Verses 9.9–9.12🔗

Being attached or bound to what we do or what we have is a major hurdle in realizing our Self. Kṛṣṇa says He is not bound to this Universe. This is the reason, He says, that keeps Him unaffected when the Universe is created and when it is destroyed. The whole Universe is being born out of Him and it is getting destroyed. Even then He is not affected because He is not bound to the Universe. It is because He is a mere spectator. Let us understand this in the context of daily life. When we start to internalize these great truths in small things that we do, a great change happens in us.

Kṛṣṇa speaks of a divine play. He talks in terms of the Universe being created and destroyed from Universal consciousness. If we understand His words, we can apply them to day-to-day activities. That is why Bhagavad Gītā is a beautiful scripture, which can be easily internalized and applicable for any age or generation. When we understand this truth, we feel a great sense of liberation. You see, we become attached or bound to what we have. We think that all we have is ours. When we create that attachment, we create a strong bond. Be very clear, now the problem has started. Drop Your Attachments, Be Unclutched Our material possessions create greed and fear in us.

We are either in fear of losing them or we want to get more and more of them. We attach so much importance to them that getting more and more of them becomes our only goal. Naturally when we have so much, we create a fear of losing them. The problem is we associate ourselves with material possessions. Again and again, we run after them and forget who we are. So many people are in the rat race. They spend their lives accumulating money, bungalows and cars. And at the end of their life, they regret; they wonder what they have done in their lives. We are in a state of continuous fear.

This is one kind of attachment. There is another kind of attachment. We are attached to people. We create strong bonds in relationships. These are also attachments. We start possessing people. The possessiveness grows so strong that we suffer when someone leaves us or dies. We become so dependent on persons that our whole life seems to lose meaning when they die. Actually, in this kind of bondage we define ourselves based on the opinions of other people. So we constantly hold on to that relationship because it gives us energy; that relationship helps us define ourselves. So when a person dies, we feel depressed because whatever we were holding to very tightly was the source of energy for us.

That was defining us till now and now it is no longer there. It has disappeared. So our whole system is shaken. Now there is the third kind of bondage or attachment. It is related to Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yogaḥ Secret Of All Secrets 665 our thoughts and emotions. Whenever something happens, we start linking it with our past and start fantasizing about the future. Be very clear, a thought arises because our mind jumps from the past to the future. When a thought arises, we link up that thought with other thoughts and create thought patterns. None of the thoughts are linked to each other. We create a shaft binding all these thoughts.

Each thought is like a bubble in a fish tank. If you see bubbles rising in a fish tank, they are unrelated, unconnected and disjointed. However we create an illusory shaft and link them up. We attach ourselves with that shaft and start experiencing them. We let the thoughts control us. In the same way, we deal with our emotions also. We create a shaft of all our pains and all our joys and associate with it. If we see that our pain shaft is longer than the joy shaft, we conclude that we had a painful life; we had a miserable life. Otherwise, we say we have a happy life.

Yet if we look deeply, each of the pains is completely unconnected, disassociated, and disjointed. For example, the headache that you experience today is not associated to the headache that you had one week ago. The headache that you had one week ago is not associated to the headache that you felt one month ago. But what do we do? We associate and connect all these and say we have always had headaches or migraines. We fail to see that all the events were independent events. We create a shaft through all these pains and come to a conclusion. In the same way, if we have a joful experience, we want to hold onto it.

We want to experience that joy again. We look for that source of joy and continuously run after it. This again leads us into the rat race. Please understand, don’t associate yourself with your incompletion. One of the great things my yoga guru, Yogirāj Yogānandapuri (lovingly called Raghupati Yogi) did is—he broke my laziness pattern. When I was a boy, he made me do surya namaskār from morning sunrise to sunset! Please understand, these happenings are all literally true. I am talking with integrity and authenticity. Then, when I would almost be dead and lie down, he will tell me, ‘Eh! Don’t associate yourself with your body! Don’t associate yourself with your incompletions!

Don’t associate yourself with your laziness!’ I tell you, it really, really, really worked on me. When you don’t associate yourself with your incompletions and the tortures you need to go through because of your incompletions, moving towards completion and getting enlightened becomes such an easy job. Don’t associate yourself with your incompletions. Tell yourself, ‘Yes, I had this incompletion. This is the way my system was functioning. Now it is time. Let me say ‘bye’ to my incompletions!’ Understand, your incompletions get more and more powerful as long as you associate yourself with them. Don’t associate yourself with your incompletion. Don’t even own up! Just disown! Disowning incompletions is complete Completion!

