Fix Your Mind on Me🔗

12.2 Lord Krishna said, '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.'

Bhagavan 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.

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

Again, I insist that if a person who has not had a spiritual experience starts expressing and 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 are led into trouble. Similarly, a person without any spiritual experience, when he translates or talks, he automatically does only text torturing.

Only a person who has had a true spiritual experience and one who is free from inner chatter is true to himself and others. Only then a person can transparently and honestly bare himself without thinking of others. Until then, there is inner chatter and an effort to filter. There is an effort to rehearse. We dare not bare the truth of the inner chatter to the outside world. We fear that what may spill out will be unacceptable, so we filter and replace what we feel inside us with lies. We make our lives into lies.

Understand this small example: let us say I draw a diagram and explain the concept of an experience that I have had to you. After a few days, 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 are merely translating my experience. How much can you explain? How well will you explain? How much can the other person grasp? He will not grasp much. He will miss many details that are in the diagram. He will miss my body language completely. You cannot explain accurately either, because you are not the one who had the experience.

I am explaining through a picture. If you are here seeing and listening to me you will understand. Even then, it is difficult to grasp the truth, to understand it. So if you just give the audio CD to a friend who has not attended the program, how much will he understand? In the same way, if he tries to understand through the CD and gives a lecture on this subject to someone else, how much of it will be accurate?

A person who has not attended the lecture, who just has the audio recording or a copy of the book, cannot understand much. Like that, the Bhagavad Gita is a transcription of the audio recording. If the Gita were an audio recording, at least you would comprehend a bit more from the voice modulation. However, the voice modulation is not there. It is a transcription of an audio recording. 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.'

Intellectual understanding is not experiencing. Understanding is a phenomenon of the mind. It is a byproduct of our ego. The filters of our mind and ego, color our understanding. Only then can the mind perceive and understand.

Experience is the Truth felt by the Being. 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.

Here Bhagavan says,

mayy aavesya mano ye maam nitya-yuktaa upaasate sraddhayaa parayopetaas te me yuktatamaa mataah

Those who express their experience as devotion see the world upaasate. The word upassana can be translated in many ways. When we see the the Divine in everybody, when we express the truth of the spiritual experience, whatever we do is upassana. Please be very clear, when we can't see the Divine in people around us, we cannot 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.

If it were not for the great Master Ramanuja, South Bharat would have completely lost its spirituality. Sankara settled in the north even though he was born and brought up in the south. He spent most of his time in North Bharat. Because of Ramanuja, devotion and spirituality thrived in South Bharat. Until his end, Ramanuja stayed in South Bharat. Not only that, Sankara lived until the age of thirty-two. Ramanuja lived on planet Earth for a long time and inspired thousands of people in the path of spirituality and meditation.

One young man asks Ramanuja, 'Master, please tell me how I can achieve bhakti, achieve God, achieve devotion?' Ramanuja asks, 'Have you ever loved anybody in your life?' This man was shaken. He said, 'I am a pure brahmachari, celibate. How can you ask me this question? I came to learn about God, and you ask me this question?' Ramanuja says, 'First go and love somebody. See how you feel when you love somebody. Then come back and I will teach you about God. I will teach you about bhakti, devotional love.'

This man was naturally taken aback. He could not understand Ramanuja. However, unless we love the person whom we can see, how will we love an entity that we have never seen? If we can't love Hindu beings whom we see everyday, how can we love the form of God whom we have never seen? What Ramanuja says is true. We should also understand that unless we radiate love in the space where we stay, we can't love the whole world.

Again and again I tell people, loving the whole world is easy. Loving your wife is difficult. Loving the whole world is easy because we don't need to do anything. All we must do is to say, 'I love the whole world, and I love the whole world.' But when we love our wife, we must change our attitude. We must change our mind. And we must change our words. We must do something.

To truly love someone whom we spend our life with, to prevent familiarity and breed contempt, we need to drop our 'I' and 'mine'. As long as we consider our spouse as a possession, what arises in our mind and heart is violence, not love. We will feel we must control the other being and we will feel we must prove that we are the owner. To even comprehend the meaning of true love, we need to drop the feeling that we possess.

