To Be in Action is Human Nature🔗

3.5 Surely, not even for a moment can anyone stand without doing something.

He is always in action, despite himself, as this is his very nature.

3.6 He who restrains the sense organs, but who still thinks of the objects of the senses is deluded and is called a hypocrite.

3.7 He who begins controlling the senses by the mind and performs

selfless work through the sense organs is superior, O Arjuna.

3.8 Do your prescribed work, as doing work is better than being idle.

Even your own body cannot be maintained without work.

Usually people ask, 'Master, you say that life is purposeless. Then I may as well just lie down and relax. Who will give me food? Who will pay my bills?'

Let me tell you, you can never lie down forever. You may lie down for the next four or five days, because you always go to the extreme, like a pendulum. Now the pendulum is in one extreme.

If you remove your hand, it will swing to the other extreme. For a maximum of one week you will be able to lie down. After that, you won't be able to lie down. By your very nature you will start doing some work. I tell you that by your very nature you will start doing work.

When I say life is purposeless, I am not asking you to just lie down and relax in your house. All I am saying is, 'Let your body and mind work without disturbing your inner space. You don't have to sell your inner space to have outer place. You don't have to sell your inner bliss to have outer comforts.'

'By your very nature,' Krishna gives the assurance here, 'By your very nature, your body and mind will work; if you just keep quiet that is enough; they will function beautifully.'

Somebody asked me, 'Master, what should I do to do the right thing? How should I keep my mind in order to do the right thing?'

I told him, 'Just keep quiet. Automatically your body and mind will do the right thing. If you just get out of your system, that is enough, the Divine will get in.'

All we need to do is to just get out for the Divine to enter.

'By nature,' He says, 'Prakriti-jair gunaiho - by their very nature your body and mind know the right thing to do.' The problem however is that you never trust your body and mind. You never follow your body and mind fully. You always trust your ego and it finally dumps you in the dustbin. Yet you never trust your body and mind.

Be very clear, your body and mind by nature will do the work. All you need to do is keep quiet, relax from your ego. Don't think your inner space is needed for the outer work. The person who understands what nithya, eternal is, and what anithya, transient is, the person who understands what is eternal and what is ephemeral and relaxes into existence is always in eternal consciousness. He always resides in nithya ananda – eternal bliss.

Krishna says, 'A karma yogi (one who follows the path of action) is a man who relaxes into nithya ananda and does his work.'

Just relax into your inner space, and automatically you will be guided. You always think, 'If I relax in my mind thinking that life is purposeless, how will I know what is right and what is wrong?'

Please be very clear, when you worry about what is right and what is wrong, you will not make small mistakes; you will commit big blunders. The person who doesn't worry, who never bothers, may make small mistakes. But the person who continuously worries will never make small mistakes; he will commit big blunders. And I tell you, to take this jump of not worrying needs courage. Even if you make one or two mistakes, what is wrong?

Taking the risk and jumping, and living without worrying is what I call courage, courage to enter into spiritual life. When you take the jump, you will naturally make one or two small mistakes. Don't worry about them.

Putting up with that mistake is what I call penance. Penance is nothing but accepting the small mistakes which you make when the conscious transition happens in your being.

When you move from ephemeral consciousness to eternal consciousness, when you move from worry to bliss, when you move from falsehood to truth, you will make one or two mistakes.

You will fall and rise just like a small child learning to walk. When children learn to walk, they always fall once or twice. But just because of that, can you say they should never start walking? No! Even if they make one or two small mistakes, they have to stand up and start walking. Those one or two small mistakes of falling and trying to stand up are the penance done to learn how to walk.

In the same way when you start living without the ego, initially you may commit one or two mistakes. But don't worry about that. That is penance.

Have courage and just enter into the zone of no-ego. Enter into the zone of eternal consciousness. Simply start living and realize the purposelessness of Existence.

Decide, 'Today onwards I will live without worrying. Life is too short to be spent worrying.'

Don't bother, never worry about the goals - just drop the goals. The moment you understand the beauty of purposelessness, all the wounds, which you have created in your inner space will be healed. You will fall into the comfort of eternal bliss.

A man who keeps his senses under control, but who is not able to keep his inner space under control is called a pretender, a hypocrite, says Krishna.

Please be very clear, the quality of your life will be judged only based on the quality of your inner space, not based on the quality of your outer space. When you leave your body and enter into your next life, nobody is going to see the account of what type of car you drove, in what type of house you lived, how much bank balance you had. No! These accounts will not come with you.

How you lived, how your inner space was, what was the quality of your inner space when you lived, only that you are going to carry forward with you. That is why the scriptures state, 'You are going to carry only the samskara (engraved memories), the karma (unfulfilled desires) and the vasana (mindset) as the inner space with you - not the outer space.'

