Yogayukto means one who is linked.  Linked with what?  This is the fifth chapter, so the seeker is heading towards being linked with the soul in him, not the God in him.  It’s a very clear-cut distinction.  In other commentaries, that clarity is not there; they have equated soul with God.  No.  Soul is awareness; God is experience.

First is realizing the Self, next is having a direct vision of God, next is merging with God, next is transcending this maya, and final is manifesting God.  These are the stages.  Here in the fifth chapter, the fifth step of the journey, your interpretation and your explanation must be in conformity with the sequence of the revelation.  At this point Gita is talking of yogayukto, one who is linked with the inner self, the atman.  In this verse the Lord explains what will be the inner experience and outer symptoms. The moment you are yogayukto, you will be vishuddhätmä, that means your atma, or your soul, will be vishuddha, free from all coating.

What does that mean?  The soul, the Siva, is coated, that is why the Siva has become jiva. The coating is all the accumulated, unspent karmas, the samskaras that have coated this pure awareness called Siva.  That is why this Siva has forgotten his swarupa, his true nature, and has accepted this coating as real.  This is the reason the jiva runs towards experience, because he is carrying that coating of experience.  Like if I am putting on specs with clear glass, that is why I can clearly see, but if the glass is red, everything will appear red; if it is blue, everything will appear blue.

The coating that the jiva carries is called experience and because of this the jiva runs towards experience.  That is the problem: jiva carries the coatings of experience of touch, taste, sound, smell and sight.  When you are free from each coating, that particular attraction will no longer remain.

The Lord clearly shows the path:  ‘Arjuna, when you will become yogayukto and will be linked with your inner being, the first symptom will be vishuddhätmä, you will be free from these coatings.’  How can you know that you are getting free from the coatings?  You will begin to experience the bliss of the atman.

When you are truly becoming linked with your inner being you will experience this vishuddhi of the atman, this bliss.  This is how I understood that tranquility is different from silence.  Bliss is different from tranquility, peace is different from bliss, joy is different from peace, and delight is different from joy.  Why are my words are carrying weight?  Because I have gone through the whole process, so the terms do not confuse me.  A state of bliss and a state of peace are not the same.  One who has gone through the process knows.

At this stage it will be vishuddhätmä, when you are getting rid of one type of coating, like the coating of attraction.  You experience bliss, and this bliss becomes deeper when you are getting free from the coating of taste, then the intensity of your bliss increases when you become free from the coating of sight, and it keeps increasing.

The second thing that will happen is vijitätmä, you will be the conqueror of your atma.  In Gita, the word atma refers to different concepts depending on the context.  Here it refers to the mind.  First you will be vishuddhätmä then only you will be vijitätmä.  See the sequence.  I am authenticating it by quoting the particular verse of Gita.  The Lord said earlier that the senses will always run towards the object, Arjuna.  This is their natural dharma.  Nigrahahkim karishyati, how far can you go by imposing outer restriction only? The Lord says the solution is paramdrishtwä nivarttate, when you will be able to see the parama, the Supreme, automatically these senses will turn their faces away.  Therefore your goal should not be only to become a jitendriya, but to be one with the Supreme, paramdrishtwä nivarttate.

When you are experiencing the atman then you do not struggle to keep any of the senses under control–automatically it happens.  That is my experience.  Once you are experiencing the bliss of the Being, the senses will lose their sting without you struggling.  But if you are not experiencing the Being, you may go on practicing self-control for fifty years.

One devotee came from another ashram, he was sixty-five years old.  He said, “Swamiji, I want to stay some days in your ashram.”

I asked, “Why?”

“I don’t know, but I had seen you when you came to our ashram, and now I am seeing you, you are radiating with force and light and love.  There must be something powerful in Tiruvannamalai.  Please allow me some days.”

I told, “Come.”

He came and stayed here maybe ten or fifteen days, and one day he said, “I need to talk to you.”

He told me straight away, “How have you gone beyond lust?  At the age of sixty-five I am still not able to be free from these lustful thoughts.  How could you do it this young age?”

I told him, “Ask Maa, because as far as this matter is concerned she will be your guru.  If you want to ask jñäna, I will explain it to you.”

I don’t know what Maa told him.  After two days he said, “Now I got the guidance from Maa.  She told me that to practice this I have to be out of this ashram.  So I am leaving, but I really wanted to stay some days.”

I told him, “Because you asked Maa and you have received guidance, and you are convinced that the guidance will work for you, follow what she has told.”

Why at the age of sixty-five was he struggling to overcome this lust, and why in our ashram do we have people below thirty-five without any distraction for lust?  Without experiencing the bliss a person can never have victory over the senses.  The bliss that our people are experiencing is sometimes the bliss of the Being and sometimes the bliss of Supreme Being.  The secret lies not in trying, but in transcending.  There are two approaches: you can spend your time in trying and trying and failing, or you can transcend.  When you transcend, you become the conqueror, the emperor.

Vishuddhätmä will lead to vijitätmä, if you are experiencing the bliss.  The secret lies in these long hours of meditation our people have done. Vijitätmä means your mind is under your control.  Here atma refers to the lower mind, the king of the senses.  You will feel the bliss of the Being, that is vishuddhätmä; your atma is getting free from coating, so you are beginning to experience more and more bliss.  Although outwardly you keep performing all types of work, still inner bliss is there.  That will lead to the next inner symptom, vijitätmä, when your mind will become calm.

