Verses 7.16–7.19🔗

Such a great soul is very rare. Kṛṣṇa now goes deeper. He talks about the Indian community system. Before entering into this subject, I bow down to the system that has been created by the ṛṣis (sages), which has made the whole spiritual science a reality. I bow down to the community system, which kept our scriptures alive, the spiritual science alive. In these modern times, abusing our social system created by the Ṛṣis has become a fashion! Especially in Southern India, abusing the Vedic system and abusing Swāmis has become the trend. If you want to show you are educated or an important person, abuse our Vedic system. You can immediately gain popularity.

Not only have we not understood our vedic system, we have also started disrespecting this great system created by our ancient masters. Please understand, only because of our Ṛṣis and because of the system that they created, Bhārata (India) itself is still alive today, which is the greatest miracle of God. No other culture has survived or lived for such a long time. All other cultures that came into existence after the Indian culture—Babylonian, Roman, Greek, etc.—knew how to fight, how to build empires and big cities in a professional way. They knew how to protect themselves. They were great warriors! Yet they were unable to survive. Today we see only their relics.

These cultures are not alive today. Of the Indian culture, the Indian system, we have at least 10,000 years of recorded history. There’s a beautiful book written by Swami Prakashananda Sarasvati. The book is a comprehensive encyclopedia of the authentic history of religion in Indian culture. According to him, sanātana dharma, the Indian culture is trillions of years old. And we have at least 10,000 years of recorded history of the Indian culture. No other country has been invaded as much as India. India has been invaded again and again by practically every culture, every country. Yet, no country has been invaded by India. India has never invaded any country.

Out of the forty-eight civilizations, which were over 5000 years old on the planet, the Hindu civilization, the vedic culture is the only one civilization that is still alive and flourishing! All the other forty-seven did not survive. Only because of this community system is the Indian culture alive today. Another important thing to understand when we read these things is—‘Man cannot live without creating a community.’ Man is a social animal. He creates some form of community or other. You cannot say that the United States does not have some form of community system. In other countries also the community system is there. However, these community systems are based upon money.

When I went to Brazil, I gave a discourse to a large company called Petrobras. One man asked, ‘How do you justify the community system in Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 523 India? The high caste people look at the low caste people in a disrespectful way. How do you justify this?’ Of course, there are a few issues in Indian culture also. Indians made mistakes in the sense they missed the spirit with which the community system was developed, and started following the letter. Some mistakes happened. That’s true. However, the whole community system cannot be labeled wrong because of a few mistakes. For example, if someone has a tumor in his body, the tumor must be operated on and removed.

You cannot straightaway kill the person! We can’t abandon the whole person because of the tumour. And it is we who committed mistakes, and now we are abusing the whole system. I told him, ‘Yes, one or two mistakes happened. But look at the developed countries or so-called cultured countries. If you enter an airplane and walk to the economy class past the first class, watch the way the first class passengers look at you! Have you observed how passengers in first class look at you? Just by observing, you can see how disrespectfully they look at you.’ Don’t think there is no community or class system in other countries.

In every country, there is a community and class system. The Indian community system The Vedic Ṛṣis at least created the community and caste system based upon intelligence and wisdom. In other cultures, the community system was created based upon money and power. The countries where the rulers are kṣatriyas (warrior class), are the ones who create the community system based upon power. The more powerful a person is, the more respected he is. In other countries, people who do business, the business class people, control the whole system. There the the wealthy people are respected more. Indiaistheonlycountrywherepeoplewhorespectedintelligenceand wisdom created the whole system. The system was created based upon intelligence, based upon wisdom.

So that is why, in India, the more wisdom a person carries, the more spiritual he is, he more he is respected. The whole social system was created based upon sharing from an enriching consciousness. Understand, you can create anything only when you see it and experience it from the state of enriching consciousness. Man must contribute something to enrich the community by doing actions in the enriching state. Let me describe the spirit with which the whole system was created, and how we abused it. First, the whole system is not based upon our birth. It is based upon our character. Kṛṣṇa says again and again that it is based upon our guṇas (nature), based upon our attitude towards life.