The Lebanese philosopher and poet Khalil Gibran speaks on love in his celebrated book, The Prophet: share your bread with your beloved, but do not eat from the same loaf. Share what you drink with your beloved, but do not drink from the same cup. You do not own one another.

What many of us say to our spouse and feel we have the right to say is often what we would not dare to say to a stranger. We would be highly offended if we were told we have no right to behave like that to our spouse. We feel that social courtesies do not apply to spouses because we feel that we love them. Contemporary children do not put up with the kind of words spouses routinely use on each other.

How many can say with the hand on the heart that even 50% of the time, what you say to your spouse springs from true unconditional love? understand, it is only when you love your wife, can you begin to comprehend how to love the world. That is the entire purpose of marriage rituals and why that relationship is considered sacred. By developing that bond, that love between two people who are united for the rest of their lives, it is possible to develop that experience which is the Truth, which in turn leads to the expression of that same Truth as love to the rest of humanity.

Being established in that consciousness or expressing it towards the universe are the same. When a person is merged, when a person is established, he automatically radiates. If the love is not happening, if the expression is not happening, the person has not experienced. When the real experience happens, it automatically expresses. Experience is not something we can possess and keep in our cupboard. No! Experience will possess us and it will sink through us.

A disciple asked a Zen Master, 'Will an enlightened Master speak?' The Master said, 'No, an enlightened person never speaks. Only a person who doesn't know speaks.' Then the disciple asked, 'Will an enlightened Master keep quiet?' The Master said, 'No, an enlightened Master never keeps quiet. If he keeps quiet, then he is not enlightened.' The disciple was puzzled, 'You say he neither speaks nor keeps quiet. What does he do?' The Master replied, 'He sings. His Being sings. He neither speaks, nor keeps quiet. His very Being sings.'

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 walking will be a dance. Our body language will radiate grace. All our expressions will be a great service to humanity.

The Zen Master says beautifully that an enlightened man never keeps quiet nor does he talk, he just sings. That is why the Gita is given in the form of a song. The Gita 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.

Krishna says that a person established in the Consciousness is great; however, the person who expresses, who shares, who automatically radiates, is as great as the one who is established. The truth is that if a man is established in consciousness, he will radiate and he will sing.

Let me tell a small story from a great devotee, a bhakta, who lived in Varanasi.

This man was a great devotee of Krishna. He owned a small copy of the Bhagavad Gita. That was his entire possession, his only wealth. Every morning he bathed in the Ganga while reciting the Bhagavad Gita with devotion. He spent the whole day sitting and meditating on Krishna. He was continuously in the ecstasy of Krishna. He radiated Krishna bhakti, devotional love towards Krishna.

Of course, we see these types of souls only in Bharat. Society does not disturb people who just sit in ecstasy. Society takes care of them. In any other country such people would be called homeless, hounded by police and the public, put in a shelter and disrespected. Hindu culture is beautiful. If we sit in ecstasy, we are respected and worshipped!

This person was in ecstasy, always singing Krishna's name, in Krishna dhyana, in Krishna meditation, in Krishna smarana, repeating Krishna's name. He was lost in Krishna Consciousness. One day a beggar came and asked, 'Oh Swami, please give me something. For the last three days I have not eaten.' Now this posed a big problem to the bhakta. He himself was a beggar and had only one possession, the Gita. He owned nothing else. If someone gave him food, he ate. Otherwise he just sang Krishna's name. His only property was the Gita.

When this beggar asked for food after not having eaten for three days, he felt bad. He looked to see if there was something to give. There was only the Bhagavad Gita, which he had preserved and worshiped for many years. That was his sole possession, akin to God for him. It was everything to him.

