Verses 9.25–9.28🔗

We should study and understand these verses very deeply. Kṛṣṇa talks about the life that we lead now. He talks about the birth that we will take next. Understand that our present life is a result of our previous life. Whether we believe it or not, accept it or not, this is the truth. There is life after death as long as we are not enlightened. Once we are enlightened, we merge into Universal Consciousness. Until then we take birth and go through the process of life and death. Kṛṣṇa talks about the kind of life that we lead now. The last thought that we have at the time of death determines our next birth, next life.

Please listen, our next life is completely dependent upon our last thought at the time of our death. If we think of money, we will be reborn as a rich man or as a dissatisfied man who always thinks about money. If we think of food, we will be reborn as a glutton or a pig. If we think of lazily elaxing, we will be reborn as a buffalo. This is the truth. Our last thought determines our first thought in our next life. Actually we need not go to the extent of life and death. We see this in daily life itself. Our last thought affects our first thought.

Every night we die and every morning we take birth. During the day, when we are in the waking state, we use our gross physical body or sthūla śarīra to carry on with our activities. When we sleep, if we have dreams, we use the subtle body or sūkṣma śarīra to travel to the places that we see in our dreams. When we are in deep sleep, when we have no dreams, then we are in our causal body or kāraṇa śarīra. When we sleep at night, we actually change bodies. We are not aware that this happens. When we dream, we see ourselves doing various things in the dream.

We run, talk, eat, and do everything in the dream. In our dream, we have created a world in which we live. If our body is on the bed, then who is this body in the dream? Our gross body is on the bed, while our subtle body is active in the dream. In the same way, the causal body is active during the deep sleep state. Now, when we sleep, we actually die and are reborn in the gross body in the morning. We see that our last thought before sleeping affects our first thought upon waking. If we come back from the office with a frustrated mood about our boss, we wake up with the same mood in the morning.

If we sleep with a blissful smile on our face, we will be happy the next morning. This is the reason I tell anyone who think that they are following me or want to follow me: do completion for forty-two minutes before you sleep every night. Always sleep in the space of completion. If you have a dreamless sleep, I guarantee, you will have birthless life! If you have dream-free sleep, you will have birth-free, death-free life! That’s all! Because, even to have a dream, you need incompletions! If you don’t have incompletions even to have dreams, how will you have Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yogaḥ Secret Of All Secrets 699 incompletions to have one more body?

So, whether you are going to have a body or not, is going to be decided only based on whether you are going to have dreams at night or not! While you sleep if you have a dream, you are going to have a body after death, unless the Master interferes and liberates you. If you don’t have dreams, be assured, you are already liberated, and you are going to be liberated once you leave the body, completely! When we do completions every night with full awareness, we enter a meditative state. In the meditative state, we can only be blissful. When we sleep in a blissful state, we wake up in the same state.

Whatever feeling we wake up with in the morning, that same feeling stays with us throughout the day. Listen, the first thought we have in the morning stays with us throughout the day. How many have felt this? If you wake up dull in the morning, you will be dull throughout the day. If you wake up energized, you will be active and energetic throughout the day. I tell people, ‘When you wake up, dance your way to the bathroom! Feel the toothpaste on your teeth, feel the water on your body when you bathe. Bring in full awareness to every action. I am telling you, start the day every morning with heavy yoga, heavy weight-lifting, like your whole body should really sweat!

That kind of heavy yoga and weight-lifting! Start the day with a blissful thought. For that we must sleep in the space of completion, in a blissful mood. Every night do completion and every morning do heavy weight-lifting and yoga! I tell you, just these two will make you enlightened. Because, every night completion will lead to vedic mind and every morning heavy yoga will lead to yogic body. And these two will take care the whole day that you will have enlightened living. That’s all! You don’t need any other spiritual practice. Exactly what happens everyday during sleep is exactly the same thing that happens during the time of death.

