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Bhagavad Gita Chapter 12

Fix Your Mind On God

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THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

śrī Bhagavānuvāca mayyāveśya mano ye māṁ nityayuktā upāsate I śraddhayā parayo'petās te me yuktatamā matāḥ

Lord Kṛṣṇa says: Those, who by fixing their mind on Me eternally, and those who are steadfast in worshiping Me with supreme faith, I consider them to be perfect in Yoga, ready to be united with Me.

If we use His words properly with integrity and authenticity, we will have the experience of completion, of devotion. We will radiate His words, we will enrich with His love.

Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa says, those who fix their mind on Me eternally and those who are steadfast in worshipping Me with supreme faith, I consider them to be perfect in yoga, ready to be united with Me. Bhagavān says, 'Those who are established in their consciousness that expresses devotional gratitude, bhakti, are always engaged in Me. Those who focus on the transcendental faith, meaning the experience that they undergo at the time of Cosmic experience, they are engaged in Me. Both are ultimate. Both are united in Me.

Saṃskṛit is a beautiful language. We can make any meaning out of any word. That is why thousands of commentaries on the Gītā are possible, yet the Gītā is still new. No book has been commented upon by so many masters, as much as the Gītā has been. Each master gives his own meaning.

Again, I insist that if a person who has not had a spiritual experience starts expressing, lecturing, he will naturally be in trouble and create trouble for others as well. In the same way that the blind leads the blind, both end up in trouble. A person without any spiritual experience, when he translates or talks, he automatically does only 'text torturing.' Real Completion Expresses as Enriching with Love.

Understand this small example: Let us say I draw a diagram and explain the concept of an experience that I have had to you. Later, you present only an audio CD of this session to a friend who did not attend this lecture. You have not had the experience; you merely translate my experience. How much can you explain? He will not be able to grasp much. He will miss my body language completely.

You can not explain accurately either, because you are not the one who had the experience. A person who just has the audio recording or a book copy, cannot understand much. Like that, Bhagavad Gītā is a transcription of the audio recording. Even the voice modulation is not there. How much can you translate or interpret?

That is why Vivekananda emphasized, again and again, not to read or listen to anything expressed by a person who has not personally experienced the truth. Most importantly, he said, 'Bother about who is speaking, rather than what he is speaking.' He emphasized the personal experience. He added, 'All the books in the libraries in this world cannot lead you to the truth. Once you have realized the truth, you do not need books.' Spiritual experience transcends mind and ego. It is pure, uncolored and permanent. By expressing an understanding of someone's experience, one may express a fact or an opinion at best, but never the truth. Truth must be experienced to be expressed.

Those who express their experience as devotion, see the world, upāsate. The word upāssana can be translated in many ways. When we see the Divine in everybody, when we express the truth of the spiritual experience, whatever we do is upāssana.

Please be very clear, when we can't see the Divine in people around us, we can't see the Divine in any statue or any Master either. If we don't see the Divine in living beings, we cannot see the Divine in a God or a Guru. Rāmānuja lived on planet Earth for a long time and inspired thousands of people in the path of spirituality and meditation. One young man asked Rāmānuja, 'Master, please tell me how I can achieve bhakti, achieve God, achieve devotion?' Rāmānuja asked him, 'Have you ever loved anybody in your life?' This man was shaken. He said, 'I am a pure brahmacāri, a celibate. How can you ask me this question? I came to learn about God and you ask me this question?'

The relationship you carry with you is projected as the relationship with the world! I tell you, when you bring integrity in your relationship with others, honoring the words you gave or completing the words you gave, the way others look at you will be transformed immediately. To truly love and enrich someone whom we spend our life with, to prevent familiarity from breeding contempt, we need to complete with others and our self, and drop our 'I' and 'mine'. Being established in that consciousness of completion or expressing it towards enriching the Universe is the same. When a person is merged, when a person is established, he automatically radiates. If love is not happening, if the expression is not happening, the person has not experienced it. When the real experience of completion happens, it automatically expresses as enriching.

Experience is not something we can possess and keep in our cupboard. No! Experience will possess us and it will radiate as enriching through us. This is because we cannot possess an experience. Only the experience can possess us. When experiences possess us, whatever we do will be a song. Any word that comes out will be a song. Our being will be so light. We will simply float. Our body language will radiate grace. All our expressions will be a great enriching service to humanity.

An Enlightened man never keeps quiet nor does he talk, he just sings. That is why the Gītā is given in the form of a song. The Gītā is not prose. It is poetry. Great truths can never be expressed in logic. They can only be expressed through poetry. Prose is logic. It is bound.

It is rigid. But poetry is emotion. It is love and it flows.

Kṛṣṇa says that a person established in the consciousness of completion is great; however, the person who expresses, who shares, who automatically radiates the power of living by enriching is as great as the one who is established. The truth is that if a man is established in consciousness, he will radiate, he will enrich, and he will sing.

When the real experience of completion happens, it automatically expresses as enriching.

  • ❖ Can a person who has not had any spiritual experience teach the scriptures? Why?
  • ❖ What is enriching others with spiritual truths? Why is enriching others with love important? Is enriching equal to devotion?
  • ❖ Why is the Bhagavad Gita in the form of a song?

MATERIALS NEEDED:

  • 1. Printouts of famous paintings
  • 2. Paper, pencil, crayons

PROCEDURE

The class coordinator will distribute the print outs of famous paintings, for example: Mona Lisa (Leonardo Da Vinci), Shakuntala (Raja Ravi Verma), the Last Supper (Leonardo Da Vinci), The Starry Night (Vincent Van Gogh), The persistence of Memory (Salvador Dali), Guernica (Pablo Picasso) etc. Each child must attempt at making a copy of the original painting.

INFERENCE

A copied painting is most likely to deviate from the original in certain details like colour, shape, size etc or even the idea behind the image, depending on the skill and authenticity of the copier. Same way, a copied experience deviated from the original.