If you are convinced you have disowned these incompletions, you are complete! Here Kṛṣṇa says He is neutral. Kṛṣṇa is in the space of complete completion, the eternal completion! How do we get ourselves unconnected from these attachments? Please understand that being unconnected from material possessions does not mean you leave everything and go away. Being unconnected from relationships does not mean breaking your relationships, forgetting your children, parents and others. Please understand this very deeply. Being neutral or unconnected has a deep meaning. Being neutral means being a spectator. It is like this: When you watch a movie, you watch something on the screen. Do you become an actor in that movie?

No. You watch it and let it go. In the same way, we need to watch attachments. When we watch them as a spectator, we get detached from them and complete with them. What do I mean by that? When we watch our materialistic wealth, we will not run after it. We do our job because we love it, not because we want to accumulate wealth. A scientist should do research because he likes to do Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yogaḥ Secret Of All Secrets 667 it, not because he wants something out of it. When that is the attitude, the Universe starts showering. The results happen of their own accord. The materialistic wealth comes on its own.

In relationships also, we must be a spectator. When we stop seeing someone as a possession and when we become a spectator to the relationship, our dependency on that person and expectations from that person drop. When dependencies and expectations drop, there is no give and take in the relationship. There is only giving, only enriching. The relationship becomes stronger and completion with other happens. When we become a spectator to our thoughts and emotions, we feel a great sense of liberation. All we have to do is break the shaft that we create between different unconnected thoughts and emotions. We have to ‘unclutch.’ When we see thoughts like passing clouds in the sky, we stop associating ourselves with them.

We are no longer controlled by them. Listen, being a spectator to thoughts does not mean that we suppress or destroy thoughts. We are not Brahma, the Creator, or Viṣṇu, the Sustainer, or Śiva, the Rejuvenator. When we become a spectator, we go beyond these three states. We transcend the trinity. By being a spectator, we remain unaffected and unattached to what happens in and around us. This is the truth. If we can internalize this completely, we will be enlightened this very minute! Kṛṣṇa says that although He is a mere spectator, everything happens under His supervision. Here He shows His authority. He says the material world is created and annihilated according to His will through the power of prakṛti, Nature and the energy of māyā, Illusion.

Actually, Kṛṣṇa is repeating what He said in the previous verse. Kṛṣṇa wants to clearly get this idea across to Arjuna. The whole material manifestation is a projection of the energy of Universal Consciousness. This is what is reflected within us in our individual Consciousness. We create and project the reality what we see and what we wish to see. It is like this. You stand in front of a mirror and see yourself. Now all that you see outside you is a projection of what you have inside you. Power of Our Inner Self Kṛṣṇa says, ‘I am the supreme power. The material nature of prakṛti works under My direction—mayā adhyakṣena prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram (9.10).’

Everything happens under His supervision. What He says is simple. Whatever happens is a drama of creation and annihilation through Nature and Illusion. Kṛṣṇa, the director and producer of this cosmic drama, stands unmoved as a spectator. This truth is reflected within us, too. We create and destroy ourselves. Everything, our happiness, our pains, our fantasies, our sorrows, our relationships are created by us. If we see from a higher level, we influence the whole Universe. Kṛṣṇa shows how powerful we are, how powerful our inner Self is. Whether we believe it or not, it is the truth. We create everything that we see, feel and hear. That is the power of our inner Self.

Yet we do not stay detached the way Kṛṣṇa does. Our thoughts and words have a tremendous impact. The Cosmic consciousness responds to our thoughts. All the Enlightened Masters have talked about the power of thinking and words. What we think and how we think affects what happens around us. You have seen people who always shout and yell at others. Some people keep shaking their legs. All this happens because of inner restlessness. Instead of looking inside, we blame others. We see negativity around us because there are negativities inside us. Because of such thoughts inside us, we project them outside. You see, this is how we create our own world.

Understand the power of thoughts. A person is blissful not because of what happens outside him; it is because of what is inside him. There is a difference between being happy and being blissful. Happiness happens inside because of external factors. If we feel joy inside because of something happening outside us, that joy is happiness. The problem with Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yogaḥ Secret Of All Secrets 669 happiness is the source. If suddenly the external source disappears, our happiness also disappears. The outer world is affecting our inner world. However, bliss is not like that. Being blissful does not depend on external sources. If we are at peace internally, we express that bliss.

No external event or happening affects this state. Bliss is eternal; however happiness is temporary. When we are powerful and blissful inside, we project the same power and bliss outside. We enjoy the external material manifestation because we are blissful inside as spectator. However, when we try to possess that bliss, that bliss is gone. Be very clear, when we think and enjoy something from our mind, it is not bliss. So in this verse Kṛṣṇa tells us clearly that we create our own world. The material manifestation is solely because of our inner Self and nothing external is responsible for it. Fools Deride an Incarnation In the next verse Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form.