Even at the sixth chapter Arjuna said, ‘My mind is like a monkey.  It is as difficult to control it as the wind.’  How did my mind became calm?  When I was doing this sadhana and found myself feeling turbulent, I would just withdraw, sit somewhere and open the Gita book, and start contemplating any verse.  Within seconds my mind would be calm.  That was my practice.

So I told my people, when you feel it is too much, just think of me, get linked with me, and you will experience calmness coming to you.  That is what many of you are doing.  Just the act of writing to me, although you know fully well I may not read it, brings you calmness and joy.  Many of you have experienced this, and I receive email every day from people writing, “Swamiji, I know you may not read this, but I am sending it because that’s the only way I can come out of the turbulence in which I am now.”  Then at the end the person is writing, “Now I feel joy and my fear is gone because I wrote this to you.”  It is like me experiencing the joy the moment I listen to a verse of Gita, whosoever may be chanting.

This is the outer symptom that a vijitätmä is a jitendriya, the conqueror of the senses.  This will be reflected through his outer action and reaction pattern.  Even his outer gross movement will be confident; there will be a force and a harmony.  Then you can say, here is a jitendriya purusha, one who has conquered the senses.

First will come vishuddhätmä, next is vijitätmä, then jitendriya, and after these three you will begin to experience sarvabhütätma bhütätmä, you will begin to experience the atma, that is the soul, in every form.  When you are able to experience this, you may shout and scream and yell, but you will not be angry.  That is my secret.  I am shouting and screaming and yelling but not feeling anger within.  That is the beginning of the process that will lead you to God-realization.  When you have reached such a stage the Lord says, kurvannapi na lipyate, whatever you are doing you are not getting contaminated.

This is the inner meaning, the expanded meaning, the experiential meaning and the secret of the realization behind this verse.

[from a 5 January 2009 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai]

Chapter Three is the Yoga Of Action.  When the jiva enters the world of prakriti it enters into the ocean of karma.  This samsara is karmakshetre and anyone who comes here has to perform karma, or action.  The only reason the jiva enters samsara, the prakriti, is to perform karma.  The jiva, who is no other than the Siva, wanted to experience itself.  Siva is all awareness, no experience.  Vishnu is all experience.  Remaining completely merged in the experiential plane, Vishnu retains his total awareness, but if Siva descends to the experiential plane he loses his total awareness and behaves like a deluded human being.  This is what our scriptures have narrated.  Either Siva is completely detached or he is totally attached.

When his wife jumped into the fire and burned herself alive, Siva got angry and destroyed the whole yajña.  He beheaded his father-in-law, jumped into the fire and lifted the half-burned body of Parvati and started dancing.  He did a dance for destruction, not a dance for dissolution.  When the deluded purusha dances on the dead prakriti that leads to destruction.  When a fully awakened purusha dances with an awakened prakriti, a conscious prakriti, that leads to manifestation.  Siva was determined to destroy everything, but the role to destroy is not given to him.  Siva is the Lord of dissolution, Brahma is the Lord of creation, and Vishnu is the Lord of sustenance and maintenance.

When Siva enters into the ocean of samsara and becomes a samsari, he forgets everything, so no wonder you all have forgotten everything, because you are Siva and you have become jiva.  When you become jiva you forget the Siva in you.  That’s why you are completely identified with your experience.  Jiva literally means one who wants to live through.  Living is nothing but experiencing.  Experiencing what?  Experiencing the other part.  One is the manifest part; the other is the unmanifest part.  The manifest part is experience.  The unmanifest part is awareness.  The two taken together is perfect perfection.  Neither Siva is perfect perfection nor jiva is perfect perfection.

Siva is perfect purusha.  Jiva is imperfect purusha.   The aim of Gita is not to be perfect purusha, because you are that already.  The aim of Gita is to be perfect perfection.  That is the Purushottama state.  The whole goal of Gita, the whole journey of Gita, the whole sadhana of Gita is to attain that state of Purushottama, the Supreme Being.  Supreme Being is perfect, complete, total experience with total awareness.  It is like a policeman who is playing the role of a thief on the stage.  He always remembers, ‘I am a policeman.  My job is to catch the thief, but because I have given my consent to play the role of a thief I must play this role perfectly.’  But he does not forget that he is a policeman.

The same way, when you attain the state of perfect perfection, you will never fail.  You will always succeed in everything that you undertake.  Failure comes due to forgetting.  You will remember that you are Siva, you are the creation, and you are everything.  You are consciously entering into the zone of prakriti to experience the creation.  Creation is prakriti.  Anything that you see, hear, feel, imagine, think—everything is prakriti.  When you think of Vishnu, that is prakriti; when you think of Siva, that is prakriti, because the moment you reach purusha you lose your experience.  Thinking is an experience, imagining is an experience, visualizing is an experience, seeing is an experience, knowing is an experience.  When you go beyond everything you lose the state of your knowership and you become knowledge.

The goal of embodiment is to experience without losing the awareness.  That’s the goal of Gita and the Lord of all experiences shows this path.  That is why Gita was not revealed by a guru; Gita was revealed by God himself.