Be very clear, the process of sleep and the process of death are not different. During the process of death, the soul passes through seven energy layers. The next body it enters depends on the vāsana, or the carried-over desires, the root patters that it comes with, from the previous life. It takes up a body that can help shed that vāsana in the next life. Our soul always tries to merge with the colorless and formless universal consciousness. However, the vāsana creates a slight tinge on the soul and it cannot completely merge with the Universal consciousness. So the soul takes up another body that can help remove this tinge and help it merge.

Now it is up to us how we make use of this lifetime. We can either fulfill our unfulfilled desires of the previous life by completing with our root patterns or we can build new desires in this life and stay in the cycle of birth and death. The kind of life that the soul chooses in the next life depends entirely on the vāsana and the last thought at the time of death. People ask me, ‘Swamiji, I was not inclined towards spirituality at all. I was not into meditation; however, when I did the meditation I felt like I had been doing this for a long time. Why is it like that?’

Understand that you see only this life. You may not have done any meditation in this life. But you see a deep connection with meditation because you might have meditated in your previous life. You might have been a seeker in your previous life.You see, our next life depends on our last thought in this life. That does not mean that throughout our life we can think about money and food and suddenly at the time of death, we can say, ‘Rāma, Kṛṣṇa or Śiva.’ If we think about money, name and fame throughout our entire life, how can we expect to think about God when we leave our body?

Naturally we will only think about money. This is what Kṛṣṇa says in the first verse. When we are continuously aware of the Existential energy, when we continuously meditate on It, when our thoughts are on it all the time, whatever we may call it: Kṛṣṇa, Rama, Buddha, Universe, Parāśakti or anything, we will have only the same thought when we leave the body also. That is enough. We will start living with this energy. And It will ensure that our next birth takes us closer to this energy and liberates us from the cycle of birth and death. Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yogaḥ Secret Of All Secrets 701 In Simplicity Lies Greatness He says next: ‘If one offers Me with love and devotion, a leaf, flower, fruit or water, I will accept it,’ He says, ‘The Existence, the Divine is so alive that It responds to even simple things.’

Listen, He doesn’t say, I accept only big things. He says, even simple things, I accept. patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati I tadahaṁ bhaktyupahṛtam aśnāmi prayatātmanaḥ II 9.26 ‘If one offers Me a leaf, flower, fruit or water with love and devotion, I will accept it.’ This is the greatness of the Divine. The greatness of the Lord is that He is simple. Simplicity is the greatness of the Lord. Listen, simplicity is the real greatness. To be big, you don’t need intelligence. Any one can show himself as big. Simplicity is the great quality of the Divine. He says, ‘Just a leaf, a flower, a fruit, a little water... simple things are enough.

I accept it. I am pleased. I respond to it.’ He says in the fourth verse of this chapter: mayā tatam idam sarvaṁ jagadvyaktamūrtinā I am all-pervading, great, ultimate, divine. Now, He says even though He is all-pervading, even though He is big, He accepts any small thing given with love and devotion. One major problem: Even if we know somebody is big or great, we can’t relate with him unless he relates with us, unless he comes down to our level. Real greatness is not only being great. He must be able to relate with everybody. Otherwise, even if he is great, what can be done about it? Many people in India know that great Masters are there.

Again and again, they tell me, ‘Yes, I know they are there, Swamiji. But how can I relate with them? They are somewhere. They are great, no doubt. Yet I have no way to relate with them. I have no way to establish communication with them.’ Here, Kṛṣṇa creates a way, even for ordinary people to relate with Him. On the one side, He shows His greatness. He declares with authority His greatness. On the other side, He shows us how to relate with Him. He says, ‘Even if you offer a leaf, flower, fruit or water with love, I accept it. I relate with it.’ That is why, from time immemorial, enlightened masters are requested to live by begging, so that people can relate with them.

In India, Sannyāsis live by begging. Even Buddha lived by begging. See, Buddha didn’t beg because He wanted food. He can sit in His place and kings will bring food for Him! He comes down to beg so that we can relate with Him. We will feel He is a human being. When we give food, we talk to Him, we relate with Him, we feel that He is like us. To make us feel comfortable, He comes down to our level. Modern day psychology has a beautiful term, ‘zeroing down the distance’. To zero down the distance, Buddha begs. Here Kṛṣṇa zeroes down the distance completely. The distance between the Divine and us is zeroed down.