Suddenly, he gathered courage and took hold of the book and said, 'I have nothing. I have only this book. However, if you go to the city and tell people that this book was my possession, you will be able to auction it. Surely someone will buy it. Many people respect me. To some extent, they feel devoted to me. So Krishna's blessing is there. Go to the market and auction this book. Take the money and eat and fulfill yourself and be happy.'

The beggar took the book and went away. The next morning, when he was about to chant the Gita, the bhakta said, 'Oh Krishna, I have given away your words to keep your words. What is your word? Your word is to radiate bhakti, to radiate devotion, and to radiate service. I gave away your word to keep your word.'

This bhakta was a true bhakta. He had seen the Truth. He had experienced it. So he was able to express it. He translated his devotion to Krishna as love and service to his fellow men. Keeping Krishna's word was more important than keeping Krishna's book. Actually, if we honestly keep the book and use it, we will have the experience. We will radiate His words. Only when we miss keeping His book, we miss keeping His words as well.

Q: I have read and known people who have had near death experiences, out of body experiences. All of them have described them as beautiful. Why do you describe death as painful, like a thousand scorpions biting you?

Please understand, I was talking about a normal man's death experience. Here you say, 'I have read and I know people who have had near death experiences.' The moment you say I have read, it means you have read about their experiences. You have heard from them, meaning that they are, in some way or the other, meditators or spiritual people. That's why they have had the experience and have come back.

I was explaining about leaving once and for all. You are speaking about having an experience and coming back. Having an experience and coming back means the experience is spiritual. It is not a death experience. I was talking about actual physical death, not conscious transformation.

Ramana Maharishi experienced a conscious experience of death. But I was describing the actual death of a normal human being, the physical death of a normal human being. Understand the difference.

In my experience of the truth, at the time of death the spirit passes through seven layers of energy. The entire life that one has lived is played back with no details omitted. The being relives the pains, pleasures, guilts, desires and all such emotions that it experienced when it was alive. That is how you pass through hell and heaven. The pain of that process is like a thousand scorpions stinging all at the same time. It is like the body being ripped open from head to toe. The only way to escape this pain is to have a glimpse of truth, at least once in one's life. That is possible only through meditation.

In the Nithyananda Spurana Program (NSP), that is what I do. I take you through the journey that your spirit will pass through at death and meditate upon your samskaras at each stage in order to dissolve them. This opens the possibility of painless death and no rebirth.

They too Attain Me

12.3,4 But those who worship with awareness the imperishable, the unmanifest, that which lies beyond the perception of senses,

the all pervading, inconceivable, unchanging, the non-moving and permanent,

those who worship by restraining their senses, and are working with even mind for the benefit of mankind,

They too attain Me.

Krishna is saguna brahman, the physical cosmos, who showed Himself in this form to Arjuna in His vishwarupa. Krishna is nirguna brahman

as well, the formless Consciousness. In both the form and the formless, He is Krishna, the Divine Consciousness who has all the attributes that Krishna talks about here.

The Divine is imperishable. It is aksharam. Everything else in this material universe may come and go, appear and disappear, while the Divine remains forever. It is unique and incomparable, anirdesyam, and cannot be benchmarked against anything, as it is supreme. It is unmanifest and intangible, avyaktam, and therefore cannot be comprehended by the senses. It cannot be grasped by thoughts and mind, and is achintyam, which is why one's mind-body needs to be transcended to glimpse the Divine. The Divine resides everywhere and is omnipresent, sarvatragam.

When King Hiranyakasipu, the demonic father of Prahlad, the young Prince and great devotee of Vishnu, dares his son to utter the name of Narayana whom he hates, Prahlad says, 'Narayana is everywhere. He is in this twig and He is in this pillar.'

Meanwhile in Vaikunta, Narayana's heavenly abode, Narayana jumps up in a hurry from his dalliance. Irritated, his consort Lakshmi complains, as every wife would, 'Where are you going at this time of the night?' Vishnu responds, 'My devotee Prahlad is about to call me. I do not know whether he will point his finger - to a twig or a pillar. Wherever he points, I must be ready to appear. I cannot let him down!'