A beautiful story from Ramakrishna:

A monk was living in the temple area, doing intense meditation and preaching the glory of the Lord. Opposite to his dwelling lived a prostitute who was busy all day long. She was deeply devoted to the Lord. No matter what her business was, she was immersed in the silent meditation of His glory.

As was the tradition in earlier times, she and others from her group would serve the temple by singing and dancing in front of the main deity.

Everyday this monk would see everyone that entered the prostitute's house, what time they entered, what time they left, how many people entered; he would keep track of everything because he had no other work. What to do, he had no other work! When you don't have any other work you will be interested in the other fellows work; you need to do something.

Continuously, he kept accounts of how much time each person spent there, etc. He was almost like the diary maintainer for that prostitute!

He maintained a complete diary of who came, who left, who visited regularly, who came once in a while or often. The whole day he thought about what was going on in there.

And that lady, the prostitute, she lived in a different way. She thought, 'My life, my natural duty is this. This has been given to me in this life. I don't know any other profession. I have to live only like this. For my food I have to live this life. Oh Lord! But please save me, let my mind and heart always be at Your feet.' She was deeply devoted to Krishna.

Her inner space was filled with the Divine. Her inner space was filled with God's name and Divine love. Life went on. After sometime, suddenly, both of them died on the same day. This monk and the prostitute, both of them died on the same day. The story is beautiful!

Both of them reach Yama Dharma's (Lord of Death) court for judgment. First, the prostitute comes in. Yama Dharma sees her list of sins and merits and says, 'All right! Don't worry. You lived throughout your life thinking of the Divine, so go to heaven.' She is sent to heaven.

The monk is next. The moment the monk arrives, Yama Dharma says, 'This is your list of sins and

merits. Throughout your life you thought about wrong things, so go to hell.'

The monk starts shouting, 'How dare you send me to hell!' And you know he is a professional preacher, so he knows how to shout! He starts shouting, 'I will sue you'. He must have visited America many times! 'I will sue you', he shouts.

Yama Dharma says, 'Please relax. Here up in the heaven we don't bother about what you do, we bother about how you live. Through your body you lived a pure life. Look at planet Earth and see how your body is respected.'

There the monk saw his body was respected like that of a celebrity; people were falling at the feet of his body. Big garlands were offered. Big worship was being done to the body. His body was being carried to a big tomb earmarked for holy men and his body was receiving respect.

Yama continued, 'Through your body you lived a pure life; your body is now getting respect. But through the mind, you lived an impure life; now go to hell. Similarly, she lived an impure life through the body. Look at her body.'

Nobody was there even to care. Because she was a prostitute, no husband, no sons, nobody was there even to do the last rites; the body was stinking. The government fellows just came and dragged the body and dumped it somewhere. 'See! Through the body she lived an impure life. Her body is suffering. But through the mind she lived a pure life, divine life. She is therefore going to the divine.'

It is more important how you live in the inner space of your mind. Your inner space is the real achievement.

How your inner space is, is what matters. Please be very clear, again and again Krishna declares:

karmendriyani sanyamya ya aste manasa smaran indriyarthan vimudha atma mithyacharaha sa uchyate

If you can't clear your inner space, even if you control your body, even if you control your senses, you are just a hypocrite. Your life will not be a blissful life; your life will not be a real life. Not only will it not be a spiritual life, it will not even be life at all!

The meaning of living is bliss but there is no purpose. The more you think about purposes, the more will you create worries; the more will you try to squeeze the most from life. But life is much more intelligent than you.

Please be very clear, life is much more intelligent than you. When you try to squeeze the maximum out of life, it just slips away through your fingers.

Life is like a river. If you put your hands in the river and keep them open, it will always be there in your hands. But if you try to catch it, if you try to hold it, you will have only empty hands!

Life is a flowing river. If you just allow it to happen it will continuously flow in you. The moment you try to catch it, the moment you try to possess it, you will have only empty hands. You will not be able to have life itself.

Be very clear, the moment you understand that life is purposeless, the moment you understand the purposelessness of life, you start experiencing the meaning of living, the bliss. The moment you drop the goal, the very path itself will become beautiful; your whole life will become beautiful. Your whole life will become ecstasy. There is nothing to achieve separately; the whole thing is purposeless.

The moment you experience in your inner space that nothing is going to be with you permanently or nothing is permanent, the moment you understand that, a deep healing, a deep cooling breeze enters into your consciousness. Your whole inner space will be healed.

You have so many thousands of wounds in your inner space. Wounds created by your own desires, wounds created by your failures and by others, wounds created by your near and dear ones. All these wounds will be healed with this one single medicine.

This one meditation of understanding that life is purposeless, one meditation of realizing that whatever you achieve is just nothing, and that nothing is going to be with you, is enough.