Verses 152 and 153 are in the third step of the journey.  The Lord is teaching all the secrets of action, like how to perform it, which means how to experience without getting trapped by the experience or losing an ounce of your awareness.  Think what a privileged state that is.  You experience everything without losing a drop of your awareness.  That secret is revealed.  This is called yoga, this is called sadhana.  How to do the sadhana of experiencing everything without losing the awareness of anything?  The first step is being revealed, not to a deluded human being but to one who is awakened.

The Lord is teaching the secret principle of action because the Siva becoming jiva has entered into karmakshetre, that is kurukshetre, that is dharmakshetre.  The field of action has become the field of battle because of ignorance, self-oblivion, forgetfulness of who you are.  That’s the first thing.  There are only three types of forgetting: who you are, why you are here and how to get out of this mess.  Even though every day you are receiving this guidance, you are forgetting.  To get rid of this you have to begin from the third type of forgetting.  If you don’t forget the guidance that you are receiving, it remains in your consciousness.  If you apply it into life then the second forgetting veil will fall, that is, why you are here.

The body is a robe.  The soul has taken a body.  One who is embodied is called bhuta in Sanskrit, because he has taken up the robe of the five elements, the pancha mahabhuta.  These five elemental robes are beautifully stitched with the three threads of prakriti’s gunas.  There is a golden thread, a silver thread, and an iron thread.  When the soul enters the world of Mahaprakriti, she will put on it all the beautiful things, because it is the Mahapurusha that is coming and prakriti wants to see her purusha in the most beautiful way.  First she puts on the thinnest ether, next is the all-pervading air, then is the all-dazzling fire, finally is the all-subtle water, and on the outer is hard earth.  These are the robes that atman has put on to be known as jivatman.

In India there is a beautiful symbology.  The moment a young girl puts a vermillion mark on her forehead and wears bangles, she is branded as someone’s wife.  Nobody else should think of marrying her or having relations with her.  In the same way, prakriti wants to protect her purusha by putting on some marks and beautiful robes—the five elemental robes stitched strongly and securely by the three threads of gunas.  After wearing all these, Siva has become jiva.  Siva is indebted to prakriti and has to do whatever prakriti commands him to do.  It is like a monkey who was moving freely in the forest, jumping from tree to tree.   After being caught by the hunter, he was sold to a man who put on him an iron chain and trained him so that the monkey will jump to the command of the man.

Prakriti has put all these robes on you so that you will dance to her command.  Yoga means to get rid of the clutches of prakriti.  The purpose of traditional yoga is to somehow give prakriti the slip when she is not aware and run away from her clutches.  Gita yoga is just the reverse: now you are dancing to her command, but make her dance to your command.  You, the purusha, have become the bonded, deluded purusha.  Get back your Purushottama state and then command prakriti to dance as per your direction.

This bhuta, this embodied being, is bound to respond, react, and act the way prakriti wants them to because they are indebted.  You lose your freedom when you expect something from another person.  It may be food, knowledge, material benefit, pleasure, enjoyment, or recognition.  The more you expect from others the more you lose your freedom.  That’s why the first principle I have given you is: do not depend on others.  Don’t expect anything from others.  There is no friend in this whole creation to you except your own atma: Atmaiva hyätmanobandhu rätmaiva ripurätmanah. [Verse 238]

Purusha is indebted to prakriti, so he is bound to respond to the command of prakriti.  It came naked and now it has everything.  These are prakriti’s assets and prakriti’s wealth, and purusha is enjoying these so purusha has to be the slave.  Arjuna, you are thinking you can go beyond this simply by some surface control, some surface restraint?  How far can mere self-denial take you?  It can take you somewhere, but it cannot take you back to from where you have come without any coating.  One can go beyond senses or mind, or maybe beyond intellect, but one cannot go beyond prakriti.

Here the Lord is showing you the path so you can really get back your pure awareness without losing the beauty of experience.  You will not lose the elixir of experience but you will get back the bliss of your awareness.  What a beautiful exalted state that is.  You can experience everything without losing the awareness of anything.  Your bliss will be there and also you will have your delight.  It is like having your cake and eating it too.  That’s the path Gita is showing.

This is the reason meditation is so popular.  Meditation makes you feel that you are not what you know, what you experience, what you have heard or what you have been told.  You enter into the Being, then you come out of it and try to explain, but you cannot.  If you are able to explain what you are experiencing, be sure you have not entered into the Being.  The moment you enter into the Being you can only experience but you cannot explain.  That is why it is said some see it as a wonder, some speak of it as a wonder, some experience it as a wonder, but none can explain this wonder.

Experience can be explained but awareness cannot be explained.  The moment you explain your awareness it is not awareness.  Awareness can only make you aware, experience can only make you an experiencer.  When you enter into the Being, the experiencer has merged in the experience.  There is no separate identity.  What comes out is the memory.  You simply come out of the ocean of experience and what you carry is just a drop in your memory box.  With that drop you are bound to act as per your innate nature.  This innate nature is you, the prakriti.  You, the purusha, wanted to become prakriti.  You have become that.  Wanting to become prakriti is one thing; wanting to experience your prakriti is another thing.  If you want to experience prakriti you must have a different approach.