The true devotee sees his Lord everywhere. Ramakrishna describes the love of a true devotee this way: 'It is the love of a chaste wife for her husband, the attachment of a miser towards his hoarded wealth, the craving of a worldly person for sensual pleasures, all rolled into one and directed towards the Lord, creating devotion.'

Brahman is also kutastham - unchangeable, achalam unmoving and dhruvam - permanent in aspect, form and the formless. The true devotee who follows either path with awareness, with his senses focused on the Lord, experiences Him and also experiences the bliss of serving the rest of humanity. The devotee sees the Lord in everyone he meets. His experience of His Lord becomes his expression of love to all.

Radha tells the gopikas - women cowherds who were around Krishna all the time, 'I don't know what has happened. I don't know what has come over me. I see Krishna in everybody. I feel that everybody is Krishna. I don't know what is happening.' One of the gopikas answers, 'You have bhakti as the very anjana - black eye liner - in your eyes!'

It is like this: when you wear dark glasses everything appears dark; when you wear green-tinted glasses, everything appears green. In the same way, when you have bhakti anjana in your eyes, whomsoever you see appears as Krishna, appears Divine! Here, Krishna says, the person established in super consciousness and the person who radiates devotion are the same. They are not two different groups.

Krishna does not create two groups. Arjuna presents two groups as the reality he sees: those who are established and those who are radiating. Krishna says

both are the same. He does not divide them into two groups, those who are established and those who radiate. Krishna says, a person who is established always radiates, and the person who radiates is always established. As I said earlier, it is a virtuous circle.

Ramakrishna says, 'When a bell rings, each stroke has a sound form of its own. But even when the bell stops ringing, we continue to hear the sound. That's how God appears, both as form and as formless.'

In Bhaja Govindam, Sankara says,

guru chranambuja nirbhara bhaktah samsrat achirat bhava muktah sendriya manasa niyamat evam drikshasi nija hridayatvam devam

One who controls his senses, focuses his mind and surrenders completely to his Master sees the Lord in his heart. Once again, Krishna makes the point here. When one has realized the formless nature of the Divine, its imperishability and its unmanifest nature with controlled senses, one works for the good of mankind.

Once the experience of the formless divine happens, it is no different from the experience of the form. Both lead to the truth that one is part of collective consciousness. The expression of this realization is one of deep humility and compassion. It is manifested as deep gratitude and surrender. One learns to flow with the energy of this universe. One no longer struggles against the currents of life.

The Chinese philosophy of Tao talks about flowing. The reed that bends with the flowing water survives and flourishes. The sapling that is too rigid to bend disappears. If we are like the reed in complete surrender to what is around us, accepting things as they are, not struggling every moment to fight against nature, we remain blissful.

When we are full of ego we tend to control. We believe we can bring order to an otherwise chaotic world. It takes only a moment to realize that this entire universe and planet Earth function not because of us, but in spite of us. Millions and millions of stars and planets in this universe function in apparent chaos. But understand: the universe is always in order.

We want to be in order but we are truly chaotic. Only when we surrender to the will of the universe, things go well for us. When we give up wanting, we get what we want. When we get what we truly want, it benefits mankind. Because when we surrender, Krishna takes care.

Q: Master, Krishna says my devotee never perishes. But if everything is God, what perishes? Krishna makes it sound like his devotee does not perish and others do. Please explain and remove my doubt.

Understand, the moment you realize that you do not perish, you become a devotee of Krishna. There are no categories like Krishna's devotees and others, or that Krishna's devotees will not perish while others will. Whosoever understands that he will not perish, automatically becomes Krishna's devotee. The moment you understand this concept you become his bhakta. If you understand that everything is God, you understand that nothing perishes.

He says, 'My devotee never perishes.' This is a relative statement. If you understand everything is God, then nothing perishes. When you understand that, if you reach that level, this statement doesn't make sense to you. This statement is for a normal person who is on the path, who is still attempting to understand it. Firstly, if you have experienced that everything is God, you don't need to bother about this statement.