A person who works driven by fear, one who works out of fear, belongs to the working class called śūdra. A person who works out of greed, belongs to the merchant or business class called vaiśya. A person who works to get attention or to prove that he is superior, belongs to the kṣatriya community. A person who works out of gratitude from the enriching consciousness, expressing his bliss, is a brāhmaṇa. This was how people were categorized in those days. Everybody must contribute something to enrich the society. A person may enrich by sharing his time if he has nothing else. A person who shares his time is a worker, a śūdra.

He belongs to the working class. A person who enriches by sharing products, has time and a little bit of intelligence to create products, is a vaiśya, a merchant. A person who enriches by sharing confidence, who gives courage to the whole community, is a kṣatriya, a warrior! He unites the whole group as a community in a solid way by giving confidence, by sharing his confidence. A person who enriches by sharing his knowledge, bliss or spiritual wisdom, is a brāhmaṇa. This type of division is completely based upon our role, the role we play in the community, which is based upon our character. In no way is it related to our birth.

This is the spirit with which the whole system was created by the Ṛṣis. Here nobody is higher and nobody is lower. In the course of time, one or two mistakes happened. But because of that we can’t say that the whole system is wrong. Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 525 caturvidhā bhajante māṁ janāḥ sukṛtino’rjuna I ārto jijñasurartharthī jñānī ca bharataṛṣabha II 7.16 ‘O best among the Bhārata, four kinds of pious men begin to render devotional service unto Me: the distressed, the desirer of wealth, the inquisitive, and he who searches for knowledge of the Absolute.’ Here Kṛṣṇa talks about those who approach the Divine and the ways in which they approach the Divine.

Man is centered on seven basic emotions. Basically we live and work based on these seven emotions: greed, fear, worry, attention-need (name and fame), comparison and jealousy, ego and the last one, the seventh emotion, deep discontentment. These are the qualities with which man lives and he works. Man is centered on these seven different emotions. These seven emotions are seven energy centers that supply energy to us, fuel for us. Everything that we do in life is rooted in one of these seven emotions. If we are centered on greed, we approach God in the same way. Goddess Lakṣmi (goddess of wealth) appeals to us. Or we continuously run behind Kubera (Lord of wealth) and perform Kubera pūjā (worship of Kubera); we continuously repeat the concept of Kubera.

When we feel we are missing something, we try to get fulfillment by creating our own God and approaching Him in that mold. We approach the Divine with the same emotion, the same feeling that we miss in our being. One more thing: When we become mature, we approach the same Lakṣmi as Jñāna Lakṣmi (goddess of wisdom as wealth)! We pray to the same goddess to give us wisdom, to give us knowledge. According to our maturity we project and see the Divine. Understand, there’s nothing wrong in approaching the Lord from greed. There’s nothing wrong in starting our life with prayers for boons. However, we should not end our life also with prayers.

Then there is something wrong. It’s a good start, but a bad end! Vivekananda beautifully says, ‘It’s good to be born in the church, but not to die there.’ Before we die, we should grow out of it. We must become mature; we must realize the other dimensions of the Divine within us. In prayer, we pray to God; in meditation, we become God! Prayers give us immediate results. Praying to that higher principle or to the Divine is not wrong, yet it is not enough. Whereas in meditation, we become that higher principle or the Divine to which we constantly pour out our prayers. This is permanent. The Divine is nothing but a mirror; we see our own reflection.

And whatever we do to the Divine comes back to us. The more we understand, the more we grow and relate with the Divine in a more mature way. Otherwise we are confused and caught like a drunkard. A small story: A man returns home very late, completely drunk. Unable to walk, he somehow makes his way into the house, stumbles over a table and breaks a piece of glass. Not only does he break a piece of glass, the glass cuts him badly. He goes to the bathroom and tries to bandage himself, looking in the mirror. Then slowly, without making a sound, he enters the bedroom and falls asleep.