You have become prakriti; you have lost your identity of the purusha.  That is why the first aim is to give your purusha state back to you.  That’s the first part of the journey.  Enter into the Being, become the purusha.  Purusha is always a witnessing being.  The prakriti that you are carrying has to wither away through merger.   Purusha does not merge.  Purusha has already merged and has become deluded purusha.  Prakriti has to merge in purusha.  The chit has to merge in Sat.  That’s the second part of the journey, called God-realization.  Then the sat and the chit will come together as manifestation of Purushottama; that is the third part of the journey, the triple goal.

You the purusha have become prakriti and you are functioning as prakriti.  Sadrisham cheshtateswasyäh prakriter jñänavänapi.  Even if you think you are a jñani, you will function as per the innate nature.  Surface restraint and surface denial can just give you a vicarious state of attainment, like most of you are having.  Real attainment has not come.

So the first goal is to get back your awareness.  Until that time you are the prakriti.  When you attain the state of Self-realization, prakriti is behind you.  It has not left you.  When you attain the state of God-realization, prakriti is gone.  What remains is the purusha.  When you attain the state of Purushottama, prakriti comes back with you, not as your tyrannical mistress but as your manifesting collaborator.

If prakriti is a constant companion and this prakriti is lower prakriti, the moment it gets a chance it will veil you, trap you and smash you.  You cannot run away.  If you think that by running away you will reach the goal, then don’t waste a single minute.  Run away, go!  But if you are convinced that running away is not the solution, nor surface restraint and surface suppression are the solution, that means you have conceptual clarity, willpower, and you want to proceed.  To such a person now the Lord reveals the secret path in Verse 153.

Indriyasyendriyasyärthe means, it is natural for the senses to run towards the object, but don’t get trapped by what you are seeing, eating, hearing or feeling.  This is the secret.  This attraction and repulsion is not you; this is the senses and that is their dharma.  Senses will be attracted towards the object and once they are fulfilled they will be repulsed.  The problem is that you try to prolong the object, or get it in an unnatural way, or retain it without necessity, or chase it although it is not coming—these are to be avoided.  Tayorna vashamägachhet, don’t be trapped by these.

Allow it to naturally come to you.  This is the first principle.  But if you don’t have a living guru, this is a dangerous doctrine.   I have experienced that many good things of life came to me naturally without asking for them.  I did not have a human guru so I was literally following Gita the way many of you are literally following Swamiji.  A friend of mine would tell me, “Let us go and see the film.  I will take you.  I will pay for you and give you something to eat and drink.  Come.”  At that time this surface Gita told me, ‘Okay, I am not asking but he is giving me everything, and this is something I really want, so there is no violation.  Let me go.’  That may happen to you.  It also happened to me.

I am giving you the experiential guidance and experiential advice.  I am not talking rubbish.  I am only telling what I have gone through.  Scriptures can guide you to some extent but scriptures cannot make you cross the river.  You need a boatman: either you search for one, or you trust me and sit in my boat.  I will take you beyond the ocean of samsara, beyond the ocean of maya, beyond the ocean of this karma.  This is the reason I am still playing the role of an embodied being although I am not having any identification with my body or mind.  Anyone who is close to me knows by experience that here is a person who is not guided by his memory nor limited by his body.

The choice is yours.  The guidance comes from the Lord.  I am only a medium.  Tayorna vashamägachhet, don’t be trapped by the senses.  It is contrary to what you are aiming for.  If the trigunatita state, the Purushottama state, is your aim then you must consciously avoid this.  If that is not your aim, then eat, drink and enjoy for tomorrow you may die.  At least in this life you will be happy until you are ruined.  This is the meaning.

If you allow the senses to have a free hand they will naturally run towards the objects for fulfillment and keep you bound to Earth-nature.  If on one side you are aspiring to be gunatita, and on the other side you want all the enjoyments of Earth, you cannot proceed anywhere.  You will be stuck up.  If you cannot go beyond your human limitations when I am in the body, do you think you ever can?  Attain it when I am in the body or be prepared to repent all through your life.

[From a 13 June 2007 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India]

[A shorter version of this appeared in the Satyachetana Ashram News Letter, dated 12-25 July, 2010.]

We are celebrating Guru Purnima today, but I have already noticed a shift coming to me ever since I survived the worst physical attack.  Because the Supreme Lord wants some work to be done through this form, I survived that attack, and I have constantly felt a shift in my consciousness since that time.  Those of you who are staying with me may not notice it, but the shift has come, and it will be visible: the avatar is going to the background.

The guru is coming to the front and it will remain there.  The avatar accomplishes his work through devotees—dancing, singing, laughing, working together—but the guru has no work.  The guru simply remains in the body because some of the disciples are clinging to the form to reach the force.  In our Movement, some very genuine seekers are clinging to this form, not because they are attached to it, but because they are convinced that if they cannot make it when this form is on Earth, they will never be able to make it.  For them only I am living in the body, not for anything else.

I had said that I will work up to 2012, so if I live beyond 2012, I will live a life for myself only, not for anybody on this Earth, and if I don’t live, then there will be many through whom my force will  manifest.  But that will be the force of the guru, not the avatar.  This is a permanent shift, and you should adjust your lives as per the new consciousness that has dawned.

