Society operates on this principle of greed and fear to prevent us from doing actions that it does not want us to do. Religions do the same. Society threatens you with legal punishment here and now; religion threatens you with punishment in the hereafter, in hell. What is hell or heaven? Do they exist? No, they do not.

When you clean your inner space with the power of integrity, you will realize that all the contradictions, conflicts and confusions you carry are responsible for your whole life, for all reactions you attract from others and society. You are responsible for all your actions, the reactions you attract from others and the happenings of life. Integrity will automatically teach you responsibility. You will understand that for everything happening in and around you, you are responsible.

You are not in integrity with yourself, when you say one thing and do another. You do not walk your talk. But, when you do walk your talk and your talk is in integrity and authenticity, then your words will become reality. You will have *vāk siddhi*—the power to manifest your word as reality! But if the talk itself is lacking integrity, then your walk and your actions will also be out-of-integrity and you lose self-confidence. Ultimately it is all about the truth of integrity, authenticity, responsibility and enriching from your space of completion.

Integrity is the first lesson of spiritual life. Integrity is not just a simple vow, a simple word. Integrity is all about ironing out your thinking, aligning your thinking. If you bring integrity to your inner space, you will realize that even accidents are attracted by you. You are attracting everything in your life, whether it is wealth or poverty, right or wrong. You are responsible for your life.

You need to know a beautiful story about the child devotee, Prahlād's life.

> When Prahlād's angry father asked Prahlād—'Is your *Narāyaṇa*, your God, in this pillar? Is He inside that pillar? Is He in this stone?'

> Prahlād was about to raise his small finger and show his father that his God was really there in the pillar. When Prahlād was about to point-out the pillar, Narāyaṇa started running from his heavenly abode in Vaikuṅṭa!

> His consort Lakṣmī asked, 'What happened? Why are you running so fast? What is there to be in such a hurry about?'

> Narāyaṇa said, 'No, you don't know! Wherever my devotee Prahlād points his finger, I have to enter into that pillar! Wherever he points, I have to occupy that place and emerge from it!'

Listen! When a child is established in integrity, just for his hand movement or the direction he shows, God lands! Listen! The whole world moves as you want when you are established in Integrity.

When you are in completion, with integrity, without internal conflict or contradictions, whatever you project on the cosmos is a project for the cosmos! Simply cosmos does it. When you are integrated, the outer world obeys you just like that. That is the power of integrity! Please listen: nothing is political or accidental on the planet Earth. Everything runs on the natural law of life, *dharma* of these four principles.

## Be Complete In Yoga, Drop All Attachments

What Kṛṣṇa says here is the law of Nature. Nature just is. Nature just acts as per these four cosmic principles. Nature does not think about end results, successes or failures, rewards or punishments.

People ask me, '*Swamiji,* why is nature so cruel? Why are there natural disasters? Why do young children die?' The answer is what Kṛṣṇa gives here. Nature goes about its job without any thought about what the end result will be. What happens will happen. It is bound to happen. Nature follows its *dharma*, its path of righteousness. The problem is that we do not understand the laws of nature; we measure natural actions by our yardstick of logic.

You will then ask me, 'How do we know what to do? How do we know what is *svadharma*, our path of righteousness? Do we decide we are a *kṣatriya*, therefore we should fight and kill and not worry about who dies, or, we decide we are a *vaiśya*, a businessman, in which case our *svadharma* is to make money without worrying about how we make money?' No, Kṛṣṇa is not talking about acting in selfishness; the Universal Master is talking about acting from the space of completion. He says, 'Be centered and complete in yoga, and drop all attachment to results; do what you have to do.'

> *yoga-sthaḥ kuru karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tvaktvā dhanañjaya I
> siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā samatvaṁ yoga ucyate II 2.48*

What beautiful wisdom!

### Yoga is union, union of man and Divine. Yoga is completion with the Divine.

Yoga is your realization of your own Self, your realization that you are divine. It is the state of completion, the state of truth, the state of the present, when all that you do will be in righteous consciousness, *dharma*. When you perform with this completion, and with no expectations, you will do what is right and just.

## Suffering Happens When We Link Thoughts

Our thoughts are unconnected, illogical and unpredictable. It is only when we link thoughts together that problems start and suffering happens. We remember a few out of hundreds of events and try to create a link between these few. Ninety percent of what we cognize and experience is never recorded by our conscious memory; it just slips into our unconscious. Within the ten percent of what we retain, what stays in our memory is always that which falls outside the pattern. If it is part of a normal pattern we will almost always ignore and forget the event.

So, do not link thoughts and create a shaft of thoughts. Unclutch from your thoughts by bringing integrity and weed out all your negative self-fulfilling patterns, and automatically the mind will drop. This is the way to stay in the present. Some of you misunderstand the word '*Unclutched'* as 'not to do anything.' You think that to drop the mind is to be passive, inactive, doing nothing. No, not at all! You can be doing nothing and yet occupy your mind fully. That is what they mean by saying that an idle mind is the devil's workshop. When you have nothing to do, what you end up doing is creating fantasies.

Listen! Constantly listening to your own inner space is the beginning of integrity. If your inner space says that there is nothing more to listen, if only silence is there, then that is the end of integrity. You have achieved integrity. As long as you are hearing something from your inner space, it is lack of integrity. Go on listening. Even while you are in action, *karma* sitting, driving, talking or walking, listen to you.

Inaction, *akarma* is not what is advised. Understand: When you experience integrity and your mind drops, when thoughts cease, and your energy level is high, you cannot be inactive. You will act spontaneously out of sheer necessity. Physical and mental idleness are never produced by a no-thought mind or inner space. One must not link idleness with calmness. One with a no-thought mind, one who is complete in *yoga,* dwells in peace, calmness and harmony—the space of restful awareness, but is always aware and alert to act spontaneously in the way that would best suit each situation in every moment.

With a no-thought mind comes great awareness and energy; idleness or lethargy is far from it. An incomplete, confused, restless and overworked mind is constantly occupied with chatter and fantasies that can result in apathy and idleness.

Integrity is the basic requirement for Unclutching. When you are in a state of an unclutched inner space, you are in completion and you are in the present moment, where regrets of your past and expectations of the future are absent from your mind. Whatever you do in such a state of completion would be the right thing to do. You are not influenced either by fear or greed regarding the outcome. You do what you have to do, naturally.

That is why Kṛṣṇa says that you must act with responsibility in the present moment of completion. He says, 'Do not get attached to the results of your action, nor get attached to inaction, thinking that it could be an easy way out of this problem.'

# Be Steady With Authenticity In Action

- 2.49 *O Dhanañjaya, beyond the action with selfish motive is Yoga (of action) in wisdom \[buddhiyoga]. Wretched are those whose motive is the fruit (outcome); Surrender yourself fully to the wisdom of completion.*
- 2.50 *Endowed with the wisdom of evenness of mind, move away from both good and evil deeds in this life; Therefore, devote yourself to Yoga. Authenticity in action is Yoga.*
- 2.51 *The wise, having abandoned the outcome of their actions and possessed of knowledge of completion, are freed from the cycle of birth and death. They go to the state that is beyond all sorrow.*
- 2.52 *When your wisdom takes you beyond the delusion, You shall be indifferent to all what has been heard and what is yet to be heard.*
- 2.53 *When you are not confused by what you have heard and your wisdom stands steady and unmoving in the Self, You shall attain Yoga, Self-realization.*

Kṛṣṇa emphasizes what He has said before and ends with a punchline. He says, 'Act without attachment. Do not worry about success or failure in results. Center yourself in wisdom of completion that takes you beyond action and the desire for fruits of action. Once you are centered in wisdom of completion you will act wisely. Once you give up attachment to results, you will be freed from the cycle of birth and death and you will be beyond sorrow.'

In the next verse, Kṛṣṇa begins initiating Arjuna into yoga with the second *tattva* of authenticity or *śraddha*. Kṛṣṇa is the greatest strategist of life.

Here, He begins revealing the truth of authenticity, the strategy of life, the strategy that will make Arjuna succeed and expand!

Kṛṣṇa declares, '*yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam*.' Please understand, I first want you to understand these words: '*yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam*—yoga is authenticity in action.' Not just 'perfection in action' but I am translating it as 'authenticity in action.'

> *buddhi yukto jahātīha ubhe sukṛta-duṣkṛte I
> tasmād yogāya yujyasva yogaḥ karmasu kauśalaṁ II 2.50*

Let me define Authenticity.