The next morning, his wife starts her enquiry, ‘What happened? What did you do last night?’ Hereplies,‘Ididn’tdoanything.Iamok.’ Thewifesays,‘No,tellme whyyouwerelate.’ He says, ‘I went and had a few drinks.’ She says, ‘That’s ok, but didyouhurtyourself?’ He replies, ‘No, I did not hurt myself.’ She asks, ‘Then why did you put so many bandages on the mirror?’ Instead of putting the bandages on himself, he put the bandages on the mirror! If we are drunk, if we are unaware, we land up doing the same thing! We would do everything to the mirror. Catching the mirror and catching the form is one and the same. If we put the bandage on the mirror, we can never be healed.

The mirror should be used to find out where to put the bandage on us. In the same way, we should use God or the Divine like a Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 527 mirror to find out where we have a problem. Don’t miss and try to do the healing work on the mirror. If we do that we will miss the whole thing. So be very clear: Starting life with prayers is a good start, but it is not the right place to end. We choose God based on our Emotions At the next level, the person is centered on fear and so he worships gods who will protect him.

He does the Sudarśana homa (homa refers to making offerings into a consecrated fire; Sudarśana homa refers to the fire ritual done for general protection), or he continuously does Mṛtyuñjaya homa (fire ritual done to avoid untimely death, improve longevity) for protection. He continuously goes about worshipping some planet or god. That’s why tribal gods have big swords. In many Indian villages also, you see gods with swords and big weapons. People who are fear-centered worship gods with weapons. All this is ok, nothing wrong, but it is not the place to stop. The third level is, approaching the Divine because of worry. Again, worry is nothing but mixture of fear and greed.

With worry, we approach the Divine in the same way. We pray to the Divine, ‘Please help me stop worrying. Please help me come out of these worries.’ At this point, we may do yoga or meditation for the sake of peace—not for spiritual Enlightenment, but to calm our mind, to get a little peace. The next level is based on attention-need. We approach the Divine for the sake of name and fame, for the sake of capturing the attention of people. Not only do we pray to the Divine, we gradually start representing the Divine also. If you go to India, you will see that the people who run temples behave almost like God.

It’s a big problem. I tell people: Unless you are mature, never take up the task of running a temple. One person asked me, ‘I don’t believe in spirituality. But, I want to run a temple as a social service. Shall I do it?’ I told him, ‘Never make that mistake! If you are not spiritually mature and you enter this work, surelyyouwilltroubleyourselfandothers.Byandby,itwillbecomeapure name-and-fame game! And naturally you will not only hurt yourself, you will hurt others too.’ There’s a beautiful ritual performed during the installation of a deity in a temple, called prāṇa pratiṣṭha. The scriptural instruction is that the person who installs the deity must be enlightened. Otherwise, the person who installs the deity receives the collective negativity of the people who pray in that temple.

It may be a frightening idea, but don’t think it’s a lie. It has meaning. The person who takes up this job without spiritual maturity will naturally end up with name and fame problems. He creates problems for himself and others. He starts representing the Divine and acts on behalf of the Divine. The people who stand and pray in front of God, the deity, are gullible because they are caught in fear and greed. You can easily exploit them. They are waiting for a solution. That is the reason why repeatedly, it is emphasized that only an enlightened person should run a spiritual organization. If we give a spiritual project to a person who has only the attitude of a businessman, he turns the whole thing into a business.

The Divine cannot be brought under accounts and mathematical calculations! The whole thing loses its spirit. That is why Masters emphasize that we need spiritual maturity before we enter into these activities. The next is comparison and jealousy. This is an extreme step. People always compare with others, and they feel jealous of the others’ position, their status or their wealth. A person who compares and feels jealous can never rest. Look into what makes us run in our lives. Why are we in a hurry? Listen, don’t be in a hurry! We don’t need to run. If we are centered on jealousy and comparison, again we approach the Divine from that angle and only for that purpose.