This is the first Guru Purnima day when I did not allow the garland to be on my neck, because I do not want to perpetuate these rituals.  If a garland should come to my neck, it must be a garland of love, a garland of devotion, a garland of pure surrender.  This garland was made by the florist to sell.  Here in Tamil Nadu, a garland is used to eulogize, to flatter politicians, and to decorate dead bodies.  That is why the garlands here weigh thirty kilos, forty kilos.  Garlands can be given to statues where there is no life force.  You are simply imagining that it has a life force and you are getting the response that is a reflection of your own force only.  But human forms are very sensitive, and if you put a garland that is meant for a dead body on a living human body, the human body will suffer.

On Guru Purnima day I am speaking from my heart.  There is no need of perpetuating a ritual; it is a decadent culture.  If you feel love, offer me a petal of a flower.  What can you offer to one who has transcended everything?  Just a petal of a flower is enough, a drop of water is enough,

‘Give the petal of a flower or a drop of water.  If you can’t pluck a leaf, collect a leaf that has fallen from the tree.  Offer it with love, Arjuna.  The offering that is sustained by love, I accept that.’

For eighteen long years I was always saying that I am a devotee, I am a servant of God, I am a child of the Mother; give everything to her.  But my words are different now.  Give to me if you feel the love.  I don’t need anything.

I have created a million-dollar ashram here in Tiruvannamalai, but when I came here I did not have a penny.  I did not have money to come from the bus stand up to Ramana ashram.  That’s why the auto driver dropped me halfway.  It was raining.  That is how I came, and when I go, when I leave the body I will also not take anything.  Ninety-nine percent of the assets have been created by karma, by borrowing, not by begging.  Now I will start repaying.  Once my debts are over, my karma is over.  I have created this for those who love God, who want to live life for reaching God, not for a businessman or a politician or for family members.  I have ensured that these will all belong to the true disciples and devotees.

So you all should be sincere in your seeking.  On my first trip to USA in 1995 I had given the call: a big transition is coming that will last twelve years, from 2000 to 2012.  The world will go through unthinkable destruction and devastation, but those who stick to me will be saved, not only from the approaching holocaust, but also from this maya, this ignorance.

I have done my work, my duty is discharged.  I created a base for genuine seekers and genuine devotees to come and live peacefully and do their sadhana.  I have freed this ashram from the dependency of the donations of a few foreigners.  On this Guru Purnima day I am declaring to the world, this ashram does not now require the donation of any foreigner.  It can be sustained by its own weight.  This is the reason I have dismantled the ashram committee.  This ashram was created by the guru and it is sustained by the guru’s force.  If any one of you feels, you can contribute, and if you don’t feel, don’t contribute, but don’t try to contaminate this energy by your egoistic giving.

I convey to you all my love; that’s my force.  Knowledge is not my force which has sustained you here.  Love is my force that has sustained all of you.  Knowledge has sustained me, that although descending to the thickest veil, I am able to float above by the force of Gita.  That is jñäna.  Jñäna has sustained me, but you are sustained by my love.

If today I will say I am leaving this ashram and I will not come back, how many of you will stay here?  Ask yourself the question.  That is the force that has sustained you all, the love of the master, not his realization, not this jñäna, not the donation of foreign devotees.  What has sustained and nourished you is the pure love of the master, of the guru, with whom you are arguing, quarreling, eating, dining, talking, moving, walking, and whom you are also criticizing, scandalizing, and speaking all rubbish about.  Even then, you have never felt unwanted here.  I have treated all of you as my own physical children.

This place is yours.  As long as you are on the path, there is no power on Earth that can throw you out of this, so cling to your path.  You may not cling to me, but cling to the path I have shown and reach the goal.  Whatever you may say—mission, incarnation, transformation—these are all meaningless if you do not reach the goal of who you are.  You are the pure atman.  If you do not reach that state of the Being, all these talks are simply fantasy and spiritual gossip.  When I realized this I left the greatest master of modern time.  I said to myself that even if I inherit the legacy, what’s my attainment?  I am still struggling with greed, lust, anger, fear, and judgment, but this legacy is coming to me.  I will be the inheritor of Maharishi’s spiritual empire, as per his own declaration, but have I attained anything?  The soul in me said no.

Then I said, “I must quit, and I must quit with his blessing, not with his curse.”  I said to Maharishiji, “I want to leave since you are leaving India.”

He said, “For what reason?”

I said, “For my own realization.”

That time Maharishiji said, “You are already realized.  It is only a matter of time when you will know who you are.”

I said, “But I cannot wait.  It may come to me just a few days before my death, but what will I gain?  I must realize it myself.  Give me your blessing.”

With folded hands he said, “Jai Gurudev.”  That means, let Gurudev give you his blessing.  I left.  I went to Orissa and I have never gone back.

What is it that made me realize who am I?  It is my determination.  You should have that determination.  I made it when Maharishi was in the body.  I would have never made it if I had waited so long, if I had done spiritual romance, the way many of you are doing.  Before he dropped his body he left behind proof about what I have gained.

One of his trustees told me, “Maharishi has spoken about you in 2004 and 2005, about your attainment, determination, dedication to him and service to him, so no wonder you reached a state of fulfillment.”