A small story about Alexander:

Alexander the Great, who committed so many murders, can never be called 'the great'. Please be very clear: never teach your kids that Alexander is great. Then you are inspiring them to commit murders. You are inspiring them to enter into war. Unconsciously, you are putting all these ideas in front of them! Never do that. Alexander the so-called 'Great'! Of course, he did one good thing.

Unfortunately or fortunately, he met an enlightened Master in Bharat. You can say unfortunately only, because this guy didn't know how to respect him. Somehow, he got the idea from his teacher in Greece, 'Bring one enlightened Master and the Vedas from Bharat, and I will change the whole society'.

So this guy decided he would take at least one enlightened person from Bharat. Somehow he got the chance to meet an enlightened person. He invited him, 'Please come to our country'.

The Master just laughed and said, 'No, no! I don't want to come anywhere; I want to be here only.'

Alexander said, 'No, no, no! Please come. I will give you a big palace. Here you are living like a beggar without even clothes, without even having enough food. Please come with me. I will give you a big palace and all the comforts.'

The Master just laughed, 'No. I am quite happy here, I don't want to come.'

You know what is the next step a king will take. First, by attacking the Master's greed he tried; because it did not work, he wanted to try through his fear now. He just took his sword out and said, 'If you are not ready to come, you will be killed.'

Just in front of the naked sword the Master laughed. Please be very clear, laughing now is very easy but laughing in front of a naked sword is very difficult, especially when the person who is holding the sword is a king, because if he kills there is nobody to question. There is nobody to question him.

But in front of the naked sword, he laughed and said, 'Fool! You are a great liar.' He straightaway looked into the eyes of Alexander and said, 'Fool! You are a great liar.'

For the first time Alexander was shaken. For the first time he was afraid! He asked, 'Are you not afraid?'

The Master said, 'You can never kill me. You may destroy this body, but you cannot kill me.'

That is the courage or the confidence of his experience: the courage that is expressed by the spiritual experience that we study in the Gita:

'Nainam chindanti shastrani nainam dahati pavakaha na chainam kledayanti apo na shoshayati marutaha (2.23)'

It means: Atman or the soul cannot be killed; Atman cannot be destroyed; it cannot be burned.

This has become an experience for him. That is why he has courage and confidence. He just laughed.

Slowly, Alexander started thinking, 'If he can laugh in front of my naked sword, how courageous must he be!' For the first time he was shaken because he had never seen anybody who could laugh in front of a naked sword, who could laugh in the face of death. Even he was afraid.

Please be very clear, all the so-called great warriors are deep cowards. They kill others before they are killed, that's all. Continuously, they are afraid of death. That is why they kill others.

Be very clear, warriors are the worst cowards! Just to hide their cowardice or to escape from the fear of death they start killing others. Alexander was totally shaken. He was shocked to see the courage of this Master.

He then asked him, 'Please tell me something. How are you so courageous, so bold?'

The Master asked: 'Why did you come to Bharat?'

Alexander replied, 'To conquer Bharat.'

The Master continued, 'After that what are you going to do?'

Alexander replied confidently, 'I will conquer the next country.'

The Master again asked, 'After that what are you going to do?'

Alexander continued, 'I will conquer the next country.'

The Master persisted, 'And after that?'

Alexander replied as if the answer was obvious, 'I will conquer the whole world.'

The Master questioned further, 'After that?'

Alexander replied, 'I will relax and enjoy.'

The Master said, 'Fool! That is what I am doing now!'

The Master said, 'Don't you see that that is what I am doing now? The same thing I am doing now. Why do you need to go around and conquer the whole world to relax and enjoy? That is what I am doing now straightaway in front of your eyes!'

Only a man who has understood the purposelessness of life can relax and enjoy. The Master gave a glimpse of the Truth to Alexander.

That is why Alexander said to his ministers, 'After my death, when you carry my dead body, please keep my hands out. Please keep my hands out in an open position. Let people know that even the great Alexander did not carry anything with him'.

Even Alexander did not carry anything with him.

This is a beautiful story.

You need to understand three things. The first thing is the courage and confidence radiated by an enlightened person.

The next thing is the purposelessness of our running. For what was Alexander running? To relax and enjoy! This Master was already doing the same thing.

The third thing is that we are not going to carry anything with us from this life. We are not going to carry anything. Please be very clear, even if the whole world worships you as a king, you cannot carry that with you! You have to go empty handed only.

Mad people also claim they are kings, while people who are sitting on the throne also claim they are kings. Why is it that the former are put in an asylum and the latter are respected?

If the guy is cunning enough to convince others to believe what he says, he is respected and made to sit on the throne. People who are innocent, people who are not so cunning, people who are not able to frighten others to believe what he says, are put in the asylum, that's all.