Expressing the Divine It is hard to imagine the extent of foolishness people go to if they are caught in jealousy and comparison. One is constantly caught in: this is mine; that is mine; this is the way I do it, etc. We need to realize that each of us is unique. God is not an engineer; He is an artist. He sculpts each Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 529 of us with His hands, lovingly and uniquely. Therefore, each one of us is different. When we approach the Divine with the mentality of jealousy and comparison, we are caught again. People ask me, ‘Swamiji, in our epics, we read about gods and goddesses fighting out of jealousy, greed, and anger.

What do you say about that?’ Listen, those epics were written for people caught in jealousy, so that they could relate with them. Don’t think that the Divine makes those mistakes! But if people think so, it means that they are relating with Him in their own mold! Even rituals are done only so that people feel comfortable with God and they start coming closer to Him. When people witness the ceremony of Gods getting married, they feel comfortable and safe. To make people feel relaxed, these stories are told and expressed. You see, unless the Divine is expressed in our language, we will not be able to relate with It.

That is why these stories are written. Next is the person who is centered on ego. This is slightly more difficult to deal with! The person who is centered on ego tries to get name and fame for himself. He starts claiming that he is divine without expressing the qualities of the Divine. That is why there’s a beautiful Upaniṣad verse that says: If you are divine, express it by your quality. Let people recognize it by your quality, not by your words. What you do speaks for you; what you speak will not do anything for you. What you do, the way in which you work, speaks for you.

Your words will not work for you. There’s a short, beautiful Upaniṣad called Paramahamsa Upaniṣad. It says, a Paramahamsa should not wear the saffron robe. Actually, technically speaking, I am not supposed to wear this saffron robe. They say we are not respected the way we have to be if we wear this saffron robe. By our very quality, because of our Divinity, we should be respected. The divine qualities expressed in our life, that alone should be respected, and not this robe or tradition. It should come because of the enlightened qualities expressed through us. Yesterday there was a question: How do we know if a person is egoistic or he is a real spiritual Master?

Please listen. A person who is egoistic can only play with words. Only a person who has achieved Enlightenment can radiate the energy to reproduce the same experience in you. If you get the experience, then be very clear your Master is enlightened. He is divine. He is the embodiment of spiritual experience and knowledge. If you get the words but not the experience, be very clear, the person or the path you are following is not the Ultimate. Words are like the menu card. Experience is like the food. If you go to a restaurant and they give you a menu card and say, ‘Here is the menu card, but the food is not available here,’ can you call that a restaurant?

No! The menu card is not enough to satisfy your hunger. In spiritual life we cannot stop with just the menu card. The person who has approached the Divine with ego always tries to represent the Divine without having the solid experience himself. That is why the Upaniṣads again and again emphasize experience. If we don’t experience, there’s something seriously wrong with the person whom we are following. I always tell people, if you have not experienced anything with me, please follow some other person. It is easy to put the responsibility on the disciples and continuously blame them by saying: ‘You are not qualified, you are not practicing perfectly, you have not tried, and that is why you have not had any experience.’

This is a cunning way of cheating the disciple and evading the truth. The disciple comes to a Guru because the disciple has not yet experienced. And the Guru says, ‘You are imperfect and that is why you do not have spiritual experiences.’ To learn this, one doesn’t need a Guru: a spouse is sufficient! Anyway, this is what the spouses tell each other continuously. A true Master will reproduce in you the same experience that happened in him, no matter what your condition is. I am enlightened only if you can experience my enlightenment, not otherwise. Aim directly at the Divine. The person who approaches the Divine with ego gets everything and Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 531 boosts his own ego.

He never surrenders to the Divine. His ego becomes stronger by getting all the knowledge. Be very clear, these are the most dangerous people. Instead of surrendering their ego to the Divine, they strengthen their ego with their knowledge. Listen. Knowledge can be used in two ways. With this knowledge, you can surrender to the Divine; or with this knowledge, you can make others surrender to you! It is up to you how you use it. When we approach the Divine with ego, instead of surrendering our ego, we strengthen our ego with knowledge. Approach Me with Gratitude The next level is the ultimate level. In this level, we go to the Divine with the attitude of gratitude, with the ultimate gratitude.