I am telling those of you who carry the possibility: make it when I am still in the body.  If you cannot make it then, you will never make it.  This is my Guru Purnima message.  If you really want to feel the oneness, if you really want to feel what I am feeling, make it when I am in the body.  I have shown you the path, I have explained everything and I have given you myself.  The way I have given myself to you, no one has given to you in that way, neither your father nor your mother nor your lover nor your beloved nor your husband nor your wife.  I have given you every cell in me.  Make it.  Reach the goal and show to the world your light, your love.  That will be the guru dakshina you can give me.  I said that in 1995 in my first address.

The guru dakshina that you want to give me, give it by manifesting so much light and love and knowledge that people will remember me through seeing you.  When they see you, they will remember, “What a master he was that his followers have become embodiments of light, love and truth.”  That’s the offering, that’s the guru dakshina I am waiting for, not your money, your praise or your romance.  If I am smiling at you when you smile, don’t feel I am infatuated with you; I am just responding to the prakriti in you.

So on this Guru Purnima day, I am revealing to you all what really is in my heart.

I bless you all.  I transmit to you all my love and my light.  Through my light see where are the dark spots in you; through my love heal thyself.  This is my message.

All glory to all the gurus of all time.

[From a 25 July 2010 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India]

Chanting is the quickest, easiest and most powerful way of yoga.  What takes several years to achieve through normal meditation can be achieved within a couple of months through chanting.  That is why, in the Vedic period, sadhana was simply remaining in the house of the guru and only practicing swadhyaya.  Chanting is called swadhyaya.  When you do swadhyaya, who listens to it?  The soul listens.  You are chanting for yourself, for the Self.

If you are deep asleep in your room and I go and stand in front of your door and call your name, you respond when your mind receives it.  Mind responds to meaning.  If that word has no meaning, you will not respond, so even if you hear something you will not respond.  Vital responds to feeling and body responds to pressure or force.

The psychic responds to vibration, and the soul responds to rhythm.  That is called mantra.  When a mantra is chanted it has a rhythm, or chanda.  Now we are chanting the Veda each morning.  First sukta of the Veda is Gayatri chanda.  There are different types of Gayatri.  This one is called Tripada Gayatri, meaning “three steps”: first it will smash our gross thoughts of the physical world; second step, it overpowers all our vital relationships; third step it will smash our ego, so that the soul comes out.  So when you are chanting Gayatri continuously with proper rhythm, the attachment and the clinging and the ego are smashed.  What comes out is the soul.  That is why swadhyaya of the scriptures is performed, and the mother of all scripture is Veda.  Veda was there before god was there, because sabda is brahma, sound is brahma.  God is a discovery of human mind.  Veda pervades the whole creation, so Veda is the mother of all scriptures.  When you chant Veda you invoke the Mother force, and Gayatri is the mother of all chandas. Krishna, the supreme Lord also says this in Verse 407 of Gita: gäyatrï   chhandasämaham, ‘Among the chandas I am Gayatri.’

When you are chanting the Veda, you are invoking the supreme mother, the all-pervading prakriti, which vibrates the rhythm.  How far your force will go depends on how deep is your breath; how deep your breath goes depends on how many mantras you are able to chant without releasing your breath.  The longer is your prana, the greater is your control over your mind.  The deeper is your prana, the greater is your command over your vital.

In ashrams, there is no material activity, that is, any activity that is undertaken to expand matter for self-gain.  Any activity that is undertaken, not to expand matter for self-gain but to expand matter for manifestation of spirit, is not material activity.  What makes it yoga and what makes it bhoga, or enjoyment, is the attitude with which an action is performed.  If you do yoga, you are heading towards liberation; if you do bhoga you are heading towards disease, sickness, sorrow.  Bhoga brings roga, or diseases.  Yoga brings mukti, liberation.  Any action that is done for the purpose of manifestation or liberation is called yoga.  Any action that is done for self-gain is called bhoga, that is, samsara.

When you chant, your breathing is expanded and the prana is expanded.  A person who is only leading a very ordinary life, who has a human body but is actually an animal, the nature of his breath is very frequent and very short.  When you start doing yoga, your breath goes deeper.  To what extent you will breathe, whether to the first, second, third, fourth or fifth chakra, only the guru can tell you because the guru can see your system fully.  The guidance differs from person to person and each has the potential to grow from it.  First they overcome greed, then lust, fear and anger, because their sadhana is proceeding under the watchful eye of a seer who is guiding those individuals as per their system’s limitation.  But a child cannot do it, nor can one who is not leading a yogic life.

When you practice chanting like this your breath becomes deeper, and the deeper the prana goes, the more the apana comes out.  The seat of apana is at the muladhara, the first chakra.  Apana wants to come out, but it cannot come without prana going down.  When you hold the breath the apana joins with prana.  Apana brings out all the toxins from the body, from every cell.  Impurities are released through urine and stool, but the impurities of negative vibrations, negative thoughts and negative samskaras are stored up in every cell.  Only apana can bring them out, but apana cannot release it.  When apana joins with prana some of these toxins are released by prana.  Then when prana is released it is gone.  This is the secret: Pränäpäna  samäyuktah   pachämyannam  chaturvidham.  (Verse 564).