Next, the moment you understand nothing perishes, you become a Krishna bhakta. So Krishna is not making partial statements. He does not show favoritism and say, 'Only My devotees will not perish, and others' devotees will perish.'

No, He doesn't mean it that way. Whoever understands this philosophy will not perish. That is what it means. Whoever understands this science will not perish. If you understand the science and even if you are not devoted to the flute and the peacock feather, you will not perish. So don't bother. If you think that Krishna means the flute and peacock feather, then this question is raised. If you understand that Krishna is beyond the peacock feather and flute, you will not have this doubt. 'My devotee never perishes. When he understands this, he never perishes,' that is what Krishna means.

Krishna is not the Krishna whom you think He is. He is not the single form you are used to. He is the super conscious energy, the cosmic energy, Parashakti.

A group of Krishna devotees, fanatics, attended my discourse and asked me, 'You speak on the Gita so elaborately. Do you believe in Krishna?' I said, 'Of course, I do.' They asked, 'If you do, then how can you talk about other Gods as Divine. We understand that you have a Dakshinamurti temple in your ashram. How can you do that? Krishna says in the Gita that He is everything and no one else matters.'

I explained to them. In Mahabharata after the war, Arjuna and Krishna go for a walk. Arjuna turns to Krishna and says, 'I do not remember much of what you told me before the war started on the battlefield. Can you please tell me again?' Krishna smiles and says, 'Oh! You forgot? I have also forgotten.' Arjuna is bewildered and asks, 'Krishna, how is that possible?' Krishna replies, 'When I was teaching on the battlefield, I was the super conscious, Parabrahma Krishna. Now, I am only Vasudeva Krishna. I cannot remember what I told you in my formless Universal Energy mode.' But compassionate as He was, Krishna did explain once again the Truth to Arjuna in what is known as the Anu Gita.

When the Krishna devotees understood this principle of the Divine Consciousness of Krishna being the same as every other Divinity however much the forms may differ in the way we worship, they were satisfied. The Krishna who says, 'My devotee shall never perish' is Parabrahma Krishna. In that state, He resides in each of us. If we realize that truth, we become His devotee; we too become Krishna, one with Krishna Consciousness; never to perish.

Formless is Difficult

12.5 For those whose minds are set on the unmanifest, the formless, it is more difficult to advance; attaining the formless unmanifest is difficult for the embodied.

Krishna says here what many of us know to be true. Intellectuals find it more difficult to comprehend the Divine.

Brahma and Vishnu had an argument as to who was greater. They could not agree and so they went to Shiva for mediation. Shiva took the form of a shaft of light without ends that spanned the universe and said to them, 'The one who finds either of my ends is greater.'

Vishnu assumed the form of a boar and dug through the earth searching for the lower end of this light shaft. Brahma flew up as a swan to reach the upper end. After a long, long time, Vishnu realized that he was getting nowhere. He returned and sought Shiva's forgiveness for attempting to look for His beginning.

Brahma continued regardless. On his way up, he found a flower floating down. The flower said that it was falling from Shiva's head and it had been falling for many lifetimes of Brahma. Startled, Brahma realized there was no way he would reach the end of the shaft. He forced the flower to go with him to Shiva and support his claim that he, Brahma, had picked the flower from Shiva's locks. Hearing Brahma's lie, Shiva became furious and cut off one of Brahma's heads and forbade him from being worshipped. He also cursed the flower, saying that it would never be used in His worship.

There is metaphoric meaning to this legend. Vishnu represents wealth and Brahma represents intellect. One who has wealth finds it difficult to reach God, no doubt. However, he may have the humility to accept his shortcomings and drop his attachment to his wealth to seek the truth. However, an intellectual person finds it impossible to shed his ego in his search for the truth. Therefore he never finds it.

In one's search for the Truth, the Divine, the Unmanifest, nirguna Brahman, which is what the intellectual seeker is focusing on, the intellect, the mind or ego will be the block that makes the path difficult to traverse.