Here, the whole relationship takes a different turn. We feel so grateful, so deeply connected to the Divine, that our whole life changes. We move from the first level of greed, where we pray to boon-giving gods, to the next level of fear where the gods who can protect us appeal to us. The next is worry. Buddha appeals to us if we are centered on worry because he appears to be so peaceful and calm. To the person who is centered on name and fame, gods who give name and fame appeal the most. In the same way as with gods, people also approach Masters from all these various levels.

I have seven kinds of people who approach me: One, people who approach me out of greed; two, people who approach me out of fear; three, people who approach me out of worry; four, people who approach me for name and fame; five, people who approach me out of jealousy and comparison; six, people who approach me out of ego, to strengthen their ego by saying, ‘I am a disciple of Paramahamsa Nithyananda. I am close to him. He knows my name.’ Just to have ego satisfaction they come to me; finally, seven—there are a few, very few who approach me out of gratitude. There’s one more problem with people who approach me out of greed.

Not only do they have greed, they also have their own ideas and fantasies about a Master. They come with a frame and see whether I fit into that frame or not. Also, I face a big problem because of my young age. Let me narrate to you an incident that happened in our India ashram: One day I was sitting alone at outdoors in the ashram, without my turban. I was sitting there on a small rock, enjoying the cool breeze. One well-read, elderly scholar came to me and asked, ‘I want to meet Swamiji. Where is he?’ I told him, ‘Please go and sit in the Ananda Sabha (meditation hall).

He will come in half an hour’s time.’ He went and sat in the meditation hall. He went and sat in the hall. After half an hour, I wore my turban and went there and was about to take my seat. This man said, ‘No! I want to meet the big Swamiji. I want to meet Guruji (master).’ Isaid,‘Pleaseforgiveme.InthisashramIamtheSwami.Whom doyouwanttomeet?’ He said, ‘I have heard about Paramahamsa Nithyananda. He healed my cousin. I want to see him.’ Then I told him his cousin’s name and the disease he had and that I had healed him. I told him, ‘I am Paramahamsa Nithyananda.’ You will be surprised; he was not ready to believe me.

He just stared at me. Then I said, ‘Usually, Swamis don’t carry any identity card in India. Still, if you don’t believe me, look at that photograph (on ashram signboard). See the name, and see that face. I am that Swami!’ You will be surprised! I tell you, this is the truth. He said, ‘I am not ready to learn from you.’ He did not speak to me, and also went away. Because of his strong fantasies and imagination about what a Guru should be like, he was not able to even relate with me! When we have such strong fantasy or imagination about things, we will not be able to relate with reality.

It is the same with fear; people who Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 533 come with fear will never be able to get rid of that fear. They will be stuck with that because fear itself is a fantasy. At different levels, people approach the Master or God. The more mature we are, the more we will feel connected to that person who will give us fulfillment. When we become mature, when we are above fear and greed, we will approach the same Master, the same God, with more maturity, with more intimacy. We will feel deeply connected to him. In Bhāgavatam (Hindu epic glorifying devotion onto incarnations), we learn about five different attitudes with which we normally relate with a Master or God: 1) Dāsa Bhāva—seeing God as a lord or master and oneself as a servant, as with Hanumān who saw Rāma as his master and served Him as a path for liberation.

2) Vātsalya Bhāva—seeing God as a divine child, as with Yaśodā who saw Kṛṣṇa as her son. 3) Sakha Bhāva—seeing God or the master as a friend, the way Arjuna related with Kṛṣṇa. 4) Mātṛ Bhāva—seeing God or the master as a father or mother, the way Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa related with goddess Kāli (representation of the divine mother). 5) Finally, the fifth attitude is madhura bhāva—seeing God as a beloved, the way Radhā saw Kṛṣṇa. This attitude needs a tremendous amount of maturity. Only if we experience the consciousness which is beyond the body, can we relate with the Divine with the attitude of a beloved, madhura bhāva. These are the five different bhāvas (attitudes or feeling connection) with which people relate with the Divine.

