Verses 7.20–7.23🔗

He says: I am in everyone’s heart as the Paramātman (super soul). As soon as one desires to worship a particular deity, I make his faith steady so that he can devote himself to that particular deity. Please understand that when He says ‘deity’ or ‘demigod’, He doesn’t mean the Supreme. Even if you approach Kṛṣṇa out of fear or greed, you approach only a demigod. When He says the word demigod, He means the attitude with which we approach the Divine; how we approach the Divine. With the right approach, even if you approach a demigod, he will be supreme! He will give you enlightenment. With the wrong approach, even if you approach Kṛṣṇa, you will have only material benefits.

There is a beautiful Līlā, happening of a divine play from Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa’s life. A rich man prayed to Kṛṣṇa to become a king. Twice a day, morning and evening he repeated, ‘Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa.’ He always asked Kṛṣṇa thus, ‘Kṛṣṇa, please give me a kingdom. Kṛṣṇa, I want to become a king.’ There was another poor lady, who had only one cow. With that milk she made a little butter and some sweets and offered it to Kṛṣṇa. The whole day she sat and chanted Kṛṣṇa’s name. Suddenly one day Kṛṣṇa appeared and responded to both of them. This man, who had asked for a kingdom, became a king. And in the case of this lady who prayed everyday toKṛṣṇa, her cow died.

Nārada asked Kṛṣṇa, ‘What is this, Kṛṣṇa? That man who repeats your name only twice a day has been made a king by you. This lady who remembers you 24 hours a day, got deprived of her only cow. What is this? Is it fair?’ Kṛṣṇa says, ‘That man only wants the kingdom. He came to Me only for that. I am a utility to him. So I blessed him with what he wants. But for her, I was her whole life. There was only one small hindrance, only one thing that stood between her and Me, and that was the cow! I took that away. I removed that hindrance also.

Now she has come to Me and completely become Me!’ Whatever our approach to the Divine is, it plays an important role in our spiritual progress. If we approach Kṛṣṇa out of fear or greed, we worship a demigod. But Kṛṣṇa says we are not wrong, but just that it is not enough. Kṛṣṇa is not here to discourage us. Understand, nothing is wrong, but it is not enough, it is not complete. That is not the place to stop. It is a good place to have a visa, but not to have a green card or citizenship. Here, the planets or palaces of demigods are good places to visit, but not the right place to stay.

Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Because I am in everyone’s heart as the super soul, the Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 543 moment you desire to worship some demigod, I shall make your faith steady, so you can devote yourself to that particular deity.’ Stages of Seeking Let me describe how a seeker usually travels through all these paths and eventually reaches. When you start as a normal seeker, you hear about all kinds of rituals. You hear that a particular pūjā (worship), a particular homa (fire ritual) will give some specific benefit, and you starts doing these things. On Friday, you fast for Devi (the divine mother), on Saturday, you fast for Bālāji (another name for Lord Viṣṇu), on Sunday you fast for some other god, on Monday you fast for Śiva, on Tuesday for Skanda (Lord Subrahmanya), on Thursday for the Guru (the master), and so on.

This is the way it starts. Then slowly, you not only go to all these pūjās and homas, you also go to many different temples. After some time, you understand that these rituals and trips to the temples are too much. Then you think, ‘Why let somebody else do these things for me? Let me directly do it and relate with the Divine.’ You start your own temple in your own home. You engage in worship. This happens when you become a little mature. You think that you should feel directly connected to the Divine. ‘Let me do it by myself,’ you think. The first level in spirituality is going around visiting all the temples, watching all the types of offerings.

The second level is doing it yourself. The third level is realizing, ‘The Divine is there in all the gods, in all the forms. But I think I feel more attracted towards this one god, this particular god. So let me concentrate on worshipping the Divine in this form.’ Having one form and offering only to that form is iśṭa niṣṭa. This is the third level. The fourth level happens when you think, ‘More than these types of offerings, sounds imbued with energy is more powerful. Let me chant the sacred verses.’ Understand: surrendering through the body is pūjā; surrendering through words is japa, chanting verses in praise of the Lord; surrendering through the mind is jñāna, wisdom or knowledge of the Self.

So here you think, ‘Why not chant the name of God?’ You start repeating the name of your favorite deity. At every level of completion, different gods appeal to you; at every level, different Gurus or masters appeal to you, and you grow in your feeling connection or devotion with them. When you are at the level of going to pilgrimage places, people who guide you to these pilgrimage centers appeal to you. When you come to the level of pūjā and homā, other people who also do these rituals appeal to you! The person who teaches you pūjā appeals and connects to you. Even the people who teach you any skills like dancing, acting, martial arts, or even those who educate you in your studies and profession, they connect to you.