**Authenticity is you being established in the peak of your energy, the peak of your capability, and responding to life from who you perceive yourself to be for you and who you project yourself to be for others, and what others expect you to be for them.**

Authenticity in your thinking means raising you to the peak. Raising you, again and again, higher and higher, expanding you more and more.

Listen, the moment I say 'expanding you more and more, continuously,' do you feel, 'Oh, God! Then it is unending process? I will never be able to rest at all!' If you cherish this idea in you, then you are death-oriented; you are entertaining death in your heart. The idea you entertain in your life invites different happenings of life. So, don't blame, if you get any killer diseases in your life, because you invited them. Understand, first thing you need to do is break that pattern.

Kṛṣṇa gives the ultimate winning strategy of life to Arjuna—to stand up with the courage of authenticity in all his actions, *yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam*. He urges Arjuna to devote himself to yoga, *buddhau yogād dhanañjaya buddhau śaraṇaṁ anviccha* (2.49)—to bring authenticity in his action, to expand himself to the peak of his energy. Arjuna can complete his root pattern of fear, only when he raises and expands himself fighting as a *kṣatriya* warrior. Only then Arjuna will be authentic. The state of fear can be born in you only when you are inauthentic.

Listen! Every time inauthenticity is allowed in you, it leaves a powerful fear in you. Arjuna's inauthenticity in not raising himself to his responsibility and to others' expectation of him as a warrior, led him to be death-oriented and collapse with fear.

Listen. Life is expansion. Life is expansion. When you feel, 'Wow, I am going to expand, expand, expand! Authenticity is the best principle,' then understand, you are entering into *akśardhām*—eternal life!

Break the pattern of—'am I never going to rest or what?' Why do you need rest? Increasing the speed of running is rest. Make it into flying! That is rest. You see, when you drive or run on the road, there is friction. If you want bliss, joy, peace, don't reduce the speed of life; reduce the friction. Just take off! Your body, mind, inner space, consciousness, whatever you feel about you, go on expanding, expanding, expanding! That is the only way life can continue to ooze in you, overflow in you.

If you say, 'No, I can expand. Now I do two hours of work, which I will make into four hours; not more than that. Then I will rest.' No! Make it into twenty-four hours and few more minutes, and penetrate into time. Whenever you need more time to do more work, stop the time, complete the work, and allow time to move. You can do! Listen. Something has to grow in your body—either life or death. Life has no pause button. Either life has to grow in your body or death has to grow in your body. The inauthenticity, which you entertain, is death for you.

**Power of authenticity! I tell you, my strategy for life is—everything should only be from authenticity.** Authenticity is my strategy plan. Pick up authenticity as your strategy plan in every moment of your life. Whether it is to do with health, creativity, solving relationship problems, creating wealth or achieving inner fulfillment, have authenticity as your strategy plan.

Kṛṣṇa then adds, 'When you are centered in wisdom of completion you will no longer be deluded by what you hear. When you are no longer deluded by what you have heard, you are liberated.' Kṛṣṇa's immediate reference here is to the scriptures, the *Vedas*. He chides Arjuna and says, 'Don't be confused by what you hear, even if it is supposed to be divine knowledge, the *Vedas*. Remember: If you are really centered in wisdom, you can never be deluded; you will be in completion.'

Vedic scriptures are not dead knowledge that is a burden upon us to abide by. The *Vedic* scriptures, the *śrūti*, divine in origin, and the *smṛti*, rules and regulations laid down later by Manu and other sages, make no such claims. They are the living guidelines that lead us into wisdom and liberation. In fact, Hindu scriptures have both the humility and the power to challenge us to transform ourselves according to the needs of the day, but stipulate that we first experience what is said.

'So,' Kṛṣṇa says, 'let the *Vedas* say what they want, but put what you hear, see, and read to the test of wisdom to go beyond delusion.' Kṛṣṇa is the *Vedas*, the source of all knowledge. He himself declares this in *Gītā* and yet He asks Arjuna to experiment and be guided by his inner wisdom, not by what he merely hears.


What courage, what authority! Only one who is so sure about the truth can say, 'Do not listen to what I say and how I act, but listen to your inner voice of truth born out of your own experience.'

Kṛṣṇa says, 'Don't be inactive, do what you need to do. Do it with no expectations and no attachment to results. Do it with a centered mind, and in wisdom of your own inner calling, and not because of something you have heard. You will then go beyond all suffering and be liberated.' These steps are so simple that everyone can practice them; in fact everyone should practice them. Stay fully in the space of completion, and based on the truth of integrity and authenticity, act. You can never go wrong. I promise you that.

When you feel integrity is your responsibility, you are in the zone of practice; you are a seeker. When you understand integrity is your right, you are in the zone of enlightenment! Kṛṣṇa is taking Arjuna on the path of Enlightenment through simple steps initiating him into the *tattva* of integrity and authenticity.

Listen. With integrity you experience the space of positivity. With authenticity you experience the space of possibility. Only a man who lives authenticity is a liberated one, a yogi, the one devoted to authenticity in action. Only when you surrender yourself to practice integrity in thinking and authenticity in action—*yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam*, you will realize that you are responsible for success and failure, for good or bad, for everything you experience. You drop your attachments and your fear patterns, and experience self-realization *tadā yogam avāpsyasi* (2.53).

# Follow That Complete Man

2.  54 *O Keśava. What is the description of Sthitaprajña, one who stays fixed in completion and is merged in the restful awareness of truth and wisdom? How does one of steady wisdom speak, how does he sit, how does he walk?*

3.  55 *Śrī Bhagavān says: O Pārtha, a man who casts off completely all desires of the mind and is satisfied in the Self by the Self, He is said to be Sthitaprajña, one of steady wisdom in completion.*
4.  56 *He whose mind is not disturbed by adversity, and who, in prosperity does not go after other pleasures, He who is free from attachment, fear or anger is called a sage of steady wisdom.*
5.  57 *His wisdom is fixed on one who is everywhere without attachment, Meeting with anything good or bad, and who neither rejoices nor hates.*
6.  58 *As the tortoise withdraws its limbs from all sides, when a person withdraws his senses from the sense-objects, His wisdom becomes steady in completion.*
7.  59 *Though for the embodied, the sense enjoyments may be restricted, the taste or desire for sense objects remain; but, such tastes or desires also leave him on seeing, experiencing the Supreme.*

Arjuna is now curious and wants to know more. He asks Kṛṣṇa, 'You are telling me all this, that is wonderful. You tell me that I must perform without expectations and attachment and that I must be complete in wisdom. I would like to live that way and move on the path of wisdom. Pray, tell me what kind of a person is this, the one who always stays in the steady space of completion—*sthita prajñasya kā bhāṣā samādhi-sthasya keśava* (2.54).

How does he behave, walk and talk? Let me model myself on him.'

For the fifth time Arjuna expresses authentic interest in what Kṛṣṇa is saying. Arjuna has realized that whatever he said earlier had arisen from his confusion, his patterns. Arjuna is intelligent enough to know that he does not know.

When Kṛṣṇa tells him to behave in a manner befitting the code of the warriors, this piece of advice certainly makes good sense to Arjuna. However, what Kṛṣṇa says further confuses Arjuna. Kṛṣṇa says to do what you have to do without being concerned about the outcome. This is a strange idea to Arjuna. He has rarely done anything in his life without thinking about the result of his action.

Arjuna, the greatest of marksmen, is conditioned with the pattern to first define his target and then act. Kṛṣṇa has confused him totally now. Kṛṣṇa says, 'Release your arrow; where it lands is my business.' At least, this is how Arjuna understands what Kṛṣṇa says. Arjuna has enough trust in Kṛṣṇa not to ignore this instruction from the Divine.

So he asks, 'Tell me who is it who acts without any interest in the outcome? Who is it who is not concerned about the result, whether it is good or bad, painful or joyful, and how do I identify such a person?'

Kṛṣṇa responds, 'This man is free from desires and emotions. He has neither greed nor fear. He has no patterns. He is always complete in himself. Pleasures through the senses do not interest him. He has withdrawn his senses from the external or outer world and has integrated them inwards into his inner space, directed them towards that Supreme Truth that is beyond all pleasures, attachments, emotions and sense objects.' Kṛṣṇa thus describes the Realized Yogi, the *Sthitaprajña* to Arjuna so that he too may emulate him and realize himself.