With different maturity levels, different attitudes suit our minds. The more mature we are, the more the gratitude happens. The less the maturity, the more we fill our life with prayers. Prayer is greed; confession is fear! That is why I say, ‘Gratitude is the greatest prayer, and thank you, the greatest mantra.’ When we go beyond prayer and confession, we experience gratitude. We experience the Divine. Kṛṣṇa explains how we can grow step-by-step, how we can reach the ultimate maturity, how we can create and experience the Divine at the ultimate level. Let us see how Kṛṣṇa explains the process step-by-step. What is the technique Kṛṣṇa offers us to grow in maturity and experience eternal consciousness?

Based on how we approach the Divine, only based on how mature we are, the whole community system has been created. How much we enrich and share with society depends on how mature we are. With the same maturity, we approach God also. If we feel money is missing in our lives, we go to the God who gives money. If we miss knowledge, we go to Sarasvatī (the goddess of knowledge), who gives knowledge. If we feel insecure, we go to the god who protects us; we go to Mother Durgā or Kāli. If we miss spiritual experience, the ultimate experience, then we go to the divine incarnations, the ultimate expressions of the Divine.

Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Four types of people come to Me—caturvidhā bhajante māṁ ’ He explains the four types as four communities. The first are the people who are distressed, i.e., the working class or śūdra. The second are the people who desire wealth, i.e., the business people or vaiśya. The third are inquisitive people who continuously enquire, continuously ask, ‘Tataḥ kim? Tataḥ kim? Tataḥ kim?’ (What next?) A kṣatriya, for example, never rests because he constantly asks, ‘What next? What next? What next?’ The fourth is the person who searches for knowledge of the Absolute: He is a brāhmaṇa. ‘All four come to Me, all four reach Me, but from different levels.’

From different levels all four go to the same God, but they will not experience Him in the same way. They experience Him in different ways, according to their maturity. As long as you are caught in fear or greed, you will be attracted and go only to those types of gods. It is easy to go to a temple and pray, but difficult to go to a living Master and meditate. Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 535 It is for mature people, not for everyone In the temple we see thousands; but in spiritual places, we see a few hundred. It is not for all; it’s a luxury!

Spirituality is a Luxury Spirituality is a luxury; only a few intelligent people can afford it! The price of spirituality is the limit of our suffering! Only if we have had enough suffering can we afford to get into spirituality. It is only for people who have understood that they have suffered. There are two things: It is not only the suffering, but the understanding that we suffer. This understanding is what I call intelligence. This intelligence happens even beyond age and experience. Just a glimpse of life is enough if this intelligence is there; we will understand how suffering happens and we will not get caught in it! Both—the suffering and the understanding—are needed to enter into spiritual life.

‘The person who approaches Me out of love and gratitude, is the best person, for I am dear to him and he is dear to Me.’ By this one verse, Kṛṣṇa ends the whole conversation, the whole concept. teṣāṁ jñānī nitya yukta eka-bhaktir viśiṣyate I priyo hi jñānino ‘tyartham ahaṁ sa ca mama priyaḥ II 7.17 Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Starting at different levels is ok, but don’t stop there.’ We can start or take off from any level. However we should not stop and stagnate there. It is like failing to proceed to the second standard from the first. It is as if we want to stay in the same cozy, familiar level.

It takes many lifetimes to understand and achieve this maturity. When I say it takes many lives, some think, ‘Let me take some more lives and become mature.’ Now, that’s a big problem. Whenever we speak, we must make things very clear, otherwise you can’t imagine how many different ways people will interpret it! A small story: Once, a great scholar recounted the story of Hariścandra. Most people in India know the story of Hariścandra, a king who lived to uphold the truth with integrity and authenticity, and sold his wife for the sake of the truth. Just to keep his promise, he sold his wife. Such was his greatness.

The scholar narrated the whole story. After narrating the story, he asked one person, ‘What did you understand from this story?’ The person said, ‘Master, I understood that truth is the most important thing in life. We should give up everything for the sake of the truth. Truth is the ultimate.’ The scholar was pleased. He asked the next person, ‘What did you understand?’ The man said, ‘Master, I understood that in an emergency, it is ok to sell your wife.’ From the same story, two people have two different understandings! So be very clear, don’t miss the understanding. A common saying is, ‘As many Masters, so many paths.’ However I say, ‘As many disciples, so many paths!’