That is the next important truth Kṛṣṇa reveals. First thing Kṛṣṇa reveals is: He proves that the whole Cosmic energy, the whole Universe is intelligence. Next, the moment we understand it is intelligence,werelaxfromalltension,worry,fearandinsecurity.Hemakes us understand that He is next to us and we can relate with Him easily. See, as long as we think the world is material, matter, we feel like protecting ourselves from it. We feel that is the Whole and we are part. We fight with the Whole. That is why we feel deeply uprooted. We don’t feel connected and relaxed. We don’t feel homely because we fight with the Whole. The moment we understand we are part of the Whole, the Whole is the intelligence that responds to our thoughts, to our being, which responds to our consciousness, we relax into enlightenment!

I tell people, this verse is the lazy man’s guide to enlightenment! If we are lazy, if we want enlightenment, this verse is the right way! The only way! Understand that the Universe is intelligence. It responds to our thoughts, words, actions and consciousness. When we understand this, Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yogaḥ Secret Of All Secrets 703 we immediately relax and rest and enter divine consciousness, eternal consciousness. Next, He says, ‘When you drop yourself into the Eternal Consciousness, I take care of your yoga and kṣema. I take care of whatever you lack. I will supply what you lack and preserve what you have.’ Next He says, ‘Even a simple leaf, water or a fruit or flower when you offer with love and devotion, I accept it.’

Please be very clear, He is not asking because He doesn’t have these things. When you give a pack of cookies to your child and he opens it, you say, ‘Give one to mummy!’ It is not that we don’t have a cookie or we want it. But if the child opens the pack, picks up a cookie and gives it to us, how happy we feel! We brought the cookies. However, when the child gives it back to us, we feel beautiful. We feel connected. And we know he wants to connect and relate with us. Similarly, when we offer something to the Divine, don’t think that He does not have and so you are offering.

He is the one who gives everything to us in the first place! But when we offer, we show to the Divine: I want to connect to you. We show the Master, ‘Oh Lord, I want to connect to you.’ And the Master feels, ‘When he wants to connect to Me, let Me connect to him.’ We show a green signal for the Divine to enter into our space. I tell people, ‘Don’t go to the temple empty-handed. Take at least two or three fruits. At least, take a few dollars. Take whatever you have. Always offer something to the Divine. Never think that the Divine doesn’t have and so I am asking you to take these things.

By giving to the Divine, you express a willing attitude to relate with Him. When you offer it to the Divine, He accepts it and He relates.’ Again and again, out of His compassion Kṛṣṇa reveals truths and techniques to Arjuna to liberate him. That is the job of an Incarnation. He comes down to the Earth to liberate as many as He can. Enlightened Masters are compassionate. They want everyone to become enlightened, liberated. In these verses, Kṛṣṇa asks Arjuna to surrender everything to Him. I tell you, surrendering to an Enlightened Master, an Incarnation is the easiest way to become enlightened. Be very clear, if we can surrender completely to the Universal energy or an Enlightened Master, we become enlightened.

If we can surrender every action to the supreme Self, we experience a great sense of liberation. We constantly worry. We are always tense. Again and again we think of the future or past. Why do we do that? Why do we always have a long face? We take too much on our shoulders. We think we do everything. We boost our ego when we do things successfully. When they do not go according to our plan, our ego is hurt. We think, ‘How can I go wrong? How can my plan go wrong?’ Our ego is working continuously. It is either getting excited or getting hurt. In this process, what do we do?

We think, ‘How can I keep the ego continuously excited or how can I stop the ego from getting hurt?’ We again and again think of ways to keep our ego in the excited state or look for ways to stop our ego from getting hurt. We do not understand that by letting go, by surrendering to the Existential energy, we will be free, completely free. All our burdens will be gone. We do not realize this. All Enlightened Masters have spoken about surrender. It is the easiest way; however we make it the most difficult due to our ego. Levels of Surrender There are three levels in which we can surrender to the Existential energy.