### **Seek the Unattached**

'*Nirmohatve niścalatatvaṁ*,' says Ādī Śaṅkarācārya, taking a cue from the Master. It means: Absence of desires leads to a clear and still mind and inner space, steeped in the wisdom of completion. When there are no desires, there are no emotions such as joy, depression, sadness, anger, disappointment, jealousy that normally arise from the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of such desires. When the mind is without fear and anger, without expectations of success and failure, the unattached mind seeks that which is unattached. First the objects drop, then the desire for the objects disappears as truth dawns. This may sound complicated, but is as simple as counting '1, 2, 3.'

This Universe is responsible for all of us. We exist not because of ourselves and our actions but in spite of it. The Universe functions on the science of responsibility, *upāyanaṁ*. Responsibility is the science of life.

Listen. The whole Universe is a holographic structure. For example, if there is a ten-by-ten meter hologram or a picture, on cutting it into several ten-by-ten millimeter ones, the same picture will be there inside it. That is a hologram. It means that whatever is in the macrocosm—the whole Universe, is also there inside your body—the microcosm! If you dissect, dissect, and go into a small atom, the *brahmāṅda* (macrocosm) will be there in *pinḍāṅda* (microcosm). Whatever is there in the *pinḍāṅda* is there in the *brahmāṅda*. The cosmos functions with the principle of a hologram. Responsibility is the DNA, which awakens the cosmic hologram in you. If you want to experience the macrocosm hologram in the microcosm, awaken responsibility.

Listen. The macrocosm and microcosm are just mirroring each other's possibility. When we feel the responsibility for existence, we become existence and existence feels responsible for us. When we let go of our patterns, when we listen to the Universe and feel responsible, the Universe feels responsible for us and gives us all that we need to live with abundance.

But the problem is that we don't listen and we don't take responsibility and destroy our own possibility! We do not stop with our needs but get greedy with our wants as well. There is no way all our wants can be fulfilled without taking away the needs of other beings in this Universe.

Feel responsible! You are the microcosmic hologram of the macrocosmic diagram. Once we choose to live based on responsibility, we know our real present needs and not futuristic wants. We rise into the present moment of completion. Desires based on past and future dissolve. We then realize that we too are the *brahmāṅda*, Universe and that we can have all that we need as all that belongs to the Universe belongs to us also.

## **Be Steady in Wisdom of Completion**

Kṛṣṇa aptly provides the analogy of the tortoise, *kurma* to illustrate how to withdraw one's senses inwards and how to be centered and steady in wisdom of completion in the Self, *tasya prajñā pratiṣthitā* (2.58). Its entire cycle of life is tuned to the wisdom of nature. An animal, when it indulges in any act, whether of mating, caring, killing or saving its own life, does all and any of these with tremendous focus. The animal always lives in its present moment. Not so the human. For the human, where his body is his mind never is.

Corporate people ask me how to make right decisions. It is simple. When you take responsibility for the job at hand and make a decision to act out of your peak possibility based on the information available at that moment, without the influence of past or future incompletions, your decisions will always be right. The Universal energy guides you in your decision when you take responsibility, when you settle into yourself, focus inwards and withdraw your senses as the tortoise does.

You are responsible for everything. If you feel that you are poor, take responsibility for it. If you feel that you are sick, take responsibility for it. Responsibility makes everything, from an ordinary desire to have a good meal tomorrow to your desire to be in desirelessness become a reality. Everything is realized when you take responsibility.

What do you all do instead? Half the time you do not take the responsibility and postpone decisions because you are afraid of the consequences of the decision. So things happen without your control and which do not favor you. The other half of the time you are led by greed and prejudices based on past experiences and future fantasies and you decide with no relevance to issues of that moment.

When have you last done anything whatsoever with complete integrity? When were you integrated only to the food that you ate, instead of chatting, reading, and watching? You may say that we are only human, we wish to enjoy life and we wish to enjoy sensual pleasures. Please do! However, when you enjoy, enjoy fully. Be fully in integrity with that object of enjoyment and with all your senses integrated only on that activity. When you do whatever you do with one hundred percent integrity, authenticity and responsibility, you are in the space of completion. You become God!

## Monkeys In The Mind

2.  60 *O Kaunteya (son of Kuntī), the turbulent senses carry away the mind of a wise man, Though he is striving to be in control.*
3.  61 *Having restrained them all, he should sit steadfast, intent on Me. Whose senses are under control, his mind is steady in the present.*
4.  62 *When a man thinks of objects, it gives rise to attachment for them. From attachment, desire arises; from desire, anger is born.*
5.  63 *From anger arises delusion, from delusion, loss of memory, from loss of memory, the loss of discrimination, from loss of discrimination, he perishes.*
6.  64 *The self-controlled man, moving among objects with his senses under control, free from both attraction and repulsion, attains peace.*
7.  65 *All pains are destroyed in that peace, for the intellect of the tranquil-minded soon becomes steady.*
8.  66 *A person not in self-awareness cannot be wise or happy or peaceful. How can there be happiness to one without peace?*
9.  67 *He loses his awareness of the present moment when his mind follows the wandering senses, Just as the wind carries away a boat on the waters.*

Kṛṣṇa continues to explain to Arjuna how difficult it is to control the senses and what happens when one loses control of the senses. Kṛṣṇa says that our senses are turbulent, and however much we try to control them, they stay out of control. He says that the only way is to integrate and fix one's mind on Him once the senses are under control and the mind is steady. The mind cannot be stopped. Thoughts cannot be stopped as long as the body exists. You can bring integrity to your thinking by doing completion with your root patterns. Thus integrating your mind on something that transcends sensory pleasures, it will become quiet by itself. Once the mind discovers the bliss of this completion, it will never want to stray again.

A small story:

A man, intent on spiritual progress, went to a master and begged him to teach him how to control his mind. The master tried to explain that the mind couldn't be controlled in the way he was seeking, by stopping his thoughts, but he wouldn't listen. Fed up, the master gave him a bottle of a liquid and told him to drink three drops three times a day.

The man asked, 'That's it? It will control my mind?'

The master said, 'Just one thing, make sure you don't think of a monkey when you drink the medicine.'

'Oh, sure, quite simple!' said the man as he walked out. At the door he turned and asked, 'By the way, in case I do think of a monkey, what should I do?'

'Take a shower,' said the master, 'and try again.'

As soon as the man went home, he took out the medicine and opened his mouth to drink it. Just then he remembered the master's warning—and remembered the monkey!

'Oh, my God!' he said to himself, 'Now I have to take a shower. What else to do!'

You can guess the rest of the story. Each time he opened his bottle of medicine, monkeys invaded his mind and all he did was keep taking showers. It got to a point where as soon as he got out of the shower, thoughts of monkeys arose in his mind.

He ran to the master and pleaded, 'Forget the medicine. Just get rid of the monkeys, please!'

You can never destroy thoughts or suppress them. Suppression does not work on the mind, only completion does. Suppressed emotions solidify as a volcano of root patterns and explode when they get the chance. You can only complete with thoughts by doing self-completion with them, and gradually the mind will settle down. Lack of integrity is nothing but suppressing your thoughts and putting all your problems under the carpet.

Please understand, however much you try to push the incomplete conversations with you under the carpet, they do not die. They run around under the carpet like Tom and Jerry cartoon! In the same way, the incompletions pushed under your inner space, say, 'No, no, no! Why are you asking too many questions? Somehow I will win. Keep quiet!' Without completing, if you push your own questions under the carpet, they will not die or keep quiet. Today or tomorrow, you have to face those questions. You have to face that part of you.

When you do completion and settle into the present moment, with no expectations and no attachments, you will find that your inner space becomes quiet and your senses slow down.

### **Be Complete in the Present Moment**

Kṛṣṇa says that from attachment springs desire, from desire arises anger, from anger arises delusion, from delusion comes loss of memory, and from loss of memory develops loss of discrimination which then leads to one's destruction. The only way to stop this, the Lord says, is to control one's senses, complete with oneself and surrender to Him, the Universal energy, and achieve everlasting peace.


We are always greedy for more. We continuously pursue material goals. As a result, we never relax within ourselves. That is why even when we become old we are unable to relax. Have you seen a single man above seventy relaxing? People can never sit with themselves! If they have company, they will start talking about their golden past. If they don't have company, they will watch television or read the same old newspaper, from the first line to the last with a big magnifying glass! They just can't sit with themselves.

A man who can't sit with himself misses one of the major dimensions of his being. Continuously running, thinking there is some purpose to life, his whole being will be in a state of tension, conditioned to running out of compulsion, never out of completion.

