Verses 5.14–5.17🔗

Kṛṣṇa gives a very deep understanding here. He says, ‘I do not create activities or make people do or connect with the fruits of the actions. All this is done by the material nature of humans.’ na kartṛtvaṁ na karmāṇi lokasya sṛjati prabhuḥ I na karma phala saṁyogaṁ svabhāvas tu pravartate II 5.14 Kṛṣṇa is talking about the creation of the Universe itself here, not just about individuals. Understand, nothing in this Universe can be created or destroyed. When I say, nothing, I mean nothing. Everything that exists has always existed in some form or the other. It will continue to exist in some form or the other. Science also says the same thing that matter and energy are Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 385 inter-convertible and energy can never be destroyed.

The beauty of the Vedas is that they say what science is now understanding. What is the last line of science was the first line of the Upaniṣads. The End or The Beginning? The Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad opens with the words—Īśā vāsyaṁ idaṁ sarvaṁ—meaning, ‘all that exists arises from energy.’ Now after so much scientific research, quantum physics has concluded that matter and energy are one and the same. But thousands of years ago, this was the first statement in the Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad, which says everything is energy. People ask me, ‘Who created this Universe?’ I tell you, the Universe itself is the creator, the created and the creation. If the creator and the creation were different, it means that the Creator is more intelligent than thecreation.ButthecreationandtheCreatorareoneandthesame;theyare both divine.

That is what is meant by līla, the divine play. The unmanifest, avyakta, the formless Energy made itself manifest, vyakta in the creation. The Universe created itself. Why? We cannot answer the question ‘why’ for this in the logical plane. If we get caught in the ‘why’ in the beginning, we will be stuck with it forever. Understand, these questions cannot be answered by the mind since we cannot answer these questions logically. God created man in His own mould so that He could experience Divinity. You see, God as God, as the avyakta or unmanifest, as pure energy cannot see the Divinity outside of Himself. When He is everything, how can He see Himself separate?

Everything exists as a part of Him; so He cannot look to see the Divine outside. It is like this: Can you say how you experience, how you feel your hand from inside your body? No! On the other hand, can you describe how you feel when you touch your own hand with the other hand? You will have some feeling, do you not? You can feel it because from outside, your two hands are separate; you can perceive them as different parts of your body. Similarly, God can experience and express Himself through man. Man is a part of God just like both the hands are a part of the same body and can be felt separately.

Now, just like one hand in itself cannot understand that the hand it is touching is a part of the same body man cannot understand that he is a part of God. What does it take for the hand to understand that the other hand is actually a part of the bigger whole called the body? It takes the cognition that the entire body is a single entity with the different parts of the body being integrated in it. Similarly, it takes the understanding of our consciousness to see that we, the individual consciousness, are a part of the Whole and are an integral and connected part of the collective consciousness.

The individual ego can never understand the truth that it exists as a part of the Whole. The ego has to dissolve for the truth to be revealed and understood. It is as if we want to see our own beauty, we can do that when we see our own reflection in a mirror. The mirror in which God sees Himself is man. Can the reflection be a separate entity from what it is reflecting? No! Man can experience and express the divine in him. The game of life is all about man trying to realize the Divine in him and the Divine trying to express itself through man. What Kṛṣṇa teaches here is actually a sūtra, a technique.

Understand, when you are disturbed or angered by anything, the disturbance cannot disappear suddenly because it is a physiological happening. Your hormones have been released into your system; the body has been poisoned. But when you remain in the space of completion as a witness, even though the anger cannot go away immediately, there is the awareness in you that will dissipate the effect of the anger that remains in the periphery. The center, the core is untouched. You are now aware of these two points, the core and the periphery as two distinct identities co-existing. This one glimpse will enrich you and become the strong support for you. The next time you see that you are being swayed by incompletions, you will remember this and such awareness will make you conscious and complete.

Only when you are unconscious and ignorant you come Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 387 under the sway of emotions or incompletions. This is what is meant by the term ‘being centered in completion.’ You are no longer a slave to your emotions, or to others. Otherwise, anybody can shake you. They can push and pull you in different directions and you won’t be integrated and whole. Kṛṣṇa separates morality from spirituality in these verses. Heaven and hell are purely psychological. They exist only in our heads. You don’t commit sin and then go to hell. You commit sin because you are in hell. When you are not aware, when you are disturbed and not at peace with yourself, you are in hell.