The Master may utter the same truth to his disciples, yet each understands and interprets in his or her own way. They all approach the Divine, but from different planes. Hence the attitude, the context with which one approaches matters how one experiences the Divine. Here Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Out of these, the wise is always devoted to Me. He is the best person.’ To start with, you can start at any level, yet you must strive to reach the Ultimate. And please don’t think, ‘Oh! Kṛṣṇa says it will take many lives; let me take some more lives and become mature.’ No! If you can enter into the knowledge this moment, the experience can happen to you this very moment.

You don’t need to postpone. Every moment is a new birth for you and every moment is death. The outgoing breath is death, and the incoming breath is birth. So be very clear, every moment you die and take birth. This moment can be a new birth for you. The person who understands this truth takes a new birth. He is called dvijā. A person who is initiated is called dvijā in Saṃskrit, which means twice-born or reborn. All Sannyāsis are twice-born or dvijā. ‘Reborn’ does not refer to being reborn physically, but at the being level. They give Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 537 birth to themselves. So understand that in this moment, a new birth can happen to you.

He Is Very Dear To Me Kṛṣṇa says: ahaṁ sa ca mama priyaḥ—He is dear to Me, and I am dear to him. He is in Me and I am in him. Kṛṣṇa says beautifully that He is in you and you are in Him. The moment you understand this ultimate Truth, the moment you approach the Divine with the right attitude, you become the Divine. All you need to do is change your attitude. Over! Change your inner space and the whole thing is done. Please listen, one important thing. The Master or the Divine is in you only when you engage yourself in enriching service to Him. Sitting in front of the Master or the Divine, just enjoying the form, is not the enriching service Kṛṣṇa talks about.

Then you are only chasing Him from a purely selfish motive. When you devote yourself to the divine mission, you become a devotee. That is when you become dear to Him. Your worship is no longer selfish. It is towards the mission of the Divine, in whatever form. I tell my followers: Stop sitting in front of me, gazing and waiting for words to drop. Work for my mission. Enrich yourself and others by helping me to transform people. As long as you sit and gaze, you chase me. When you work for my mission, I chase you. I shall always be with you. Here Kṛṣṇa says clearly, ‘one who knows Me, dwells in Me.

Being engaged in My mission, he attains Me, āsthitaḥ sa hi yuktātmā mām evānuttamāṁ gatim (7.18).’ When the scriptures say, ‘Follow the Master,’ they do not mean to follow the form. They advise you to follow the teachings of the Master, so that you can be the master too. They tell you to follow the institution of the Master, his community, his sanga. When we follow these three, the Master, his teachings and his mission, we are on the path to liberation. Only after many births and deaths can we relate to an enlightened person. We will not be able to relate to an Enlightened Master unless we undergo many births and deaths.

I told you about the seven steps in spiritual progress—1) go around many temples, perform many rituals, pilgrimages, etc. 2) do rituals by yourself 3) concentrate and pray to one God 4) instead of rituals, chant verses in praise of God 5) instead of chanting, visualize His form and meditate upon it 6) instead of meditating on any form, fall into that same consciousness, realize that the form and your soul are one and the same, that God and the soul are one and the same 7) experience reality! Don’t think these seven steps will be done in one lifetime. People take hundreds of lives to achieve this maturity. It is rare to achieve this maturity.

Kṛṣṇa says: sa mahātmā sūdurlabhaḥ (7.19)—indeed, very rare is it to see such great souls who have achieved that maturity. It is easy to relate with gods in the temple because they don’t demand discipline or purity from us. We can pray to Him, do whatever we want, and think He has blessed us and go away. However, relating with a living enlightened Master is difficult. People ask me, ‘Why do Masters become popular after their death?’ This is because it is easy to cheat ourselves with a photograph. We can do whatever we want and project everything as His blessings. And most importantly, we don’t have to give up our ego with dead Masters.