Otherwise, there is no difference between a person who is sitting in the asylum and claiming he is a king and a person who is sitting on the throne and claiming he is a king. The person who is sitting on a throne and claiming he is a king is cunning, or somehow he is able to torture people, or threaten people, or frighten people to believe in what he says. The person who is sitting in the asylum doesn't have that much cunningness.

In Existence, there is no mad person, and there is no king. Both are one and the same. The person who has enough courage or enough of capacity to frighten others, who can make others believe what he says is the truth, he sits on the throne. The one who doesn't have that much cunningness sits in the asylum.

A small story:

One guy in Bharat suddenly started thinking and claiming he was Jawaharlal Nehru. At that time, Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister of Bharat.

If he had only started claiming, that would have been okay. He started dressing like him, which was also okay. Then he started writing letters to all officials and started signing them like Jawaharlal Nehru. Naturally, he was taken to an asylum and for six months he was treated.

After all the treatment, he started behaving almost normally. The doctor said, 'I think you can be discharged now.' The day he was about to be released, fortunately or unfortunately, Jawaharlal Nehru himself visited the asylum. He himself came to the asylum.

They brought this patient to Nehru and introduced him. 'Sir, he is the person who started claiming he was Jawaharlal Nehru.' After the formal introduction, this patient asked Nehru, 'Who are you?' Nehru said, 'I am Jawaharlal Nehru.'

The patient said, 'Please be here for six months. They will make you alright!'

Understand that there is no difference between these two. Somehow one is able to convince others that what he says is the truth. The other one is not able to convince, that's all! There is no other big difference.

In Existence, there are no boundaries. In Existence there is no post. The person who knows how to convince others in a cunning way becomes a king. Even if you become a king, that doesn't fulfill anything. That doesn't give you anything.

Never think that having the outer space or having comforts in the outer world will give you inner fulfillment. Never! All developed countries are filled with depression.

All developed countries are filled with depression! They have the best roads, the best dams, the best bridges, the best infrastructure, but people are depressed. People are depressed! All developed countries are drowning in depression. Never think that outer space will give you inner space.

If you want inner space, if you want to achieve the inner space, you need to work for the inner space. You need to understand the dynamics of the inner space. You need to understand the technology of the inner space.

Here, Krishna is giving you the technology of the inner space. This is how we work, or how our mind moves. This is your being. Material life is a horizontal line and spiritual life is a vertical line. Continuously, we fight or we try to choose something. You continuously bother about whether to choose the horizontal line or the vertical line; whether to go in this (horizontal) path, or in that (vertical) path.

You are always stuck somewhere on the horizontal line or somewhere on the vertical line. You try to move but

you are always caught in the dilemma of whether to go this way or that way.

Mind is dilemma. Mind is nothing but dilemma. Whatever thought you choose, whether in the material life or in the spiritual life, you will always feel you are missing the other part. You will continuously feel you are missing something.

One important thing is that as long as you think you are the mind, as long as you live with the mind, you will have this problem of material life or spiritual life. But if you can just draw into the being, you can just forget about the goal. You locate a purpose somewhere and you are continuously running towards it, running towards the purpose.

One more thing: just like you have goals in material life, people have goals in spiritual life also. There are so many people who say, 'I should meditate for seven hours. I should become enlightened. I should become that, I should do this, I should be that.'

Please be very clear, goals in material life and goals in spiritual life both make you mad. If you want to become mad, continuously think of some goal. It is the direct way to go mad. Nothing else needs to be done. A simple technique to become mad is to remember some goals!

The more you are bothered about the goal, the less you will be able to live the path. For example, if a teacher is continuously bothered about his salary, he will never be able to see the faces of his students. He will see only the face that is printed on the dollar bill. In the same way, the man who is caught in the goal will never be able to live life.

The man who continuously bothers about or thinks about the goal will never be able to enjoy the simple things around him. He can't smile at a flower. He can't stop to see nature. He can't enjoy anything. He will be continuously running, running, running behind the printed-paper, the dollar bill, which has no value.

Money is nothing but a utility. We run behind the utility. We run behind these things for a reason and eventually we achieve things, but we never achieve what for we wanted to achieve all these things in the first place.

The man who runs behind the goals, the material goals, will always feel he is missing the spiritual goal.

One more basic secret: understand that all rich communities will always follow spiritual Masters. All rich communities, invariably, will always follow spiritual Masters, because inside them there is a deep guilt that they are missing spirituality.

All rich communities will always go to and will always have strong spiritual Masters. You can see this in every society. If the community is rich, they will have strong gurus, because of the deep guilt that they are missing spirituality.

The person who chooses the spiritual path will always be running behind the rich men. The person who chooses material path will always be running behind the spiritual man. Both fulfill each other. The spiritual guy wants to fulfill the material person and the material person wants to fulfill the spiritual guy.

Please be very clear, that is why the so-called religious men or the so-called rich men are always trying to be together. You can always see that these two will be together because the rich guy needs the religious man and the religious guy needs the rich man. Both feel that they miss the other.