**Root thought pattern is nothing but this first social conditioning, this strong cognition which imbalances you from your purposeless space and gives birth to the mind, the idea that there is some purpose to life**. Life has no purpose. Even if you achieve whatever you want, you can't take it with you. You can't carry even a single dollar when you leave. Nothing will come with you.

There is no exchange offer. If you give fifty rupees in Bharat, you will get one dollar in USA. But no matter how much money you give in this world, you cannot get a single rupee in heaven or anywhere else. No cheque will be useful. None of your money can be carried over to the next world.

The only currency that works everywhere in existence is completion. As of now, this material world appears four-dimensional and multi-colored as you enjoy it with all your senses. The moment you leave the body, the same world will appear black and white, one dimensional. When you are dreaming, your dream looks and feels very real. When you are awake, this world around you looks like reality and the dream looks dull. But there is no scale to determine the reality and the dream.

People tell me, 'But everyday when we enter a dream, we are not entering the same dream, *Swamiji.* Yet, everyday when we return to reality we are entering the same reality. So with this scale we can tell the reality apart from the dream.'

Listen, in one night's dream you can live even 20 years of life, am I right? Don't you sometimes have such dreams where in one night's dream you live 20 years of life? Then why can't your dream be reality, because of its consistency? This whole life time span, which you think is reality, may be part of the dream! There is no scale to prove reality and the dream. When you leave the body, all you see now as multi-colour will become black and white.

Nothing can be carried with you at the time of leaving the body. You can't cash your cheques! You can't talk to your relatives. If you speak, they

will run away! Your car will not be useful to you anymore. When you are not able to take anything with you, what is the purpose of life then?

The moment you accept the beauty of purposelessness, you will realize the meaning of living.

## Life Has No Purpose, Only Meaning

Life has no purpose, but it has meaning. Purpose means goal orientation. You always think about the goal; you keep running and one day you just drop dead! The more goal-oriented you are, the more you will miss life and the more you will be incomplete.

Purpose is different from meaning. When I say 'meaning', living itself becomes meaningful. Come to this present moment of completion and the path itself is life; the path itself is meaningful.

There is no such thing as, 'in the end you will be happy.' You always postpone joy and so you always postpone living. Life is lived in a very superficial way because you think life has a purpose.

For the man who works just for his salary, only payday will be a beautiful day. He will be happy only on that day. He sells 29 days every month for that one day of happiness. I don't say, 'Don't take your salary.' But let it not be the only goal in your life. Let it not play a major role in your consciousness. That is what Kṛṣṇa means by these words: *karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana* (2.47)—you can do only your duty, you have no right to its fruit. If you think of the fruit, you will lose the joy of doing, living, enriching! The meaning of living is experienced only when you understand the beauty of purposelessness. This is a beautiful verse! It is the essence of the *Gītā*!

## Your Inner Space is the Space of Completion

Two things you need to understand from this: One, He says, let your inner space not be contaminated by the purpose of life. When I say inner space, I mean your mind and how you feel about yourself, about things and life inside you. When you close your eyes, what comes into your mind is your inner space. If your inner space is filled with the purposes of life, be very clear you are running behind something which will never give you completion. He says, 'Let your inner space not be disturbed or filled with purposes or incompletions.'

By nature, your inner space is the space of completion, it is filled with energy; your inner space, what you refer to as *ātman*, spirit or soul, is filled with blissful energy. The more you empty yourself of goals or incompletions, the more the space for completion and bliss.

For example, this room is filled with space. The more furniture you put in it, the more space will leave this room. This room is not empty; no place is empty. It is filled with space. This room is filled with the energy of ether. The more furniture you bring in, the more ether will be pushed out; the lesser will be the ether energy. In the outer space, if you furnish your home, it will look very nice. But if you furnish your inner space, it will look very ugly.

Completion straightaway gives you whatever you want and takes away whatever is not. The whole problem of humanity is what you want outside is not with you and what you don't need inside in your inner space is with you. You need to empty your inside, which is filled with unnecessary furniture. You need to have all the necessary things outside.

Creating the inner space of completion with integrity and authenticity will immediately do that job. Completion will clear out all unnecessary things from your inner space. It will get you all that you need in the outer world. Don't furnish your inner space. Let your inner space be empty. Of course then, it will never be empty. It will be filled with completion, *pūrṇatva*. It will be filled with bliss! The more complete inner space you create, the more blissful your life will be. That is what Kṛṣṇa means by saying, 'Don't be attached to results.'

If you continuously think about the result, you will never be able to perform your action with completion. You will always be goal-oriented and you will never enjoy and enrich the path of completion. Not enjoying and enriching the path is the worst hell you can be trapped in.

Again and again Kṛṣṇa says, '*paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca*

*duṣkṛtām dharma saṁsthāpanārthāya saṁbhavāmi yuge-yuge* (4.8).' It means: I come down again and again to save the integrated and authentic, the complete and innocent people, and to destroy the evil-minded incomplete people.

People ask me, 'You say *dharma* (responsibility to enrich) is the only thing to be practiced with integrity and authenticity, but in our lives we see people who are not living according to *dharma*, yet they are living more happily; they have more property, more wealth. Why is that?' Understand, they may have more property, they may have more things in the outer space, but never think they are happy in their inner space; never think they are blissful.

When does someone not follow *dharma*? When he follows his ambition! Ambition causes you to go out of integrity and authenticity. Don't think we go to hell because we commit sins. We commit sins because we are in hell. The very ambition is hell; there is no need for a separate hell. Don't think we will reach a separate place called 'hell' at the end of our life.

If you are complete and blissful, you will never disturb others. If you are unhappy, naturally you will vomit that violence on others. The very ambition is punishment enough. Just because of their ambition, they miss authenticity in action, their whole life's possibility.

You can easily miss life's possibility by having a purpose to Life. Unless your thinking itself becomes integrated to your positivity, unless your working itself becomes authentic to the peak of your possibility, unless your life itself becomes the responsibility to enrich yourself and others, unless that itself becomes completion and bliss, you cannot experience what Kṛṣṇa says in this verse: *karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana* (2.47).

Purpose can be fulfilled, but through purpose, your life can never be fulfilled. When you carry purposes in your life, you are not living; purposes are living through you, that's all. In your childhood somebody gives you some purpose like, 'You should become a lawyer or a doctor.' You are given a purpose and that purpose is fulfilled through your life, but you will never feel fulfilled or complete.

Never make the mistake of thinking that you will be fulfilled when your purpose is fulfilled. Your fulfillment is completely different from the fulfillment of your purpose. If you want to experience fulfillment, the space of completion, you have to work in a totally different dimension of your life. If you want completion of your being, listen to what Kṛṣṇa says here.

## KṚṢṆa's Technique for Success in Inner-Outer Worlds

Kṛṣṇa is the first and the last Master who declared the truth as it is.

There are two things to understand: Always, people who are active in the outer world know the techniques to achieve success in the outer world. People who are active in the inner world know the techniques to achieve success in the inner world.

But Kṛṣṇa knows both! He is the only Master who is an enlightened man and a king as well. He knows how to achieve total success in the outer world and in the inner world. He shows you how to furnish your outer space with enriching, and how to keep your inner space empty with completion. That is life in totality.

### The entire Gītā is only about this one idea: how to furnish your outer space with the ultimate luxuries and how to keep your inner space in the ultimate bliss.

Kṛṣṇa is the only one who has produced a formula for inner space and outer space together. He teaches you how to keep your inner space in eternal bliss and keep your outer space in ultimate luxury at the same time. You can't expect this from a Buddha because Buddha gave up the outer space. He lived with just three pieces of clothing and he lived the life of a monk. So he taught us how to remain simple and blissful.

But Kṛṣṇa lived as a king. He wasn't just like a king, he was a king. Only Kṛṣṇa can give a complete solution for practical spiritual living. Kṛṣṇa gives immediate solutions, permanent solutions, not long-term solutions. Only Kṛṣṇa's solution is useful for people who are living a regular lifestyle.

Here He says, 'Not merely by abstaining from work can one achieve freedom from action. Nor can fulfillment come by giving up action.' You can't achieve freedom from action by moving away from work.