They do not know My ultimate nature, eternal nature, as the supreme Lord of all that is.’ avajānanti māṁ ṁūḍhā mānuṣiṁ tanum āśritam I paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto mama bhūta maheśvaram II 9.11 Here Kṛṣṇa uses a strong word: ‘Fools, ṁūḍhā’. Incarnations, Enlightened Masters don’t edit their words. They speak the truth as it is. Usually, normal people edit because they fear others’ opinions. See, normally in all your minds, three processes happen: first, words are created, then edited and then finally presented. In Masters, these three processes don’t happen. Straightaway what is created is presented. That is why, whatever words they utter become reality. Listen. The world does not create words in them.

Their words create the world around them. They express integrity, the power of words, vāk śakti. The words you utter towards you and towards others can do so much to your life. If you want to harness the power of words, the practice you need to do is integrity. Bring Integrity. Align all your words more and more towards completion. Please understand, I am defining integrity. Integrity means aligning your words, internal and external, more and more towards completion; that is integrity. Aligning the words you utter inside and outside you towards completion is integrity. One American University professor who attended many of my discourses, said, ‘Swamiji, you are speaking continuously for hours without notes?’

Listen, here also in front of me, only the Gītā verses are there, no other notes. I see these verses so that the original pronunciation is not lost. I can say that the Vedas is the purest and most unadulterated scripture. Even the chhandas (vedic meter), the tune in which they are chanted, cannot be changed. Just to preserve the purity, I read the Saṁskṛit verses from the original. He asked me, ‘How are you able to continuously speak?’ I told him, ‘Because the process is easy and integrated in me. I don’t edit. My internal and external words are aligned. I don’t have the three mechanisms: creating words, editing and presenting.

Usually, for all people, these three mechanisms have to happen.’ Then he put one more question, ‘Swamiji, speaking for hours is different. For me, I must prepare three hours before even for a one-hour lecture!’ In my meditation camps, sometimes the program is eighteen hours long per day; people listen to my talks and meditate. I told him, ‘You prepare because it has not become your authentic experience.’ Then I asked him, ‘If somebody asks your name, do you prepare? Your name has become your experience, your being. So you immediately respond. Similarly, whatever I speak is from my experience. So I don’t need to prepare, I spontaneously express it.

One more thing, why do people fear public speaking? Why do they again and again prepare and rehearse? They fear that they may speak what they really think inside! They do not want to express what is going on inside them. They want to express polished words. Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yogaḥ Secret Of All Secrets 671 Only for an integrated person whose inner chatter has become pure, not only his words, his thinking becomes pure. That person can talk in a relaxed way for hours in public. To speak in public, that too in a relaxed and casual way, we need our inner being to be in pure integrity with our words and pure authenticity with our thinking.

Only then can we talk whatever comes and be relaxed and complete. Otherwise, continuously we must edit. If we edit and speak, within half an hour or one hour, we are tired and drained. We do not radiate the same energy. Understand this truth! When we practice integrity, we will experience the power of words. But the power of thinking is deeper than the power of words. The power of thinking will be available to us when we practice authenticity. Masters don’t edit; they express whatever they think. With authenticity, their thinking has become so pure, they simply harness the power of thinking and words, and so they don’t need to edit.

Even if they use sharp words, they are spoken to awaken you. Here Kṛṣṇa uses the word, ‘mūḍhaḥ’, meaning ‘fool’. ‘Fools deride Me.’ He gives a jolt to the ego. ‘Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My eternal nature as the supreme Lord of all that is, mama bhūta maheśvaram.’ He says, ‘When I land in the world in the human form as a Master, people, fools, deride me. They don’t understand.’ Why Masters Descend? He again and again tells this to Arjuna, ‘Don’t think that just because I am in the body, I am your friend. Don’t think that I am the person who was sitting in Briṇdāvan (the forest place where Kṛṣṇa spent his infant years), who is your own friend.

I am the energy that takes care of the whole world. I have come down in this form to liberate all of you. So only fools deride Me, fools miss Me. Don’t miss, Arjuna, understand the Ultimate nature of Me and liberate yourself.’ In these verses, Kṛṣṇa tells some interesting truths. These were true during His time and they are true today. When an enlightened Master lives in his body, people do not accept him, people ignore him, and some even abuse him. In fact, people do not even want to accept that he can be an Enlightened Master. People stay away from the living Master. However, when the Master is no longer in the body, people visit his final resting place, offer flowers, and do all kinds of things.