Connecting with dead Masters is easy because they don’t demand our ego. We don’t need to surrender. That is why there will be large crowds with dead Masters and temples. Sometimes we sit beneath that photograph and represent the Master. But this whole game is nothing but an ego fulfilling game. But with a living enlightened Master, we need to transform our life. We need to experience the truth. He will not let us sleep or rest. He will haunt us until we realize the truth. He will not let us do what we want. He will not fulfill our ego. I always tell people, ‘Dead masters are dead. The living Master is death!’

The living Master will be death for us, death for our ego. We cannot play our games with him. We must grow and become mature beings. We cannot play the same old game and put his name in front. He shakes us. He awakens us. Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 539 Living Master Is A Nightmare, SiṂha Svapna! Living Masters are nightmares. That is why people are afraid to come near a living Master. We can’t play the same game with him. The game will be his! He is the director. Only a person who has understood, after many, many births and deaths, who has matured, who has enough knowledge, surrenders to Me, surrenders to the living Master, says Kṛṣṇa.

In India, especially in Tamil Nadu, kids play with wooden dolls. For one doll, they will drape a sāri and say, ‘This is mother.’ They will dress another in a dhoti and call it father, then brother, and so on. They say, ‘Mother is cooking. Father is going to office,’ and place the father doll in a small car. And then, they will say, ‘Sister is going to school.’ They will make cry sounds as though the sister cries not wanting to go to school. This seems like a game for kids. But please understand, you play the same game too in your life. You catch somebody and say, ‘You are my mother, you are my father, you are my wife, you are my husband, you are my son, and you are my brother.’

And if that doll doesn’t behave according to your frame or your image, you say, ‘It’s not a good doll,’ and you throw it away and cry. In the same way, when somebody doesn’t behave according to your frame, you feel they hurt you. You want all the people in your life to play their role the way you want them to play. When that doesn’t happen, you feel hurt. Then, suddenly, you die. You leave the body. When you go to another place, in your next birth, you again catch one more set of dolls and start the same game. Sometimes you bring dolls into the game, sometimes you throw dolls out of the game, sometimes you fire and sometimes you pamper them.

If you don’t have enough dolls, you get some cats or dogs to play with. Again and again, you play the same game. Only a person who is a little mature thinks, ‘What am I doing? How many times will I do this same psychodrama?’ Please listen! The whole thing is a psychodrama! Whether it is a relationship, or whether it is life itself, it is nothing but a psychodrama. You have an agenda. Society has taught you that, as a father, as a husband, or as a son, you should behave in a certain pre-defined manner. The person who understands that he is playing the same drama again and again, has achieved knowledge, the real intelligence about what is happening.

Then naturally you surrender. You surrender unto Me, asserts Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘One who understands that the cause of all causes is Me, realizes the ultimate divine. He realizes thus, ‘How many times will I play the same drama? How many times will I make the same mistakes?’ Until this realization, the whole thing is repeated again and again without end, without the experience.’ ‘The person who has understood, who has knowledge of this truth, surrenders unto Me, surrenders to the Master, an enlightened being— jñānavān māṁ prapadyate, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all there is. Such a great soul is rare—vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā sūdurlabhaḥ (7.19).’

Only a person who has achieved this knowledge sees and relates with the Master in the real sense. There’s a beautiful verse that says, ‘Even if you have seen an enlightened Master once, you will become enlightened.’ Some people ask me, ‘Why haven’t I become enlightened yet, Swamiji?’ Be very clear, ‘Never think that you are seeing me; never think that by seeing through your eyes, you can see the Divine. You can see my form, but not me. Even if you have seen many Enlightened Masters, never think that you have seen them.’ The attitude or the space from which you have seen them plays a major role. If you went to them with fear or greed, you went to a demigod and not to an enlightened Master.

Only if you go with an attitude of love and gratitude, with maturity, only then do you see a living enlightened Master. The moment you see an enlightened being as He is, you will become enlightened. There’s no doubt about it. I Am In Your Heart