The pūjā ācarya or anyone who teaches and inspires you becomes your guru. Next, when you come to the level of completion where you begin focusing and offering to only one deity, the deity becomes your guru. This is iśṭa niṣṭa. Iśṭa niṣṭa means bowing down, revering only your iśṭa, your chosen deity. Wherever you bow down, even if you bow down to your father or mother, you should know that I bow down to my iśṭa who is in your heart—your ānanda gandha. Next, after some time you think, ‘Why only repeat this verse? Why not do some meditation?’ Now the person who teaches you meditation appeals to you.

Meditation is again saguṇa brahman, which means meditating on a form. This is Līlā dhyāna, the next level of completion or next space of iśṭa niṣṭa. Līlā dhyāna means strongly feeling connected to your own version of your chosen ideal. You are free to choose your ideal in Hindu tradition. You can choose your own Guru. You need to understand, living with your chosen ideal is called iśṭa niṣṭa. Līlā dhyāna means constantly remembering the actions and the life of your chosen ideal and being immersed in the qualities, words, actions, body language and life of the Master; whatever you may be doing, being totally immersed in Him. Understand, you may accept all divine beings.

It is not that you will not go to Viṣṇu temple or Devi temple, but if you are connected to Śiva, Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 545 if you have chosen Śiva as your ideal, you will know only He is your ideal. Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahamsa gives a very beautiful example of iśṭa niṣṭa. A woman in the house will serve everybody. She will serve the brother-in-law, sister-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, husband’s elder brother, younger brother, sister’s husband; she will serve everyone, give them food and take care of them. But she knows her personal space is only for her husband! Same way, you may bow down in front of any god, any deity, any guru, but you know you are bowing down only to your Guru in these forms.

Living with God­ —Levels of Completion Listen, I am defining Līlā Dhyāna. Līlā dhyāna means being lost in the pastimes of the guru or god. With god, one thing is that you may not be directly involved in the whole līlā. So you have to remember, remember and try to practice. With a living Guru, you are directly part of the divine play. So, you don’t need to try to remember, remember; He will be remembering you! He will be remembering you! This is called līlā dhyāna. Even if you are afraid that he is going to shout at you, it is līlā dhyāna. Listen! Practicing the presence of God is constantly feeling you are with Him, He is with you.

Practicing the presence of God is the greatest, most powerful technique to put you in bhāva samādhi immediately. Bhagavān Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa did it; Bhagavān Ramaṇa Mahaṛṣi also practiced it. You know you are bowing down only to your chosen ideal, Iśṭa niṣṭa. Same way, if your chosen ideal is Śiva, or Devi, or Kṛṣṇa, even if you bow down to me, you should bow down to me as an embodiment of your chosen ideal. And, if your chosen ideal is me, then even if you bow down to anybody else, you should bow down to them only as an embodiment of me. That isiśṭa niṣṭa. Practicing the presence of God, Līlā dhyāna, and Iśṭa niṣṭa, all the three boil down to the same space, space of bhāva samādhi.

I tell my disciples to practice Iśṭa niṣṭa, with the whole Existence cognizing—‘I bow down to Nithyananda who is in your ānanda gandha; whether he is awakened or not, whether you experience or not, He is there in your ānanda gandha. If you are initiated into ānanda gandha, you will also experience him. If not, you may not experience, but I can experience. I bow down to Nithyananda who is in your ānanda gandha.’ Understand, ānanda gandha is a nādi, a subtle cosmic energy center just below anāhata cakra (heart center) and above maṅipūraka cakra (stomach center), which is awakened only by an Incarnation. The Inner Awakening program participants are initiated into ānanda gandha and they become Nithya Spiritual healers as the channels of Cosmic energy transmitting healing to the world.

Listen! What you are carrying in the ānanda gandha will become reality. Please understand, your ānanda gandha is the source of your life. Just like any slide kept in front of projector light becomes reality, any truth kept in front of your inner space, your ānanda gandha becomes a reality. I have seen so many people, ordinary village men and women in India, living with their chosen ideal and living the highest enlightened life without even knowing the words integrity, authenticity, and all that! Without knowing any of these words, they are radiating Enlightenment! I tell you, just this one truth of Iśṭa niṣṭa and Līlā dhyāna has made millions of village Indians, Indian villagers enlightened!