Someone came from Pondicherry ashram a few years back.  He remained here for some time.  After eight or ten days he said, “Swamiji, I am feeling terrible difficulty for sadhana here.  My sadhana is not proceeding.”

I said, “I know that.”

“Swamiji, you know that?  Horrible thoughts are coming.”

I said, “Yes, I also know that.”

“Swamiji, what am I going to do?”

I said, “You have to go out of this ashram.  That’s the best thing for you.”

“I am staying in Pondicherry ashram for twenty years, doing Integral Yoga, but I have not attained what your people have attained here.  Why?”

I said, “Because you doing yoga by reading a book.  They are doing yoga by following a master.”

His problem was, the moment he closed his eyes all his lustful thoughts were coming up; all lustful dreams were coming in the night.

“Why?”  He asked me.

I said, “Because you are living among celibates, you are living with brahmacharis, so the force they release is bringing up your hidden samskara.  There is no householder here, no lover nor beloved.  Brahmacharis radiate one type of energy that brings out the hidden energy.  Are you having that problem?”

“Yes, Swamiji.  What am I going to do?  Shall I meditate more?”

I said, “You cannot meditate.  Meditation requires that when you close your eyes, very quickly you should reach a thoughtless zone.  But you cannot go to the thoughtless zone because your breathing is short.”

Thought comes from the mind, and mind is the child of prana, so first control your prana, and the quickest sadhana for this is to chant the mantras.  When you are chanting, Dharmakshetre  kurukshetre samavetä yuyutsavah, you cannot release your breath.  You have to hold your breath to chant so if you are chanting four lines at a time, the breath is held.  See how easy is yoga.

Dharmakshetre kurukshetre samavetä  yuyutsavah, drishtwätu pändavänïkam, you continue.  First break it to small, small pieces.  When you don’t chant, your breathing goes its own way, and its own way is the monkey’s way, but when you chant, even if it is for half an hour, that half hour means pranayam.   Ayam means regulation, control; prana means life force.

In ancient Vedic days, all the children were doing only chanting.  They would get up between four to four thirty, the time we are getting up.  That’s the best time.  It is called brahma murta, and that’s the time when one should get up, take a bath and put on fresh clothes.  Through this, tamas is leaving the body.  Then we come here.

Now I am meditating first, whereas before we were chanting, but when I was convinced that these four or five people are truly established in their track, I decided that now they should first meditate, then they should chant.  Now how beautifully the meditation is going on.  Those who are not ready cannot come.  They are only ready to come when the dining bell rings.  So for them, the first work for the day is ahara, eating.  Those whose first work is eating, enjoying, experiencing, have to go to the inconscient only.  They cannot go to higher consciousness.  If your day begins with only mere experience of the gross, then from experience you have to go to achaita, inconscient.  You cannot go to super consciousness.  That is very natural.

If the life is moving between two tracks, ahara and nidra, experience and inconscience, then the third byproduct is vaya, fear.  The person will always have fear: fear of the unknown, fear of deprivation, fear of loss, fear of defamation, fear of punishment.  That’s life.  To get rid of this fear, man indulges either the physical or vital, like eating tasty food, watching a film, going for something, which is gross.  These are all enjoyments, or maituna.

In this chanting, now you are doing the third, fourth and fifth line in one breath, but no one is able to go to the sixth line.  When you are able to do that, your prana is going right to your manipuraka.  Then it goes deeper.  The longer the breath, the deeper is the force.

When you practice like this, and then you just sit, thought cannot come until you want it to.  If I sit hours and hours and hours thought will not come unless I invite it.  Awareness of a person will come, but thought of the person will not.  Awareness means no thought but you are conscious of the presence.

We are having awareness of God but no thought of God.  When thought of God will come, your life is divine.  When God will be in your thought, you achieved a great thing.  Mayeva manädhatswa, God is in your thought, God is in your feeling, God is in your awareness.  Life is becoming divine.

[From a 9 July 2010 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai]

A True Disciple

[From a 5 July 2010 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai]

I am going to explain the symptoms of a true disciple who has the possibility of reaching the goal during their lifetime.  Many people come to our ashram, and many people become members of our Movement.  Are all of them, even those who are considered core members, actually doing yoga?  My answer is no.

Yoga is a process of sadhana which disciplines the mind and the senses.  When the mind and senses are disciplined, the vital goes through a process of transformation, and the person begins to experience the bliss of the being.  This experience is first felt within as a state of silence that is experienced constantly.  When inner silence is experienced, there is a reflection on the face, and there is also an outer expression.  The person’s movement is harmonious; there is a rhythm in his walking, his speaking, in whatever he is doing.

When inner silence is experienced, the vital transformation begins.  Until the vital transformation has taken place, the person is not doing yoga.  The person is simply remaining among yogis or remaining in a yogic environment.

Who actually carries the possibility of making it to the goal?  First are the people who are chosen by the guru.  But many are chosen.  How can we know that a person is really on the path or not?  I am revealing the secret.