This has happened to all enlightened Masters. Rāmakṛṣṇa was considered a mad priest. When Rāmakṛṣṇa entered into an ecstatic mood, people said that he was acting. However now, if you go to Kolkata, Dakśineśvar has become a pilgrimage center. People worship Rāmakṛṣṇa; they keep his photo in their home, in their wallets. They call him an Incarnation, God. You see, over time nothing has changed. When I am in the ashram in Bidadi, many people come with speculation. They have questions about what I say, what I wear and everything I do. They say, ‘You are so young. How can you be enlightened?’ Some say, ‘If you are enlightened, why do you wear a golden rudrākṣa necklace?

Why do you charge money for courses?’ These same people will come to my final resting place after one hundred years and offer flowers on it. They will accept me as their guru when I am not in human form. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Fools lose Me when I come in human form—avajānanti māṁ ṁūḍhā mānuṣiṁ tanum āśritam (9.11).’ He calls them fools. This is the truth. When an enlightened Master is in human form, we do not accept him as a Master. Only after the Master leaves the body do we pay our respects to the Master. Why do people again and again do this? You see, when the Master is in his body, in human form, our mind sees him as another human being.

Then our ego comes between him and us. It reasons, ‘He is another human like me. Why should I listen to him?’ All these questions come. We decide we don’t have to follow another human being and go back. A simple act of ego makes us miss a living enlightened Master. Our being wants it; however our mind and ego create a strong wall of questions between the Master and us. We miss the opportunity. And one more thing, some people know that a person is a Master and what he Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yogaḥ Secret Of All Secrets 673 says is good for them, yet they escape. This is because they know that the Enlightened Master can see through them.

They do not want anybody to know what a mess they have created in themselves. We should understand why an Enlightened Master, an Incarnation happens on planet Earth. If we know this, we will not be fools. We will not miss or run away. If we understand, then we can break the wall between the Master and us and let our being experience the Master’s energy. A small story from Rāmakṛṣṇa: Three men walk near a village. They see an orchard. One of them jumps into the orchard to see what is happening. He sees a big party going on inside. He sees so much joy and bliss inside the orchard.

This man also starts enjoying. He forgets about the two men outside the orchard. After some time, the two men who stand outside get impatient. The second man says, ‘Let me go and see what happened.’ He enters the orchard. He sees people dancing, singing, enjoying. However, before he joins the party, this man thinks he should tell the third man standing outside the orchard about what he has seen. He has concern for the third man. So he tells the third man what is going on inside the orchard and runs back into the orchard and joins the party. Now this third man goes in. He sees the bliss everyone is in.

He thinks, ‘I should tell everyone in the village about this; everyone should enjoy.’ So he goes out, tells everyone in the village and brings them into the orchard. Enlightened Masters are like the third man. They have experienced the truth, the bliss. They are the embodiments of compassion. Be very clear, the only mission of an enlightened Master is to get everyone to Live Enlightenment. There is no ulterior motive of the Master. People ask me lots of questions. Why this? Why that? People look at me with suspicion. They think by telling them something, I make some profit. If I suggest to them to attend some meditation course, they think I will make money.

They run away thinking I want to make them a Sannyāsi. They do not understand that an Enlightened Master is beyond all that. They miss the opportunity of being with a Master because of their own ignorance. Whenever Enlightened Masters save mankind, people try to make their life hell, due to their ignorance and self-doubts. Understand that an Enlightened Master does not have desires. So He does not have any vested interests. All He wants is everyone should experience the bliss that He has experienced. In the case of a normal man, when he takes birth, he carries over desires from his previous birth. These are called vāsanas. However, an enlightened Master does not have desires or vāsanas; he is in a no-mind state.

His spirit can merge directly into the Universal energy. Whenever there is a need on planet Earth, the energy of the Enlightened Master is sent down to Earth with a mission to fulfill. Be very clear, nobody can help when we create a wall of doubt between the Master and us. The Master can help only if we break the wall, only if we allow the Master to take charge. As long as we hold onto our ego, we remain a fool. If we meet an Enlightened Master, that is the best happening that can happen to us. Now it is up to us to enrich ourselves with Enlightenment or miss it.

Kṛṣṇa tells everyone: if you miss an Enlightened Master, you are a fool. Kṛṣṇa does not ask us to follow His form. He asks us to follow His energy. He wants us to internalize Him and follow Him. Follow Kṛṣṇa by understanding Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, not by following what you imagine to be your understanding of the form of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa Consciousness is the same as Śiva Cosciousness or Buddha Consciousness or Nithyānanda Consciousness. There is no difference. That is why Kṛṣṇa says, ‘These fools mock at Me when I come in human form. Don’t mock the form, follow the Consciousness. You will no longer be a fool. You will be in eternal bliss!’ Worship Me In Any Form But With Devotion