Millions of Indian villagers practice the presence of God. Practicing the presence of God makes you more and more authentic. That is the beauty of the Hindu tradition! Beauty of the Vedic spiritual tradition! Iśṭa niṣṭa makes you do lot of self-completion with you. So, the first level of completion is attending rituals and visiting temples, pūjā and yātrā. The second level is doing the rituals yourself, pūjā. The third level is having the feeling connection and concentrating on one deity, and offering only to that deity, iśṭa niṣṭa. The fourth level of completion is realizing that the verses are more powerful than rituals, and you start chanting the name of your iśṭa.

The fifth level is Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 547 visualizing a form and meditating on His pastimes and being immersed in His qualities, words, actions, body language and life; instead of chanting, you enter the space of feeling and living with His presence. Then, when you sincerely meditate, He Himself appears. He gives you His darśan (vision) and guides you to the higher level of practice. He guides you to the right living Master. Sometimes He gives you darśan and guides you; sometimes He automatically makes you feel connected to your Master. Only a person who has come to this level of completion can feel directly connected to a living Enlightened Master.

Till you reach this level of completion, till this maturity happens, you cannot straightaway feel completely connected to an enlightened person. You need to go through all five levels of completion, only then will you feel completely connected to a living Master. When you come to the stage where you meditate on a single form, the Master happens in your life and guides you to the highest level of completion, enriching you with Enlightenment. The form upon which you meditate and your own form are expressions of the same divine energy. So the Master puts you into real meditation. This means turning towards yourself, turning towards your own consciousness, turning towards your own being or soul.

He gives you the technique to realize your being. This is the sixth level of completion. The seventh level of completion, the ultimate completion, the complete completion is when you experience that you are That. You achieve Enlightenment! This is the usual route of completion that seekers travel on, starting from the first level of completion, moving to the second level, and ending with the ultimate and complete completion of experiencing the Self. Completion is Self! Now find out in which level of completion you are in and try to go to the next level. That’s all. That is all you need to do. Just go on completing, completing, completing with everything, with Guru, with God, with Sadguru, with life!

Here Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Because I reside in everyone’s heart as the super soul, when somebody desires to worship a demigod, I make his faith steady, so that he can devote himself to that particular deity.’ When you approach the Divine even from the first level of completion, He helps you. He enriches you without doubt. He never gives up on you. You may give up on yourself, but He never gives up on you. One of the biggest qualities of an Incarnation is that He never gives up on you! When you start, you are like 18 carat gold. There’s nothing wrong with 18 carat gold, but you need to be put into the fire a little bit, and slowly, you become 22 carat gold.

Then you reach the Master, a living enlightened Master. Then slowly you become 24 carat gold, and you become enlightened. If you throw away the first step, giving up on the 18 carat gold, you never reach the second step. Unless you have gone through the earlier steps of completion, it will be difficult to relate and have feeling connection to a living Master. One morning, a man came to visit me and started speaking to me. He expressed his confusion. This happened after he had read many books. He said, ‘I am now more confused than before.’ In the Gītā, Arjuna says the same thing. After a few chapters, he says, ‘Oh Kṛṣṇa, I am now more confused than before hearing the Gītā!’

Understand, this clearly means that you have done your spiritual practice well! You really did your practice. Understanding that a particular practice is not helping you is the right enriching derived from the practice! Buddha teaches meditation to one of his disciples. The disciple tries his best to meditate and comes back and says, ‘Buddha, I am unable to meditate!’ Then Buddha says, ‘Don’t worry. You have understood properly. That is the purpose of this meditation. Understanding that you are not able to meditate is the purpose of this meditation. You have done it. Now forget about it and come to the next step.’ Sometimes these techniques make us mature by giving us the understanding that we are unable to do the technique.

That understanding is a big maturity. There’s nothing wrong in it. Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 549 Approaching the Divine in some form is the first step, or the first level. There’s nothing wrong in that, but don’t stop there. Here Kṛṣṇa says, ‘I make his faith steady, so that he can devote himself to that particular deity,’ which means that he can grow in that particular space of completion. There is the possibility of growth. He says, ‘I don’t discourage him; I make his faith steady, so that he will slowly come up to higher levels of completion.’ Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Even if you approach Me with an attitude of fear or greed, I fulfill your needs.