The individual human being carries not only the body but the mind as well. And with the mind, it carries the ego. Unless the mind-body is transcended, spiritual advancement is difficult, as Krishna points out.

Shedding the ego is the most difficult thing for the mind-body system. Ego provides the mind-body with its identity, with its existence. The French Philosopher Rene Descartes' famous quote, 'I think, therefore I am' is an example of this identification with the intellect.

Whether now or in Krishna's time, the world revolved around the power of thought, the power that seems to provide knowledge and skills. It was essential for one's recognition and status in life. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was an incarnation. Yet, in utter humility, he accepted three people in his life as his Masters. The truth though, was that Ramakrishna was the means for their liberation by helping them shed their egos!

Bhairavi offered to teach Ramakrishna tantric techniques and stayed as a disciple. It took years before she could shed her ego. Only with Ramakrishna's help, did she achieve it.

Totapuri, the great advaitic scholar had never stayed in one place for more than three nights. He wanted to teach Ramakrishna the non-dual nature of Existence. Ramakrishna left saying he had to ask the Mother. A surprised Totapuri followed him and found him conversing with the idol of Mother Kali.

When Totapuri forced him to meditate upon the formless, Ramakrishna objected saying he could not let Mother go. Furious, Totapuri placed a shard of broken glass between Ramakrishna's eyebrows, on his third eye point, and commanded him to cut his Mother Kali into pieces. Ramakrishna went into samadhi for three weeks. Rarely has anyone survived that long in samadhi and returned. After Ramakrishna returned to mind-body consciousness, Totapuri stayed on for many more months.

Then there was Jatadhari, a devotee of Vishnu who came to Ramakrishna with Ramlala, an idol of Lord Ramachandra in the form of a child. To Jatadhari, this idol of child Rama was a living being. He bathed, fed and talked to Ramlala everyday, all the time. After a few days of staying with Ramakrishna, Jatadhari found that Ramlala started spending more time with Ramakrishna. He would come searching, disturbed that his darling Ramlala had now decided to play with another person.

Jatadhari stayed at Dakshineshwar for a long time because he knew Ramlala wanted to be with Ramakrishna. One day finally, Jatadhari came to bid goodbye to Ramakrishna. 'Ramlala said that he wants to be with you. He loves you. I am fulfilled that he has at last revealed Himself to me because of you. I am happy to leave Him with you and go away. I am full of bliss.' Ever since, Ramlala stayed on with Ramakrishna.

It took the no-mind simplicity of a great Master to provide guidance to the learned scholars and to teach them to drop their egos. Dropping the ego is the most difficult thing for the mind-body, especially for one who is focused on the intellect.

Q: Respected Master, will you be conducting a retreat on mediation in Los Angeles in the near future, during your current visit?

I think I will be conducting one meditation camp, after the Gita gnana yagna, called the Arogya Spurana Program, also called the Health and Wellness Program. It is about health and directing your body, mind and spirit, towards holistic health, healing your body, mind and spirit.

According to me, health and spirituality are the same. When you become spiritual, you radiate a special kind of health, which is beyond the body. The body itself is disease. Disease does not attack the body. Body itself is a disease! So according to me, when you experience boundary-less freedom, only then are you really healthy.

This two-day camp is directed towards achieving boundary-less consciousness, towards boundary-less freedom. Naturally, this heals your body also. The Life Bliss Program will also be conducted by acharyas, our ordained teachers in the ashram. I may join a couple of sessions during the day. I shall be completely conducting the Arogya Spurana program. I am not doing Nithyananda Spurana Programs in America, but I am doing one in Vancouver.

I am conducting intense classes for our ashramites. All ashramites have regular classes and any healer can participate in these too. If you are an initiated healer, you can participate in these classes. I also conduct classes at night. After the G*ita gnana yagna* every evening, I will conduct classes. The morning class is for everybody, but the evening class is for healers, since the meditations will be higher level and deeper techniques. As I am spending time with the ashramites during this visit, I will not conduct any programs other than the Arogya Spurana program.