The guy who travels on the horizontal line feels he is missing the spiritual life and the guy who travels on the vertical line feels he is missing the material life. Both are trying to fulfill each other cerebrally.

The materialist fulfills the spiritualist's ideal and the spiritualist fulfills the materialist's ideal. The person who chooses the spiritual life feels if rich men are around him, what he is missing will be fulfilled. In the same way, the person who chose the worldly life feels that if he goes to a spiritual man or a religious man, he will be fulfilled. Both are helping each other.

The man who realizes purposelessness of these goals, the purposelessness of the running, just falls back into his being. If you realize that whatever you keep as the purpose or goal in your life is purposeless and is useless, the very moment you realize this and the moment the glamour is gone, that moment the need for perspiration is gone; you stop running.

Mind you, it is not inspiration; it is just perspiration that you give up. The moment purpose is gone, the moment respect for the purpose is gone in your life, you will simply fall into your being.

One important thing: the moment you fall into your being, you explode! Not only do you start flowing in the direction of horizontal and vertical lines, but you also explode in 360 degrees in all dimensions. Whatever you can imagine and whatever you can't imagine will start happening, and you will start exploding in all the directions. Only then you become a multi-dimensional being.

A man who has fallen into his being, one who has dropped goals, who understands the purposelessness of Existence, who has realized, who has tasted the beauty of purposelessness, falls into his being, into his ātman, and explodes in 360 degrees, in all dimensions. He simply radiates in all directions!

He starts experiencing the ultimate bliss of spiritual life and the ultimate happiness of material life and something more! Only he enters into eternal bliss or Krishna Consciousness.

As long as you are caught with material goals or spiritual goals, you travel only in that line, because you think you are body or mind.

The more you are caught with the purpose, the more you will think you are body or mind. The moment you realize the purposelessness of it all, you will straightaway fall into the depths of your being.

You experience your ātman; you relax and your inner wounds are healed. The first inner wound is thinking of your Self as body and mind. That is the Original Sin.

Please be very clear, the Original Sin is thinking of your Self as body and mind. Don't think Adam eating the apple is the Original Sin. No! Why should we suffer for Adam's sin? Surely, we don't have to suffer for his sin. The Original Sin is not Adam eating the apple; it is you thinking of your Self as body or mind.

When you have purposes, when you think of the purpose of life, you think you are a body or a mind, that you are matter. When you realize purposelessness, you just drop into the energy of your being. The moment you drop into your being, you explode; your inner wounds are healed. Understand this one thing. If you can understand this one thing and live in this moment, you can become enlightened.

Actually, for any single individual to become enlightened you don't need the whole Gita. This single verse is enough. This single Gita verse is enough to make any individual enlightened.

Then why am I speaking on all the verses? It is only because there are so many different kinds of individuals. This is a key for different individuals, which is the reason why I am explaining all the verses.

If you can fall into yourself, just look into yourself and understand this one verse for yourself, not for going and explaining to your wife, not for going and explaining to your mother-in-law, not for going and explaining to your friend, not for going and explaining to somebody else, but for your own self.

Please be very clear, whenever I speak, understand that I am speaking to you. Don't prepare notes in your mind to go and repeat it to somebody else. When you prepare notes you think, 'I should go and tell this to my friend, I should go and tell this to my husband.'

When you prepare mental notes to repeat it to somebody, you are sure to miss experiencing it.

Just allow this one idea to work on you: the truth of the purposelessness of life. You can just close your eyes and think, contemplate for two or three minutes. 'Really what is the purpose of my life? Why am I doing what I am doing? Where am I going? What is happening?'

If your inner eye just opens, if your inner space understands the beauty of purposelessness, that is enough. You will fall into your being. When you fall into your being, you explode in 360 degrees, in all dimensions.

You experience a totally different kind of material life and a totally different kind of spiritual life. As of now, you can neither experience material life nor experience spiritual life because when you are here, you are looking there and when you are there, you are looking here. You never experience anything in a solid way.

Your mind is not where your body is. You are not living inside your boundary. The other side of the bank always looks greener. Something else is always calling you. Only when you experience the beauty of purposelessness will you be able to understand what Krishna says throughout Karma Yoga.

Please take a few minutes, close your eyes and look into yourself. Sincerely ask yourself whether you are doing things in totality. Let this understanding work on you. Let this idea sink into your being. Honestly ask why you are doing what you are doing, where you are going, and what you think of as your purpose. Take a few minutes and look.

Whatever you think of as your purpose, even if you achieve it, it is not going to be with you. It is not going to stay with you! The beauty of the whole of Existence is purposelessness!

Let this one idea sink into your being. Let this go deep into your inner space. Let it do this alchemy on you.