> *na karmanāṅ anārambhān naiṣkarmyaṁ puruṣo 'śnute I na ca sannyasanād eva siddhiṁ samadhigacchati II 3.4*

Every step in your life, anything you try to protect by hiding only becomes more and more powerlessness and more and more suffering. You move out of your life more and more. Moving away from your spouse, business partner, family or any of the forces that exist in your life is not an intelligent decision. We always think moving away from people or actions to protect our habits and patterns is freedom. That is the biggest bondage! People who move away from life, work and people to save their pattern are in the worst bondage!

Abstaining from work or moving away from work cannot give you freedom from action. It puts you in the biggest bondage. To have freedom from action, your inner space needs to be purified. Your inner space should become empty to allow the natural space of completion in you. You need to remove the furniture of incompletions from your complete inner space. Renouncing furniture in the outer world is not going to help you. Only removing furniture from the inner world is going to enrich you.

Please understand, whether you are hiding something inside you from life or trying to hide something outside you from life, your own incompletions will destroy you. You don't need a separate punishment.

**Life is too powerful to cheat it with your logic. It functions with a simple, natural law of Existence, a natural** *dharma.* The power of the natural law of Existence is such that nobody needs to teach you. By your very birth, if you start growing, you will get it!

The inauthentic idea that life has a purpose should be renounced. Life is a possibility, not purpose. That is why Kṛṣṇa says, 'Just by renouncing, just by outer renunciation, authenticity in action, *karma yoga* can never be

### achieved.'

**What is authenticity? Building your own identity to the peak possibility and renouncing the identity built on purpose.** What do you want to become? Every one of you, deep down, has a fantasy about becoming all-powerful, all-knowing, *sarvajña*. So now build that peak inner image, project the peak outer image, and take the responsibility to fulfill others' image of you.

I tell you, authenticity in action is the strategy plan for your life. The quality of cunningness may be useful for a short time—a few days, a few years, a few lives, but not for all lives! If you learn and develop the quality of authenticity in action, it is the strategy planning for life after life. Authenticity will help you identify your real enemy. Your real enemy is not the powerlessness you experience in moving away or running after a purpose; it is ignorance of your purposelessness! One more thing, if you renounce the outer world, you will think about the outer world even more.

A small story:

An Enlightened Master and his disciple were walking near a river. They were supposed to cross the river to go to their monastery (ashram). On the way, a young lady was standing near a river. She wanted to cross the river but was afraid to do so.

She asked the Master, 'Master, can you help me cross this river?' He said, 'Why not? Please come.'

He just lifted her, crossed the river, left her on the other bank, and continued walking towards the ashram. The disciple was observing the whole scene. He was not able to digest what he saw. He was angry. Maybe he was jealous!

After reaching the ashram he was not able to control himself and asked his master, 'Master, you are a Sannyāsi (monk). How can you touch a woman, that too a young woman, and carry her through the river?'


A beautiful story! You need to understand three things. The first thing is the courage of authenticity, the space of possibility and confidence of integrity, the space of positivity radiated by an enlightened person, the one established in space of completion. The next thing is the purposelessness of our running. Why was Alexander running? To relax and enjoy, to be complete in the Self. This Master was already doing the same thing! The third thing is that we are not going to carry anything with us when we leave. Even if the whole world worships you as a king, you cannot carry that with you! You have to go empty handed.

Never think that having comforts in the outer world will give you inner completion. All developed countries are filled with depression. They have the best roads, the best infrastructure, but their people are depressed. Never think outer space will give you inner space. If you want inner space, you need to work towards creating it. You need to understand the science of completion and the creation of inner space.

### Science of Creating the Right Inner Space

| Material Life | Spiritual Life |
|---|---|
|   |   |

Here, Kṛṣṇa is giving you the science of creating the right inner space. Let us see how we work, or how our mind moves. This graph represents your being. Material life is the horizontal line and spiritual life is the vertical line. You continuously worry about whether to choose the horizontal line or the vertical line; whether to go on this (horizontal) path, or 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 nothing but dilemma. Whaever you choose, whether material life or spiritual life, you will always feel you are missing the other part. You will continously feel you are missing something. 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 verses spiritual life.

Just like people have goals in material life, they have goals in spiritual life too. There are so many people who say, 'I should meditate for seven hours daily. I should become enlightened. I should become that, I should do this.'

Please listen, goals in material life and in spiritual life; both drive you mad. If you want to become mad, continuously think of some goal. But if you can just withdraw into your being, you will just forget about the goal. And you can still work. By withdrawing into your being, you stop trying to locate a purpose somewhere all the time and running towards it.

The man who runs behind the material goals, will always feel he is missing the spiritual goal. That is why all rich communities invariably follow spiritual masters. They carry a deep guilt and fear that they are missing spirituality. The person who travels along the horizontal line feels he is missing the spiritual life and the person who travels along 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 man who realizes the purposelessness of both these goals, the purposelessness of the running, just falls back into his being. When you realize that whatever you consider the purpose or goal of your life is ultimately meaningless, the very moment you realize this and the glamour is gone, that very moment the need for perspiration is also gone; you stop running.

Mind you, it is not inspiration; it is just perspiration that you give up! The moment all respect for the purpose is gone from 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 both horizontal and vertical lines, but you also explode in 360 degrees in all dimensions. Whatever you can imagine and whatever you can't even imagine will start happening. Only then do you become a truly multi-dimensional being.

A man who has fallen into his being, one who has dropped goals, who

has tasted the beauty of purposelessness of Existence, who has realized the space of completion, who has fallen into his being, explodes in 360 degrees, in all dimensions. He simply radiates completion in all directions!

The space of completion or incompletion, purposelessness or purposefulness does not work horizontally, logically. It works vertically and explodes in all dimensions. A man who is in the space of incompletion can fall vertically down. A man in the space of completion flies vertically up. 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 Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Travel with completion or incompletion is not horizontal, it is vertical. Whether you fall vertically down or fly vertically up, your idea of horizontal or linear traveling is wrong!

As long as you are caught up with material goals or spiritual goals, you travel only in one horizontal direction of incompletion, because you think you are body or mind. Sometimes people tell me, 'I don't want spiritual life. I don't want these four *tattvas*, life principles.' It is like saying, 'I don't want to breathe. I don't want blood circulation.' You need to understand that there is no such thing as spiritual life and normal life. Life has no purpose. Life is Life!

The more you are caught up with purposes, the more you think you are the body or the mind. When you realize the purposelessness of it all, you will straightaway fall into the depths of your being. Actually, to become complete and enlightened, you don't need the whole *Gītā*. This single verse is enough to make an individual enlightened. Then why am I talking about all the verses? It is only because there are so many different kinds of individuals.

#### Bring Completion and Become One

If you can, just look into yourself and understand this one verse for your self. 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 do this, you are sure to miss the experience yourself!

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: 'What is really the purpose of my life? Why am I doing what I am doing? Where am I going? What is happening?' Many times you do not even know what you want to achieve in life; what the purpose of life is. It is just because of incompletions.

See, it is like each part of your incompletion claims, 'I am you!' For example, if your name is Sundar, each part of the broken you claims, 'I am Sundar!' 'I am Sundar!' and who screams loudly, he thinks he is Sundar. And one of the worst things is one part of you spends so much of energy to disprove that the other part is not you. So finally, whoever wins, whoever loses, who is the loser? You! One part of you winning is not you winning. Even if one part of you wins, you are the loser! Unless your whole wins, you are a loser!

Understand, each part of you screaming that that part is you finally lands you in deep confusion. Unless you heal yourself and bring yourself to purposelessness, unless you align yourself as one being, life doesn't start for you! Only with deep completion you even become one being. The purpose of all great spiritual practices is for you to become ONE; for you to be complete, integrated!

If your inner eye opens, if your inner space experiences the beauty of purposelessness, that is enough to experience the space of completion. You will fall into your being. As of now, you can experience neither material life nor spiritual life because when you are here, you are looking there and when you are there, you are looking here. When you don't have integrity, the life you want to have around you will change hour by hour. In the morning you will have one idea of a certain kind of life, at noon you will have a different idea and the next morning you will have some other idea.

With lack of integrity, there is such a huge confusion. Your mind is not where your body is. You are not living inside your boundary. The grass on the other side of the river always looks greener. Something else is always calling you. Only when you align yourself to integrity, you will experience the beauty of purposelessness, only then will you be able to understand what Kṛṣṇa says throughout *Karma Yoga*.

When you bring integrity into your thinking, you become aware of every anxiety you go through, every fear you go through; you see how you are responsible for creating negativity in your life, and you also see how you can align yourself with yourself, and the world can just align itself with you. When you are one being, the reality you want, the reality you need and the highest Reality, all three become one and the same.