The first level or basic level of surrender, is that of our actions. Whatever we do, whatever our actions are, surrender them to the Universal energy. All our actions, whether good or bad, when we surrender, will be taken care of. This is the basic level. Kṛṣṇa clearly says this in these verses, ‘All your reactions to good and evil will be taken care of, if you offer all your actions, all your austerities to me.’ So many people offer worship every day in the temple. If they do Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yogaḥ Secret Of All Secrets 705 that with the ego that they are doing it, then all they do is chant some verses mechanically and throw some flowers on the deity, that’s all.

When worship is done, when you chant verses, do it with full surrender to the Divine. Do it as if it were your last prayer. Feel the prayer. Put in your complete awareness and surrender it to the Divine. That should be the feeling when you do anything. Not just prayers, everything that we do should be done with that level of surrender. When we surrender, we feel light. You see, when we surrender, our efficiency goes up. This is true! When we surrender our actions, we are not bothered about what will happen in the future. We know that now the ball is in His court; He will take care of whatever is going to happen; He knows best.

When we surrender our actions, we put our entire burden on His shoulders. Whatever good or bad happens, He is now responsible and we also know that He can never do anything wrong. The second level of surrender is that of intellect and mind. The first level is easier compared to this. When I say surrender our actions, we can say, ‘Okay, I have done it.’ But surrendering our mind is more difficult because it is not in our hands. You see, we can see our actions. We can say, ‘O God, I have surrendered my actions to you.’ But now will our mind keep quiet? No. It will keep saying, ‘No, no, no.

How can you do that? How can you not think about your future?’ Our mind continuously analyzes! One more thing, when I speak great truths, your mind analyzes them using its limited intellect. It thinks, ‘What is He saying? Maybe it is possible for Him; but it is not for me. I can’t think of completely surrendering myself to the Divine.’ Your mind always looks for opportunities to hold you back. It logically analyzes using the intelligence it has. When I say there are eleven dimensions in our system, you think, ‘What are you saying, Swamiji? How is it possible?’ This is what I mean by surrender of mind and intellect.

When you surrender your mind and intellect to the universal energy, you experience great truths. When you do not surrender, your intellect continuously stops you from moving forward. Once you surrender, you experiment and you see quantum progress. You go beyond words. You start to experience. The third and the most difficult level of surrender is that of the senses. A history from Mahābhārat illustrates this: Once, Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna were walking outdoors. While they walked, Kṛṣṇa suddenly pointed at a crow on the tree and told Arjuna, ‘Hey Arjuna, can you see that green crow?’ Arjuna replied, ‘Yes Kṛṣṇa, I see it. I see the green crow.’ After some time, Kṛṣṇa pointed to another crow and said, ‘Arjuna, can you see that black crow?’

Arjuna immediately replied, ‘Yes Kṛṣṇa, I see the black crow.’ Kṛṣṇa asked Arjuna, ‘Are you a fool? Earlier when I showed a green crow, you said you can see a green crow. Now when I showed a black crow, you say you can see a black crow. Are you a fool? How can a crow be green?’ Arjuna replied, ‘O Kṛṣṇa, I don’t know all that. When you asked me to see a green crow, I saw a green crow. Now when you asked me to see a black crow, I saw a black crow.’ This is surrender of the senses! Arjuna had surrendered completely to Kṛṣṇa. He had surrendered even his senses to Kṛṣṇa.

If the Master says something, the disciple takes it as it is. That is the level of surrender. When we reach this level of surrender, we are one with the Divine. The Divine takes cares of us. Kṛṣṇa says this clearly. Every Enlightened Master makes this promise. When we surrender ourselves to the Master, to the Divine, to the Universal energy, it takes care of us. When we offer all our actions to the Universal energy, It takes care of us. The entire burden on our shoulders is offloaded. This is the promise of every Enlightened Master. Anyone Can Reach Me