Relax! Understand this one thing. Just understanding this one single idea can transform your whole way of thinking. It can transform your whole way of working and can transform your whole way of living. When you understand there is no purpose in totality, you will start enjoying every single moment; you will start living intensely in every single inch of your body. Every moment will become meaningful.

When you think that, in life as a whole there is a purpose, every single moment will lose its meaning. If you think one month of your working time is worth a hundred thousand dollars or fifty thousand dollars, you will judge the value of that one month only as being only fifty thousand dollars.

Please be very clear, your life is not just worth fifty thousand dollars. For example, you think one month of your life is worth fifty thousand dollars. If you calculate the value of your whole life, it may come to some 10 million, 20 million or even 100 million dollars.

Suddenly, if someone says, 'I will give you 100 million dollars, give me your life,' will you be able to give him your life? Logically, this is the way you are calculating and working. We are ready to sell our mind, ready to sell our moments, ready to sell our inner space, calculating the value of our lives. Logically you fix the rate for your life. Once you fix the rate, only the rate is in your mind. You forget the work itself, or living itself, which is beautiful. But you miss all that.

If you think the whole has got a purpose, then the part loses its meaning. Understand, as a whole, the whole has no purpose. The moment you realize that the whole has no purpose, the part will become meaningful. Your very living, every day itself, will become very beautiful. Everyday your life, your living, your sitting, your walking, your standing, everything will become a joyful experience.

That is why they say sat chit ānanda, which means the 'bliss of the very existence'. Your very existence is blissful. You don't have to think that in the end you will have bliss. No! Your very existence is blissful.

The moment you drop the goal, your path becomes blissful. The moment you realize the beauty of purposelessness, your very existence becomes meaningful. The meaning of existence is bliss, eternal bliss, nithya ānanda. But you need to take steps towards that bliss.

By nature, man has to work. What I mean is, by their very nature, senses have to be engaged in some action. Even if you try and control and do nothing externally, the very act of restraint is an action in itself.

The choice is really about how to work. Here, Krishna gives the answer to that. He says that we should perform work with devotion and without attachment to the results. Perform work without unnecessarily being bothered about whether or not it will fetch the results that you expect. If when we work, our thoughts are on the future, then we are not in the present moment. Am I right? Then how can we be performing to our fullest potential? How can I say that I am doing my work with full devotion if my mind is not totally merged with the task at hand? It's not possible. And then how can I get the results I want if I'm not working to full potential?

When do you get worried or afraid? It is when you have an expected result, an unwritten expectation, and an unconscious desire to achieve something as the result of an action. Krishna says, 'Drop the very desire, and drop the very expectation.'

We wonder, 'how can we function if we drop expectations?' Be very clear, I am not saying you should not plan and do something without thinking. I am saying, 'Plan, but plan chronologically; not psychologically.'

You see, there are two things: chronological planning and psychological planning.

Chronological planning is planning on a timescale. You decide you will get up at this time, finish your morning routine by a particular time, reach the office at a particular time, and finish the list of tasks you planned at the office by a certain time, and so on. This is a practical way to organize your work in such a way that it can give the best results. This is fine.

But, what do we do? We don't stop at this. We review the plan in our head over and over, thinking in different ways whether we will be able to manage it. We keep supposing, 'What if this happens? What if that happens?'

In the name of contingency planning, we just worry. A contingency plan should help to come up with alternative solutions. Then it won't sap your energy. But you are thinking how to handle something if the plan does not go as expected. If you apply your awareness to the problem in an objective way, the solution will simply stand out.

But we complicate the whole process. We get worked up about contingency situation and introduce a complex negativity in the whole thinking process. We start hoping unconsciously that such a situation does not arise. We start worrying about what the possible unknowns are that have not been accounted for in the plan and what not!

You keep analyzing your plan and get into a dull state because all your energy goes into analyzing the plan again and again.

Psychological planning boosts your ego. It makes you feel great and worthy. It helps you to stay serious. It makes you feel that you are handling things of great magnitude. It makes you feel that it is wholly in your hands to worry about it and make it happen. This is psychological planning.

Krishna says, 'Devotional work, without attachment and controlling the senses is superior to one who merely pretends to be in control of his senses and acts in renunciation.'

There are intellectual types, vedantis and advaita philosophers, well versed in all scriptures, who look down upon devotional bhakti marg practitioners. Intellectuals believe that their dry understanding of non-duality of the Self and the Divine is superior to those who fall at the feet of the Divine. Krishna firmly says, 'No.'

Krishna says that what makes the difference is your lack of expectations, the sense of purposelessness that defines your state, and not the status of renunciation. The state of renunciation is not a state of doing nothing.

You can never sit without doing anything. Even if you sit still in one place, you are sitting, you are breathing, is it not? The internal functions in your body are happening. Maintaining this very body requires that work be done.