Relax! This one idea can transform your whole way of thinking with integrity, working with authenticity, and living with responsibility. When you understand there is no purpose of life, you will start enriching and 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 life as a whole has a purpose, the individual moment will lose its meaning. If you think one month of your working time is worth 50 thousand dollars, you will judge the value of that one month as being only 50 thousand dollars. Suddenly, if someone says, 'I will give you 50 million dollars, give me your life,' will you be able to give him your life? No! But, this is the way you are calculating and working! We are ready to sell our mind, our moments, our inner space by calculating the value of our lives. You forget the work itself or living itself.

If you think the whole has a purpose, then the part loses its meaning. When you realize that the whole has no purpose, the part will become meaningful. Your very living, every day itself, will become very beautiful. Your life every day, your living, your sitting, your walking, your standing, everything will become a joyful, complete experience.That is why they say *Sat-Cit-Ānanda*, which means 'the bliss of the very Existence.' Your very existence is blissful. You don't have to think that at the end of your life you will have bliss. Your very Existence is blissful. The meaning of existence is bliss, eternal bliss, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. But you need to take steps towards that bliss.

#### Do Work with Devotion, Drop Expectation

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

**Kṛṣṇa says very beautifully, 'By nature, the senses are tuned to be extrovert.' '**Extrovert' is not something negative. Extrovert senses will always be alive, creative, active and contributing. All great creative persons took the responsibility for their extrovert senses. If you want to be wealthy, have the company of wealthy people, or make the people in your company wealthy! If you want to be spiritual, have the company of spiritual people, or make the people in your company spiritual. There is no other way. Intranalyze what I am saying. To experience the reality of your choice in your life, you should first work to transform and enrich the reality of others around you.

Kṛṣṇa says, your senses, by nature are programmed to go out! You are programmed to work, to go out. Going out can happen only in two ways: either to enrich or to swindle! Surely, swindling others is not going to transform you. Only enriching others is going to transform you.

The choice is really about how to work. Here, Kṛṣṇa gives the answer to that. He says that we should perform work with devotion with authenticity in our actions, only to enrich, and without attachment to the results, *karmendriyaiḥ karma-yogam asaktaḥ sa viśiṣyate* (3.7). Work without unnecessarily being bothered about whether or not it will fetch the results that you expect.

When we work, our thoughts are on the future, we are not in the present moment. Am I right? Then how can we perform 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. When do you get worried or afraid? It is when you have an expected result, when there is an unwritten expectation, an unconscious desire to achieve something as the result of an action.

**Kṛṣṇa says, 'Drop the very desire and drop the very expectation.'** We wonder, 'How can we function if we drop expectations?' I am not saying you should not plan and or you should 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 to get up at a particular time, 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 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 again, thinking in different ways, internally preparing for eventualities, expecting results from our plan even before the action. We keep supposing, 'What if this happens? What if that happens?' Psychological planning boosts your ego, your root pattern. It makes you feel great and worthy. It makes you stay serious and feel that you are handling great things.

It is very unfortunate, but we carry a strong pattern that we should be ready to accept failure, because failure is a part of life. Then you are constantly giving a commitment to you that there is going to be failure. You always internally prepare yourself for failure. When you prepare, you usually remind yourself of the worst possibilities and then prepare tools and weapons to handle it. In the name of contingency planning, we just worry and give a commitment to failure. Instead, if we apply our awareness to the problem with integrity in thinking and authenticity in action, the solution will be visible. But we complicate the whole process. We get worked up about contingency situations and introduce a complex negativity in the whole thinking process.


It is the power of completion that empowers you to face the worst eventualities. Preparation for the worst eventualities mentally strengthens your belief in failure. Are you successful in handling any eventualities by preparation? So, from today, decide, you will not mentally prepare yourself for the worst eventualities. You will spend all your energy removing the weed of the worst eventuality from your inner space.

Now have awareness inside. You have never handled the worst possibilities because of preparation. You always handled the worst possibilities because of your completion! If you are in the space of completion, you face the worst possibilities in completion and win!

Kṛṣṇa says, 'One who does devotional work with authenticity, without attachment, and controlling the senses—*yas tv indriyāṇi manasā niyamyārabhate arjuna*, is superior to one who merely pretends to be in control of his senses and acts in renunciation, *karmendriyaiḥ karmayogam asaktaḥ sa viśiṣyate* (3.7).'

There are intellectual type of people, the philosophers, well versed in the scriptures, who look down upon the devotional and emotional practitioners! Intellectuals believe that their dry understanding of the non-duality of the Self is superior to that of those who fall at the feet of the Divine. Kṛṣṇa firmly says, 'No, it is not so!' Kṛṣṇa says that what makes the difference is your space of completion that brings lack of expectations of either failure or success, the sense of purposelessness that defines your state.

Listen, listen! The senses are extrovert, flowing naturally. By nature, they function towards achieving, purposelessly. It means that you are programmed by nature to be successful. The natural programming is for you to be successful. Lack of integrity allows the poison of preparing for failure, for the worst eventualities to grow in your system. The first thing a human being needs to do is weed out all worst possibilities.

*Sannyāsa*, renunciation, is a state, not a label. 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 prāna, the life energy that sustains you. So, you cannot say you are not doing anything.

You may think it is better not to do any work rather than to analyze what work you should do, how to do it, whether it will suit you etc. You can take this as an excuse for laziness, for your tamas. *Tamas* means laziness, lethargy. When Kṛṣṇa says, 'I am not the doer, it is just the senses performing 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 are by nature, forced and programmed to do something. Just try to sit with a completely blank mind, with no mental activity. Just relax and try this simple exercise. You will initially try not to think about anything and try to be aware if any thought comes to your mind. But, after a few moments, you will find yourself having some random thoughts, about something from the past or the future. By nature, your mind will think about something or the other. If you try to force silence upon 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, your mind will express its nature and start wandering.

**So, neither expression nor suppression is the solution. Only completion is the solution.** It is better to—complete with yourself to bring integrity to the nature of the senses and the mind, and be engaged with authenticity in action, with a sense of devotion to enrich others and yourself. Be aware that 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 consider yourself 'the doer' and have expectations about things being a certain way.

# Selfless Enriching Liberates

*   3.9 *Work has to be performed selflessly; otherwise, work binds one to this world. O son of Kuntī, perform your work for Me and you will do it authentically, liberated and without attachment*.
*   3.10 *Brahma, the lord of creation, before creating humankind as a selfless sacrifice said, 'By this selfless enriching, be more and more prosperous and let it bestow all desired gifts.'*
*   3.11 *The celestial beings, 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 enriching, the celestial beings certainly bestow upon you the desired enjoyments of life. He who enjoys the things given by them without offering anything to the celestial beings is certainly a thief.*
*   3.13 *Those who eat food after selfless enriching 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 is doing something, you distance yourself from the action. This is what Kṛṣṇa explains in the previous verses. 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 Kṛṣṇa talks about here.

Bhagavān says, 'O Kaunteya, perform your work for Me and you will

do it with authenticity, liberated and without attachment, *tad-arthaṁ karma kaunteya mukta-saṅgaḥ samācara* (3.9).'

When you do work as a sincere, humble offering to the Divine, the very attitude of this surrender will make you do the job authentically to your peak capability and you will be liberated. When you are excessively bothered about the results, you actually think you are the doer of the action! That is why you get attached to the work and its results. This is when you start getting stressed and tensed about results. Naturally, when you are tensed, you are not performing at your maximum efficiency because so much of your valuable energy is getting wasted in being tense. 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 over- cautious, you 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.

This doesn't mean you can be careless about your work. I am only saying that you should have the courage of authenticity to make mistakes and learn to not give up on yourself. Only when you make mistakes can you learn from them and complete with your unconscious inauthenticies. Only then have you been exposed to your inauthenticity and seen both sides of the coin. Then, with experience, when you have learnt from the mistake and stood up powerfully with completion, you will have the cognition of both sides. Otherwise, just at the crucial time, your inauthenticities that have been hiding from you will make you commit mistakes and you will powerlessly give up on yourself. You can have this courage of authenticity only when you are not attached to the ownership of tasks and 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 enjoy every moment of life without feeling like the doer and therefore not worrying about making small mistakes. Real surrender happens when this understanding becomes your experience.

