇu came back after some time and accepted, ‘I am not able to find Your feet; please forgive me. I only now realised that it is an impossible task!’ Brahma also realized he would not be able to find Śiva’s head. But instead of accepting the fact, he decided to cheat. He took a flower as a false witness to testify that he had touched and brought it from Śiva’s head. Understand the truth of this happening, Purāna—Viṣṇu is the embodiment of wealth. Brahma is the embodiment of intellect.

Neither by wealth nor by intellect can you achieve enlightenment. If you travel in the line of wealth, you will get frustrated, you will understand your incompletions, you will face depression of success and you will become really humble. You will fall, you will understand and complete with yourself to rise. This is symbolized by Lord Viṣṇu surrendering first to Lord Śiva, the embodiment of completion. Mahādev is completion! But if you travel in the line of intellect, you will never accept your inauthenticity that you are defeated. This is symbolized by Brahma bringing a false witness in order to escape defeat. If you travel in the line of external ego, ahaṁkarā or the path of material success in the outer world, at least at one point you will understand the futility of your pursuit and reclaim your space of completion.

You will experience depression of success. But the person who travels in the line of internal ego, mamakāra or the line of intellect, not only does he never achieve, he will not even be able to understand that he cannot achieve. The intellect, the ego becomes so sharp, so subtle; it will bring false claims and false techniques to say that he has achieved it. Those false claims are only these false flowers, the false witnesses. The ultimate knowledge can be reached only by surrendering to completion, to the four tattvas of integrity, authenticity, responsibility and enriching, not through intellect or wealth. The being which has surrendered to the four tattvas is brahmaṇyam bahuputratām—the favorite inheritor of the Cosmos. Then you are not caught in running behind the senses, behind the inner world or the outer world. Know Sacrifice And Be Purified