It is My own energy which fulfills them, so that you grow, and you come up to the next level of completion.’ If you receive boons through demigods, do not think that those deities are responsible for it. Do not think that the idols that you pray to are the ones who granted your prayers. All these are granted by the ultimate energy, the Existential energy. But you are not expected to stop with these boons. You are expected to grow further levels of completion. I always tell people, when you approach the Divine, first all your dreams will become reality. The divine will bless you. All your desires will be realized.

Later on, the Divine will give you the understanding that the reality you perceive is itself a dream! First God gives the śakti (energy) to turn your dreams into reality. Then He gives the buddhi (intelligence) to realize that reality itself is a dream! That is what He says here: When I bless you, according to your maturity, as per your level of completion and based on the way in which you approach the Divine, I give everything. There are many educated individuals who question me about the wisdom of idol worship and rituals. A small happening from Swami Vivekananda’s life. A disciple was massaging Vivekananda’s feet. A follower, a young student, came to Vivekananda, prostrated at his feet and said, ‘I adore you.

I adore you because you despise all these superstitions about idol worship and bathing in the Ganges. You are truly educated.’ Vivekananda roared at him, ‘You fool, what do you know about my beliefs. I pray everyday to Ma Kāli and bathe in the Ganges. Shed all your notions that worshipping idols is foolish and learn how to pray.’ Soon after, an elderly scholar came to Vivekananda and said, ‘Master, you are the greatest. Whatever you have said about learning the scriptures and going to temples is so powerful. I wish everyone would talk like you do.’ Vivekananda said to him, ‘What do you know about the scriptures? Is there any point in reading all this outdated material?

It only makes your ego stronger. Stop this nonsense and meditate.’ After the scholar left, the shocked disciple asked Vivekananda, ‘Master, I am confused. You have just reversed your position with these two people. What should I do?’ Vivekananda said, ‘Just keep your mouth shut and massage my feet. That is good for you.’ When you go to a temple and worship an idol, when you are in the first level of completion, you might feel that you are praying to a stone or metal idol. As your completion grows, you will realize that the idol is not just stone or metal; it is living energy. Even without much effort, you will start feeling the energy inside the temple.

Why do you think millions of people, visit holy shrines in Tirupati or Varanasi or Tiruvannamalai? A few hundred people can be misled, but not millions, and that too without any enticement. They go because they feel relieved, they feel deeply enriched; not all of them go merely out of greed and fear. There are thousands who go because unknowingly they feel the hand of God, as it were. They feel the touch and they feel the ‘energy connection’. Hindus worship through the idols, not the idols themselves; our rituals address the energy behind these idols. Logic cannot make us Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 551 understand this. Only faith can, the śraddha that comes from authenticity.

We need to go through this stage of worshipping the form before we realize the formless. Otherwise we will all be intellectual monsters. Religions that condemn idol worship without understanding the philosophy behind worship breed confusion that leads to destruction. In every form of learning we need to advance step-by-step. Only if we are an exception can we be promoted to university education without attending high school. Such exceptions are rare, and prove the rule. When we consider idol worship foolish and meaningless, it only means that we are foolish and ignorant. The minute science advances and when a scientist measures the energy vibration of our temples and proves that these are centers of cosmic energy, kṣetras, the same people will be queuing up at the temples.

When thousands and millions of people congregate to celebrate the Divine and offer gratitude, any place becomes a temple, a place of worship. Every twelve years, tens of millions of people gather by the sacred river Gaṅgā in India to celebrate Kumbh Melā. In certain years 100 million people have gathered on this occasion, in what is certainly the largest gathering in the world. No invitations or promotions are done, just the dates of Kumbh Melā mark the vedic calendar or Pañcānga on a Hindu’s home wall, that’s all! Simply millions and millions gather. As these people bathe in the sacred river with deep śraddha (authenticity), gratitude and prayers, the river gets purified and in turn purifies them.

It is a deep bio-spiritual interaction that raises the energy of the planet and the Universe. When Kṛṣṇa says, ‘He goes to the planets of the demigods,’ don’t think there is some planet out there! He talks about inner space and experience. If we worship some god out of greed, we never come out of that greed. We will be continuously caught in greed. If we worship some god out of fear, we will be always in that fear. If we worship the Divine out of love and gratitude, we experience a totally different inner space, the space of completion, the space of Enlightenment. Hell and heaven are not geographical; they are psychological.