The breath that you take in carries prana, the life energy that sustains your life. Constantly, air is going in, leaving prana inside and coming out. From the cosmos, we are taking prana through air. This is also an action being done to sustain the body. So, you cannot say you are not doing anything.

You may think that it is better not to do any work rather than analyze what work you should do, how to do it, whether it will suit you and all that. You can take this as an excuse for laziness, for your tamas. When Krishna says, 'I am not the doer, it is just the senses doing the actions according to their nature,' you say, 'Why should I even bother to do anything? '

Be very clear, by your very nature, you will act. Your body and mind, the gross body and the subtle mind, are, by nature, forced to do something.

Just try telling your mind not to do any work, not to think about anything. Try to sit with a completely blank mind, no mental activity, not thinking about anything. Just relax and try this simple exercise. You will initially try not to think about anything. You will try to be aware if any thought comes to your mind. But, after a few moments, you will find yourself having some thought, thinking about something from the past or the future. Some thought would have crept into your mind - some random thought about something.

By nature, your mind will think about something or the other. If you try to force silence into your mind, you will be forcing a dead silence, the silence of suppression. How long can you sustain that? The moment you drop your guard, mind will express its nature and start wandering.

So, neither expression nor suppression is the solution. It is better to be aware of the nature of the senses and the mind, and be engaged in work with a sense of devotion. Be aware when you are in action, it is the senses acting. Then you will not get attached to the action or its result. Then you are free; you are liberated from the bondage of action. Action binds you only when you associate yourself as the doer and have expectations about things being a certain way.

Q: Master, is it possible that meditation takes us into inaction? Even though my intention is to energize myself through meditation, I find I lose interest in things after meditation. Why?

This is an interesting and real issue.

Normally, you are in a state of action, which is the state of rajas. When you are in rajas, also described as aggression or passion, you are externally oriented. Your thoughts are focused on action of some sort or another, usually with some goal in mind. This is the state of most human beings, whether in business, academics or just looking after the household. You plan your activities and you plan to fulfill them accordingly.

When you go into meditation and practice seriously, and this happens especially when you are in an ashram kind of environment, you realize the futility of these goal-based actions. All these, all the triggers that activate you, seem to be negativities of some sort. You tend to drop these negativities.

When you drop these negativities and do not want to do anything with them, the state that you move into is tamas, or lazy inaction. Suddenly you find that you are disinterested in everything. You may just want to sleep, that is all. It is not quite depression, but a disinclination to act, because all actions seem negative.

This may last a while, a few days, but not for long. Let it happen. Let yourself go through this process. Let all the negativities work themselves out of you.

Then gradually you will move back into action with awareness, satva. You will act, since you cannot but act, as Krishna says, but now you act without a purpose. The results of your action are no longer of relevance to you. Success and failure no longer bother you.

So do not worry if you slip into what you think is laziness while practicing meditation. It is likely to happen. It is a normal process. Just continue and you will move into purposeless action.

People think that moving from rajas, aggression to satva, calmness is the natural evolution. It does not work that way. When you move out of your normal active and aggressive behavior you first fall into tamas, inactivity. This is the movement of the mind when it moves out of aggression; it moves into inaction. When this shift is caused by meditation, the inaction does not last long. The mind soon moves into a relaxed, calm state.

I have talked about this elsewhere in detail. The mind is constantly looking out through the senses. Its focus is external. It settles on the periphery. However, deep inside there is a longing for it to move inwards. It is constantly getting pulled towards the center from the periphery. It is constantly getting pulled from the material to the spiritual.

Usually it settles somewhere in the middle. That is why I say that all humans are eccentric. Their senses pull them to the periphery and their being attracts them to the center. The mind settles eccentrically in between.

Meditation aids the movement inwards. As attention shifts from the periphery to the core there is a resistance to what was experienced in the periphery. This leads to temporary inaction and detachment to peripheral experiences.

Once a glimpse of the center, the core is achieved there is no detachment or dislike. There is neither attachment nor great attraction for something or detachment or dislike for something. All experiences are viewed non-judgmentally and with non-attachment. At the core it is always bliss. It is the state of nithyananda, eternal bliss.

Selfless Service Liberates

3.9 Work has to be performed selflessly; otherwise, work binds one to this world.

O son of Kunti, perform your work for Me and you will do it perfectly, liberated and without attachment.

3.10 Brahma, the lord of creation, before creating human kind as selfless sacrifice said, 'By this selfless service, be more and more prosperous and let it bestow all desired gifts.'

3.11 The celestial beings, being pleased by this sacrifice, will also nourish you; with this mutual nourishing of one another, you will achieve supreme prosperity.

3.12 Satisfied with the selfless service, the celestial beings certainly award you the desired necessities of life. He who enjoys the things given by them without offering to the celestial beings is certainly a thief.