#### **Surrender—The Ultimate Relaxation**

Utmost integrity and authenticity is enough for surrender. Nothing else is needed. Surrender has a tremendous power, a tremendous energy. Whether you surrender to an idol or to a person or to your Guru, or even a rock, is not important. What is important is surrender itself.

Vivekananda says beautifully: 'When you pray to God, your prayers actually awaken your own inner potential 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 cashier who used to take all the cash 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 the money were to be lost, he would not be blamed and he could continue with his job. The cashier slept peacefully from that day onwards.

What was the difference in him? He was doing the same job, but why was the fear and tension not there anymore? It was because the responsibility had been shifted to a higher authority, that's all. This is surrender! Do your work with authenticity and responsibility to enrich others and yourself, surrendering the responsibility of the results to Existence.

**Understand, Existence loves you and understands you better than you understand yourself.** See the example of Arjuna; Kṛṣṇa knew Arjuna better than Arjuna knew himself. The very trust, the very connection enabled Arjuna to relate with Kṛṣṇa, who took him to the Ultimate Consciousness.

Have simple trust in Existence, in the intelligence of the life force. This is the very life force, the energy that is keeping you alive. This is the energy behind the marvelous functioning of your brain, of your digestive system, of your nervous system. This is the energy that runs our solar system, all the galaxies and the entire Universe so smoothly. Imagine, is it possible for so many billions of stars and planets to move in such beautiful order even if you had the most modern traffic control system in place? Such a beautiful order, in what appears to be chaos when seen superficially!

#### **Enrich Others Because They Are Part Of You**

A very beautiful story from the great Hindu epic history, Mahābhārat:

King Yudhiṣṭra, the eldest of the Pāṇḍavas, performed a great sacrifice after the battle of Kurukṣetra was over. He gave very rich offerings to the priests and the poor. They were all impressed by the grandeur of this sacrifice. They praised him saying, 'We have never seen such a great sacrifice in our lifetime.'

Just then, a small mongoose appeared. Half of his body was golden and the other half was brown. He rolled on the ground where the sacrifice was performed. He then exclaimed with sorrow, 'This is no sacrifice at all. Why do you praise this sacrifice?'

The priests were aghast and angry, 'What! You silly mongoose! Did you not see the sacrifice? Thousands of poor people have become very rich. Millions of people have been sumptuously fed. So many jewels and clothes have been distributed!'

The mongoose replied, 'That may be a big sacrifice for you. But to me the sacrifice offered by the poor *brāhmin* was much bigger.'

'What *brāhmin* and what sacrifice are you talking about? We never heard of this!' said the priests.

The mongoose continued, 'There was a poor *brāhmin* in a village. He lived in a small hut with his wife, son and daughter-in-law. Once, there was a great famine. The whole family starved for days on end. One day, the poor man brought some food home. When they were ready to eat, they heard a voice at their door. The *brāhmin* opened the door and found a guest at the doorstep. In Bharat, we say, *atithi devo bhava*, which means 'the guest is God Himself '.

The *brāhmin* said, 'O Sir! Please come inside. Please have a seat and have some food.' He gave his portion of the food to the guest.

The guest said, 'Sir, I am still hungry. I have been starving for the last fifteen days.'

The wife gave her share also to the guest. The guest ate this portion also, but he was still hungry. The son said, 'Father, please give him my share also.'

The guest ate this and yet he remained dissatisfied.

The wife of the son said, 'O Sir, please have my portion too.' The guest ate this portion also and was fully satisfied. He then blessed the poor *brāhmin* and his family and departed in great joy.

I entered the hut that day and found that four persons had died of starvation. A few grains of rice were found on the ground where the guest had eaten. I rolled myself on those grains. Half of my body became golden. Since then I have been traveling all over the world to find another sacrifice like that.

Nowhere have I found one. Nowhere have I been able to convert the other half of my body into gold. This sacrifice of Yudhiṣṭra has not turned the other half of my body into gold; That is why I say that this is no sacrifice at all.'

The sacrifice that Kṛṣṇa refers to comes from a true sense of surrender to the Universe. When we enrich others what we can afford to give, it is no sacrifice. When we enrich others by denying ourselves, then it is a sacrifice. That is why most of the charitable work done by people, even with good intentions, does not fit into the essence of what Kṛṣṇa says here. Of course, it is better to enrich others rather than foolishly stuff yourself.

Enrich others for the sake of enriching. When you enrich others at your own expense, by denying yourself, you function at the level of the Universal energy; you function as part of the principle of *Vasudaiva kuṭuṁbakaṁ* meaning 'The whole world is my family' as said by Kṛṣṇa; you operate out of compassion. Then there is no compulsion or no moral injunction to give. There is no expectation that you will go to heaven if you give and to hell if you don't.

That's why, time and again, I tell people, 'Do not donate anything to the mission in the belief that I will help you pass through the gates of heaven. First of all, there is no heaven, and second, I am not its gatekeeper!'

Many times even your enriching others has a selfish motive. You think, 'If I enrich, I may get this, this, and this back!' Do not enrich with purpose. Let enriching be a purposeless happening. Now, I am giving the right and complete reason for enriching. Because everyone is part of you, enriching every being is nothing but enriching some part of you. Only then are you practicing the *tattva* of enriching *Vasudaiva kuṭuṁbakaṁ*, the whole world as your family.


### Leader and Leadership Consciousness

3.21 *Whatever action is performed by a great person, others follow. They follow the example set by him.*

3.22 *O Pārtha, there is nothing that I must do in the three worlds. Neither am I in want of anything nor do I have to gain anything. Yet, I am always in action.*

3.23 *If I did not engage in work with care, O Pārtha, certainly, people would follow My path in all respects.*

3.24 *If I do not work, then these worlds would be ruined. I would be the cause of creating confusion and destruction.*

3.25 *Even the ignorant do their work with attachment to the results, O Bhārata, the wise do so without attachment, for the enrichment of the people.*

Here, Kṛṣṇa talks about the practical aspects of why a leader needs to act in a responsible manner. With responsibility, you experience the space of leadership consciousness, *Īśvaratva*.

There is a difference between the state of a leader and the status of a leader. Most of us want to attain the status of a leader but not the state. When you achieve the status of the leader, it is ego-fulfilling and you feel great. Some politicians are good examples for this. They exert the power of their position on others without even feeling responsible. They were a little more dominating and convincing than the people whom they were trying to dominate, that's all. It is not that they were more intelligent or more capable.

The state of the leader is something totally different. It is the state of the leader born from the principle of responsibility that enriches people to become responsible. Problems of all kinds, ranging from stress to discontentment and violence, result because the leader has achieved the status and not the state.

#### Leader Creates More Responsible Leaders

A leader with the status remains only as a slave. A leader with the state takes the responsibility to create more and more responsible leaders.

Only when you express all the possibilities out of liberation cognition, are you living your life. Life is lived when *jīvanmukta saṁbhāvana*, the space of possibility, the space of leadership becomes your lifestyle. Nothing else is required for you to be a leader; just leadership consciousness is enough. When Vivekananda walked the length and breadth of Bharat, he did not have anything other than leadership consciousness in his life. But wherever he went, kings washed his feet, gave their own thrones for him to sit on, received his blessings and guidance, and requested his spiritual support.

#### Responsibility is thinking, feeling, acting, responding and cognizing from the truth that you are the Source of everything!

It is responsibility that makes you realize all possibilities. It is leadership consciousness that brings not just success, but fulfillment in you. I have seen thousands of politicians who have power without having the state of leadership consciousness. Sometimes, people sit on the throne or get the power and become power centers, without having the state of a leader. I have seen them dying in depression or suffering in suffocation, due to the power! They never enjoy the power.

Unless you achieve the state, the status is a liability! If you have not achieved the state, the status binds you and also brings suffering to others. The state of responsibility, the state of leadership consciousness, *Īśvaratva* has to be achieved first. When you do not carry the consciousness of a leader, even if you get the powers of the leader, you are bound by it and you also bind the people who accept you as leader and follow you.

Leadership consciousness is an independent intelligence; it cannot be

hidden from others. Once you have it, the whole world will know that you have it; the world simply listens to you! You do not need any power, political strength or infrastructure for the world to know that you are a leader. Even if you walk on the street, you will stand tall—as a man among men; what Kṛṣṇa names Arjuna as *puṛuṣarṣabha*, the best among men. And the world will respect you!

Listen! I am not talking to you about some corporate values and principles, or on something that *Ṛṣis, Vedic* Seers have uttered in the *Upaniṣads*. I am talking to you about what I have directly experienced, which you have to experience. I am talking from the context of being responsible for making you responsible.