Now all we need to know is how to create heaven, how to create the space of completion. There’s nothing that needs to be learnt about the art of creating hell. Now, it is time to learn how to create heaven. Kṛṣṇa says: Men of small intelligence—people caught in greed or fear, attention-need or worry—worship the demigods. Of course, sometimes we worship the demigods; sometimes we approach Bhagāvan Kṛṣṇa or the ultimate God with the same incomplete attitude—the attitude of asking and begging. If we carry the incomplete cognition of greed, whether we worship Kubera, the god who gives money, or Kṛṣṇa, in effect we worship only a devata (demigod).

Even if we worship Kṛṣṇa with that same incomplete cognition out of our space of incompletion, we worship only a demigod. It is the cognition of completion or incompletion that makes Kṛṣṇa either the ultimate God, Bhagavān or a demigod, Deva. It is we who create the cognition, the space. It is we who create the energy. By worshipping Devatas, we attain Devatas. This is an important sūtra, a technique. It says: antavattu phalaṁ teṣāṁ tad bhavaty alpamedhasāṁ I devān devayajo yānti madbhaktā yānti mām api II 7.23 It says that when we get boons from demigods, they are temporary. God will bless us with wealth when we ask Him.

But we need intelligence to preserve and to protect wealth. So be very clear, when we receive anything out of energy, without having the maturity to receive and sustain it, it is only temporary. If we have enough intelligence and maturity to have wealth, then naturally, we would have created it. Because we don’t have buddhi, wisdom, we ask God to give us śakti, energy. If we get śakti without buddhi, it will only be temporary. That is what Kṛṣṇa says: If we get śakti without buddhi, it is temporary. It will not remain with us. That is why He says that boons derived from demigods are temporary, not permanent.

And if we Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 553 continue to worship them, we are stuck with them. We create that kind of energy in our inner space. We live with that kind of energy in our being. Gratitude—The Greatest Attitude He makes one more statement: madbhaktā yānti mām api—My devotees attain Me. Then He says these words: If you approach Me with the ultimate attitude, with the attitude of love and gratitude, you achieve Me. The greatest attitude is gratitude. If you approach Me with gratitude, you experience Me. Again and again people ask me, ‘Swamiji, when I have so many problems, how can I be grateful?’ Listen, we continuously pray, ‘Oh God, please give me a diamond ring.’

Do we feel grateful that He gave us the finger to wear the ring? We don’t feel grateful that He gave us the finger. Be very clear, the finger is not our birthright. There are thousands of people who don’t have hands. There are thousands who don’t have a finger. It’s not our birthright. We continuously pray intensely, in all possible ways, ‘Oh God, give me this. Oh God, give me that.’ But we never feel grateful for the things that are showered on us. This very life is a blessing! Can we say that our life has been given to us as payment for some job that we did in Vaikuṇṭha (abode of Lord Viṣṇu) or Kailāśa (abode of Lord Śiva)?

No! It’s not as if we worked for 100 years in Kailāśa, and earned a check that says, ‘Alright, have 70 years of life.’ If we work in the army, they give us money to study. It’s not like that; we did not get life as a salary. It’s a pure blessing showered on us. Every breath is a blessing! The breath that we inhale and exhale is a boon given to us. This very life is a blessing. Continuously we miss things that are not part of our possession. But we never experience the things that are showered on us by the Divine. Each of us has a big list of things that God has not given us and we also have a big list of things that God has given us.

If you take a paper and pen and start writing these lists, both lists will be endless. Every moment of our life is a gift from the Divine. We are alive, we are still conscious; that by itself is a gift from the Divine. Now it’s up to us whether to look at the list of things not given to us and constantly feel miserable and live in hell, or look at the list of things showered on us and be in heaven. The second way makes us feel deeply grateful. It makes us say, ‘Oh God! You have showered so much on me, and given me the blessing of life.’

We feel grateful and create our abode, Vaikuṇṭa or Kailāśa. It’s purely our choice. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘These men of small intelligence worship demigods. Their results are temporary.’ We continue to live that way. When we feel life is a blessing and we approach the Divine with deep love and gratitude, not only do we experience divine consciousness, Kṛṣṇa says: They achieve ME. They attain ME—madbhaktā yānti mām api. There’s another verse where Kṛṣṇa beautifully says: ‘If you ask for something, I will give you that. If you don’t ask for anything, I will give you Me.’ People say, ‘Who wants Him? We want Him only as a utility, not Him. As long as He serves our purpose, things are ok. So we don’t want Him.’ People want only solutions. They don’t want the Divine. No One Knows Me