The quality of your inner space is what decides whether you are in heaven or hell. Please listen: live with the consciousness of completion and you can never make a mistake. Morality is just skin-deep. Understand, there is no such thing as virtue or sin. Everything is energy. What exists is energy. Energy cannot be categorized as good and bad. Emotions such as lust and anger are also energy. These so-called base emotions arise due to our own ignorance. When our awareness and understanding transform the base emotions, they become higher emotions. For instance, lust becomes love when the understanding happens. Just live every moment in bliss. Consciously decide that you will face every moment with deep completion, with deep ecstasy.

The very decision will transform your life. Not only will you feel total and complete, you will radiate the bliss to others as well. As long as the mind comes into play, liberation and bondage cannot exist independently. They depend on each other. Anything can be felt by the mind only in contrast, in opposites. We are in ignorance when we think that liberation is some state that we need to achieve. The moment we want to achieve or possess something, it will simply slip from our hands, like sand or water from our hands the moment we close our fist tightly. The light of knowledge dispels the ignorance and we realize the state in which we have always been.

We cannot remove the darkness directly. This is what I mean by something having a negative existence. Ignorance also can be removed by just shining the light of knowledge on it! Just like the rising sun removes the darkness of the night, the light of knowledge dispels the darkness of ignorance. What is that ignorance that we need to remove by bringing in the light of knowledge? Whatever we do, we want to be happy, right? But the strange truth is, we are already pure bliss. I am not saying we have achieved bliss. I am saying we are bliss. Each one of us is pure bliss. The problem is we are not ready to accept this ultimate truth and relax, because the moment we accept this, we no longer have a separate personality; the ego has no basis to exist.

It is our ego that makes us feel incomplete. The ego needs us to be a solid entity for it to exist. The mind always yearns to be occupied, running behind something. Only then can it survive. When we are pure bliss, we have nothing to run after because we are complete unto ourselves. If we look deeply, we can see clearly that it is us who choose to stay in suffering. We think that we want bliss and that we want to drop our ego. But deep down, we choose to stay with our ego. Surrender Leads to Liberation Kṛṣṇa gives us another technique to liberate ourselves. He says surrender leads to liberation, and happens when one’s intelligence is focused on Him.

When we believe and cognize that there is a life force that is conducting this Universe and is taking care of us, we relax. When we relax, we can live and function at our peak potential. We can express our creativity and live spontaneously. We experience great freedom and liberation. This is surrender. This is true knowledge too. This is the knowledge that cannot be taught or picked up. The Master can simply transmit it when our being is ready to receive it. All we need is the faith, the courage of authenticity to allow the supreme intelligence to guide us, to surrender our mind that oscillates between the extremes.

The knowledge removes the ignorance. All our Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 389 problems are due to lack of knowledge, due to ignorance. Whether it is fear or greed or worry or anger, all these emotions are able to control us because we are not aware. We allow them to unconsciously control us. When we bring a deep completion into anything, the solution simply stands out. When we go deeply into any emotion with deep awareness and complete with it, we can flower out of it. This is true knowledge, the knowledge of completion. In times of extreme self-doubt, doubt your ego. Never doubt the Master. The Master is the only truth you can cling to when all else gives way.

The Master is the only one who can guide you when everything seems to be confusing. So, first of all, you need to complete with this self-doubting pattern of constantly doubting yourself. Because you constantly doubt yourself, you doubt the truths of completion, the four tattvas (principles), you doubt everything. You doubt you. Because you doubt you, you doubt me. Please listen, if you doubt you, you will doubt me also because I am inside you more than you exist in you! If you are occupying twenty to thirty percent of you, I am occupying sixty to seventy percent of you. So, naturally if you doubt you, you will doubt me.

And, if you have anger towards you, you will have anger towards me! Surrender can happen at different levels. Understand that the Masterlivesinallthreeenergies—thebody,histeachingsandmission.The Master has no vested interests, no desires to fulfill in life. Masters come out of sheer compassion for the whole of mankind, to dispel the ignorance of seekers, to show them the light. The Dog And The Dog-eater