Be very clear, the person who talks has only one reason—making you responsible. I am responsible to make you experience responsibility as I have experienced it. A person with wealth is responsible to guide a poor man to wealth. A person with knowledge is responsible to make ignorant people knowledgeable! When you own, you become responsible to make everyone own. Because I own responsibility, I own the responsibility of making everyone own responsibility.

Kṛṣṇa, who owns responsibility, the space of leadership consciousness, *Īśvaratva*, is making Arjuna own responsibility. Kṛṣṇa says, 'Whatever action is performed by a great person, others follow. O Pārtha, there is nothing that I must do in the three worlds. Neither am I in want of anything. Yet, I am always in action.'

> *yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas tad tad evetaro janaḥ I*
> *sa yat pramāṇaṁ kurute lokas tad anuvartate II 3.21*

> *na me pārthāsti kartavyaṁ triṣu lokeṣu kiñcana I*
> *nānavāptam avāptavyaṁ varta eva ca karmaṇi II 3.22*

There are only two types of human beings on planet Earth—those who feel responsible for everything and those who don't feel responsible for anything. People who feel responsible become leaders. People who don't feel responsible continue to be slaves. There are some people who don't feel responsible even for their own actions because they forget their action is going to bring its result. Many times, even when they plan out a business, they only plan out the people they will hold responsible if it fails! They don't plan to make it successful.

Plan for success! Don't plan for failure. Right when you start planning, if you wonder 'If this fails what do I do?', you immediately think, '*I will hold him responsible!*' But holding the other responsible is not going to bring you success. Even as the thought—'I will hold him responsible' arises, cut it.

I always tell my disciples, 'Take responsibility for practicing what I teach you by bringing authenticity into every action. Don't just preach what I teach. Only by example can you cause others' reality and radiate the teachings powerfully.' Deep understanding and experiential expression of the truth happens only with taking responsibility for all your actions. Only when the space of leadership becomes your own experience does the responsibility become complete. Otherwise, if the understanding is just based on someone else's words and experience, then there is always the possibility that anyone can come and shake your belief and you will either hold the situation or others responsible. The roots of responsibility, in this case, are not deep and strong enough to withstand all kinds of questions. Others' questions are nothing but your own unanswered questions that you chose to suppress within you!

That is what happens to Arjuna as *kurusattama*, the leader of all Kuru warriors, as *bharataṛṣabha*, the best of Bhārata. Even though he takes the responsibility to fight and avenge the collective irresponsibility of the Kauravas, he falls from his space of leadership and gives reasons to escape his responsibility. Arjuna, the one of taintless, pure fame, becomes a slave to his incompletions. Only when he allows the Master to enrich him does he surrender to the Master of all masters, *Jagadguru* Kṛṣṇa as His disciple!

Unless we enrich ourselves and allow ourselves to be enriched by the Master, nothing good can happen to us. Allowing the Master to enrich you is the best way of enriching yourself. If you don't enrich yourself, no one can save you. If you enrich yourself, whatever you touch will be successful. If you are in the space of completion, anything you touch will be successful. Powerfulness always showers success, it never brings failure. It is a law of life!

There are three types of people: the disciples (or the followers), the Masters, and the leaders (or guides).

The disciple is one who has not yet experienced and enriched himself with the teachings of the Masters, but who is authentically interested and has responsibly embarked upon the path. He needs some guidance on the path. He does not yet know how to practice what is being taught.

The Master is one who is in the eternal space of *Īśvaratva*, leadership consciousness and is in the ultimate experience of Enlightenment. Out of compassion, He enriches by showing the path of responsibility to reach His state to all those who would like to be in that state. It is not necessary for the Master to practice what He preaches because he is beyond the common rules of conduct. Masters need not follow what they tell you to do to reach their state. They understand the illusion of the physical plane that their body-mind system operates in. Whatever they may do physically is in a state of complete awareness.

I always tell people that they need to be aware and completely present when they eat. But if you have been around me, you will see that I never concentrate on my food when I eat. When I eat, I am reading or talking to someone. It is like this: For you, you have to meditate to be aware of the food you are consuming so that you eat only as much as is needed. But for me, if I am aware, I will not be able to eat the amount of food my body needs. I have to distract myself and remove the awareness, the self-remembrance, and only then will the food go inside! An enlightened being's system is totally different from an ordinary person's system.

A leader or guide is someone who is a spiritual activist, he is between the Master and the follower. He has not yet reached the ultimate state of the Master but he has had glimpses of that state. He is not as inexperienced as the follower. He is the bridge of responsibility to lead the follower to the Master.

One more thing: It is not that you need to practice the *tattvas* just so that others get inspired and enriched. Understand that the very practice will give deep understanding and completion to you. Automatically you cause what you want to cause in your life. That is the first effect, the actual result. Being an inspiration and causing the reality for others will be just a by-product. It will automatically result from the confidence of authenticity you radiate in your body language and the power of integrity you express in your words, when you enrich people out of the intelligence and strength of your own responsibility as a leader.

#### Nothing Binds Me, Yet I Engage in Responsible Work

In these verses, Kṛṣṇa beautifully explains what walking the talk means through His own example. He says there is nothing in the three worldsthe nether world, earth or heaven, for Him to achieve. There is no duty that binds Him. Even though He has nothing to gain, lose or even to do, He is constantly engaged in action and enriching the three worlds. Why?

Because people look up to Him as God, they would obviously follow the path He sets. People's *anyakāra*, the expectation that world has from Kṛṣṇa is that He is God, He is *Bhagavān.* They would simply follow what He does. He is now responsible to fulfill even others' image about Him for leading them on the correct path. That is Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa's authenticity and responsibility!

I tell you, the one who takes responsibility for the whole world's *anyakāra* is God. God takes responsibility for the *anyakāra* of even atheists. That is why when they say God never helps, He never helps them, and makes sure that He fulfills even their *anyakāra*! So, even though Kṛṣṇa Himself has no reason to engage in work, He does so for the sake of enriching the people who will follow Him. If He did not engage in action and did not take the responsibility to make others' responsible, people would follow His example and fall into irresponsibility, inaction or *tamas*.

Listen! By taking responsibility to enrich Arjuna with the science and

direct experience of Enlightenment, Kṛṣṇa fulfills the *anyakāra* of not just Arjuna but of the whole humanity embodied by him; relieving the planet Earth from *bhūbhāra*, the burden of the collective unconscious, incomplete beings.

Understand, others' *anyakāra* about you has two dimensions—how they perceive you and how they want you to be in their life! For example, they may perceive you as a fool and a cheat, but they may want you to be intelligent and authentic! When you take responsibility for both parts of others' *anyakāra*, life just oozes out of your *ānanda gandha*, your blissful inner space.

**Listen. Taking responsibility for what others perceive and what others want just makes life ooze, explode and express through you.** If you want your skin to shine, your eyes lit and your body radiating grace and joy, take responsibility for others' *anyakāra* in both directions. If others perceive you as a cheat and fool, don't be angry. It means that you have not raised yourself in some way.

Every year, I guide people on spiritual *yātras*. It is a lifetime experience to be in the lap of nature. In the Himalayas, the living energy field, we do various types of rituals at the *cārdhām* (four sacred pilgrimages). Of what use are the rituals to me? But I do them for you so that you understand their significance, get enriched to do them, and take the responsibility to enrich others with them. After Enlightenment, I came from the Himalayas to be amidst the people to enrich them with Enlightenment. I could have just stayed there happily and blissfully. But I have come here because of my responsibility to guide people with the right path of living Enlightenment. That is why Masters come to planet Earth out of their deep responsibility, their love and compassion to enrich people with Enlightenment.

**Listen! When responsibility expresses through your head, it is leadership. When responsibility expresses through your heart, it is compassion. When responsibility expresses through your being, it is Enlightenment,** *Sātori.*

Seeing me work constantly, being intensely involved in work, whether it is administration or giving satsanghs or planning activities or healing people, whatever the action may be, people are inspired and enriched to be engaged in authentic work and responsible leadership constantly, blissfully enjoying every moment. I don't have to give you my words. You can see me, learn and be enriched from my body language much more than from my words.

#### Stretching to Others' Expectations is Authenticity

Please understand, what you feel as *you*, the idea you believe as *you*, is *mamakāra*. For example, I can very authentically say I feel that I am a pure empty space.