3.13 Those who eat food after selfless service are free of all sins. Those who prepare food for sense enjoyment do grievous sin.

There are two techniques by which one can liberate oneself from attachment to work. One is by telling oneself, 'I am not the doer.' By continuously reminding yourself that it is the senses and not you who are doing something, you distance yourself from the action and you are consciously aware that you are not the doer. This is what Krishna explained in the verse before this one.

The other way is by surrendering the fruits of one's work to the Divine, to the ultimate life force that is conducting this universe. This is the technique that Krishna talks about here. He says, 'Perform your work for Him and you will do it perfectly, liberated and without attachment.'

When you do work as a sincere, humble offering to the Divine, the very attitude of this surrender will make you do the job perfectly well and you will be liberated. In your own life you can see this. Those times when you are excessively bothered about result are the times when you think you are the doer of the action. You then get attached to the work and its results.

This is when you start getting stressed and tensed about results. Naturally, when you get tensed, you are not at your optimum. You are not at maximum efficiency because so much of your valuable energy is getting wasted in getting tensed. How will you then be able to get your job properly done?

I always tell people, 'When you are afraid to make small mistakes and are extra careful not to make small mistakes, you only end up making big blunders.' You waste your entire life trying to avoid making mistakes and attempting to be perfect, and your life becomes a blunder.

I am not asking you to make mistakes deliberately. I am only saying that you should have the courage to make mistakes. Only when you make mistakes, can you learn from them. Only then you have seen both sides of the coin. Then, with experience, when you have learnt from the mistake, you will have that perspective also. Otherwise, just at the crucial time, you will make mistakes. You can have this courage only when you are not attached to ownership of tasks and the results.

When you see that Existence is purposeless and you are living in the loving, caring arms of Existence, you will relax and surrender to that very Existence. When you are in this relaxed mood, you can function at your best and you will enjoy every moment of life. Real surrender happens when this understanding becomes your experience.

A beautiful small story:

A person who faced a lot of troubles in life felt that he had had enough of his life. He ran away to the forest and wanted to find an enlightened Master to achieve liberation. He searched day and night but was not able to find anybody.

Then he decided, 'Whoever comes along this road first, whoever I meet on this road first, I shall accept that person as my Master, that's all. I am going to follow his instructions. Oh God, I know you are here. Send me a proper person and guide me. That's all I ask.'

He sat down and was waiting patiently. After two days, in the evening, a thief came running on that road. The man went and just caught hold of his feet, 'Oh Master, please save me. You are my God. You are my Guru. Please give me instructions on how to be enlightened.'

The thief said, 'What is this? Leave me! I am a thief. Palace guards are behind me; I just robbed the palace.'

The man said, 'No! You are my God. You are my Guru. You have to guide me on the path towards enlightenment.'

The thief said, 'Fool! Don't you see I have all these stolen items with me? I have just robbed the palace. Let me go. Otherwise, I will kill you.'

The man said, 'I don't know all that. You are my Guru; teach me.'

Then, the thief thought, 'Alright. Now, what can I do?' He said, 'Ok. You say I am your Guru. Then listen to me. Will you do whatever I say?'

He said, 'Yes, surely I will.'

The thief said, 'Sit'. He sat. The thief said, 'Close your eyes.' He closed his eyes. The thief told him, 'Don't open your eyes until I come back and tell you to open your eyes.' The man sat with all sincerity, closed his eyes and the thief immediately ran away.

The man continued sitting for hours. Then slowly, days passed, then a week passed; a month passed by. The man sat without food or water, absolutely still. Lord Shiva saw this and seeing the depth of his sincerity, the story says, Shiva appeared before him and gave him enlightenment!

This may look like a story. But please understand it has got a beautiful meaning and a truth behind it: The very sincerity is enough. Nothing else is needed.

Surrender has a tremendous power, a tremendous energy. Whether you surrender to an idol or to a person or your Guru, or even a rock is not important. What is important is the surrender itself.

Vivekananda says beautifully: 'When you pray to God, your prayers actually awaken your own inner potential energy and it showers blessings on you.'

Even if you see logically, surrender helps you to simply relax. When you are relaxed, you can work beautifully with intelligence rather than with your pre-programmed intellect.

A small story:

There was once a bank manager who used to take all the cash to his home everyday and bring it back with him the next morning. He had done this for a month and could not do it anymore.

He found himself trembling all the way while driving back home and was not able to sleep at home with all the money in his custody. He finally asked his boss to relieve him of the job since he could not bear the stress any longer.

His boss told him that even if money were to be lost, he would not be blamed and that he could continue with his job. The manager slept peacefully from that day onwards.

What was the difference in him? He was doing the same job, but why were the fear and tension not there any more? It was because the responsibility had been shifted to a higher authority. That's all. This is surrender. Do your duty, leaving the responsibility of the results to Existence.