Bhagavad Gita Chapter 7

Gratitude Is The Greatest Attitude

Authored by

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

kāmais tais tair hṛta-jñānāḥ prapadyante'nyadevatāḥ taṃ taṃ niyamamāsthāya prakṛtyā niyatāḥ svayā

Those whose discrimination has been distorted by various desires, surrender unto deities. They follow specific rules and regulations of worship according to their own nature.

Whatever our approach to the Divine is, it plays an important role in our spiritual progress.

yo yo yāṃ yāṃ tanuṃ bhaktaḥ śraddhayārcitumicchati tasya tasyācalāṃ śraddhāṃ tāmeva vidadhāmyaham

I am in everyone's heart as the super soul. As soon as one desires to worship some deity, I make his faith steady so that he can devote himself to that particular deity.

When you approach the Divine, He helps you.

sa tayā śraddhayā yuktas tasyārādhanamīhate labhate ca tataḥ kāmān mayaiva vihitānhi tān

Endowed with such a faith, he endeavors to worship a particular demigod and obtains his desires; In reality, these benefits are granted by Me alone.

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.

antavattu phalaṃ teṣāṃ tadbhavatyalpamedhasām devāndevayajo yānti madbhaktā yānti māmapi

Men of limited intelligence worship the demigods and their fruits are limited and temporary. Those who worship the demigods go only to the planets of the demigods, but My devotees reach My supreme planet.

It is the cognition of completion or incompletion that makes Kṛṣṇa either the ultimate God, Bhagavān or a demigod, Deva.

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. 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 start doing these things.

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 iṣṭa 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.'

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 iṣṭa niṣṭa. Iṣṭa niṣṭa means bowing down, revering only your iṣṭa, 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 iṣṭa 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 iṣṭa niṣṭa.

ī ā ā

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 iṣṭa 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

ī ā ā

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

Practice Iṣṭa niṣṭa, with the whole Existence cognizing—'I bow down to THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM 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 THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM 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.

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 Bharat, 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 Iṣṭa niṣṭa and Līlā dhyāna has made millions of village Hindus, Hindu villagers enlightened! Millions of Hindu 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! Iṣṭa 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 iṣṭa. The fifth level is 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.

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! 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. 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.

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. Hindus worship through the idols, not the idols themselves; our rituals address the energy behind these idols. Logic cannot make us understand this. Only faith can, the śraddha that comes from authenticity.

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.

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?'

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.

Help the children to understand the steps in our seeking. Bring the understanding that how we approach the Divine is important in our spiritual progress.

Does Kṛṣṇa say there is a right way and a wrong way to approach him?
What are the first four levels of a normal seeker?
How are pūjā, japa, and jñāna described?
What freedom does the Hindu tradition give you?
What practice is the most powerful technique to put you in bhāva samādhi immediately?
Do Hindus worship idols?
What blessings has God given us?