Whoever carries the guru shakti must be a living form.  That form must have reached the goal, and after reaching the goal he must have found the path.  He must also have the capacity to show the path to others.  When the seer feels that the seeker is capable to pursue the yoga path, he accepts the seeker and shows him the path through which he will make progress.  If someone is not able to show a definite path, he is not a seer, he is a teacher.  Someone who has scriptural knowledge can teach but a guru transmits.  He transmits more through his living than through his teaching.

True disciples, true seekers, are linked with the guru shakti.  The guru will show the path to them.  This path may be meditation, mind control, sense control, action, or blind imitation of the words of the guru.  These people simply have to listen to the advice blindly and follow it.  All of these categories will be able to transcend this maya of samsara.

What is the path that you have found?  I have shown so many paths to reach the goal.  Reaching the goal means, while remaining in the body you are free from the limitations of this human existence.  Your mind will not go anywhere unless you want it to go, your senses will not run amok, your vital can withstand all types of pressure, you will not be trapped by compassion, attachment, greed, lust or hankering, and you will be free from fear and anger.  These are all yogic attainments.  Some say yogic attainment means liberation, but liberation means this, nothing else.  You are liberated from the limitations of prakriti in you.  Because you are the spark, the purusha, the all-pervading awareness, confined to some narrow boundary, and you are not able to experience your infinite, all-pervading presence, your invincible power.  That is the sorrow, the pain of a human life.  To get rid of this is liberation.

You want something but you don’t get it and you feel sad.  Somebody tells you something and you get affected.  You want to go somewhere but you are not having the means.  You are suffering physically.  All these are actually the sorrows of human birth.  When you go beyond everything, or are capable to endure everything without losing your inner state of tranquility and bliss and joy, that’s liberation, that is enlightenment.  Nothing beyond this.

Jesus is God because he never lost his tranquility and joy and sense of compassion and forgiveness, even when he was on the cross.  Godliness is the capacity to experience all infinite attributes even while the outer environment has all limitation.  This is what I understood within five or six years of consciously chasing the mirage called liberation.  I understood that liberation actually means to be free from the enemies of lust, greed, anger, fear and attachment.  Then after I had some control, some liberation, I realized that there is another type of bondage I have to overcome, that is, being trapped by the gunas.  I found this answer from Gita.  When you transcend the limitation of the initial six enemies, you have to transcend these three gunas of sattwa, rajas and tamas.  That is the second liberation.

Who will attain liberation?  The scriptures say one who is doing sadhana will attain liberation.  Sadhana means having blind faith on the words of the master.   Have you found a master?  For a majority the answer is no.  For those whose answer is yes, my question is, how can you know that you have found the master?   Can you explain so that I will be convinced that you have found the master?

Many people cannot explain this.  They will say, “X or Y is my master,” but how can I know that?  The symptom has to be visible. Masters are always in the body.  If you feel that your master is not in the body, you have to be connected with the master by going through another master.

The second master can be a real master or a mister.  If the second master is a mister you do spiritual romance with him.  If the second master is a master you surrender to him.  As long as the surrender has not come, you have not become a disciple, and when surrender comes, yoga becomes easy.

So many people have been with me for many years.  I have given them a very simple work, that is, chant the way I am chanting.  How many who are born in India are able to do that, even though they call me Gurudev?  But why are westerners able to chant, although none of them call me Gurudev?  Understand the difference?  These are the people who have found the path.  Because they have found the path they are able to chant correctly and meditate and discriminate and perform action, even if that action is meaningless.  This is progress.  These are the souls who are destined to reach the goal because they have inner submission.

But there are others whom I have supported and given guidance for ten years.  If such a person becomes unable to chant or to follow the guidance, you can imagine how much sin has been accumulated, and if the master is compelled to give them money, this is how these people are going through the consequence of their sin.

There are two categories of devotees in our Movement.  One category thinks how to get enough money to give for the Movement work.  Another category of devotees thinks, let this master sell himself, mortgage his ashram, or if necessary, steal from others, but he must give it to us because we are calling him Gurudev.  This is Kali Yuga, and the greatest mystery of Kali Yuga is that still I am supporting these people.  The mystery of prakriti cannot be revealed until you have attained unity consciousness.

For the last seven days I have been trying to get one person to learn to chant.  What is he doing the whole day?  When he is chanting, he is not at all listening to find out whether he is following the rhythm or not.  He cannot meditate, cannot perform any action, and has no mind control.  If he is not able to listen to others, at least he should listen to the one whom he calls Gurudev, who is supporting him, sustaining him.

I started this recording because of this, for him only, but is he here?  No.  I have repeatedly said that knowledge only goes to one who is ready to receive it.  If, out of misplaced compassion, someone in this group will decide to give him a copy of this, it is a bad karma.  This is the reason I say: don’t give the interaction to those who, although remaining in the ashram, were not present for the interaction.  Prakriti in their form wanted it that way because that form is not ready for this.  This is the reason I increased the cost of the Advanced Course and the Foundation Course.

Since we have changed the format of the website, a devotee has written that there are many people in our Movement who find it difficult to put an offering, but they need the interactions, so is there any way to help them?  The person has mentioned some names, as if one is supposed to put a hundred dollar offering.  You just put one cent, you get a password.  Just one cent.

This devotee has true devotion for me but true misplaced compassion for the rest of the world.  Can there be a single American who does not have one cent to spare?  Debate is now going on between SatPub and SCI and Divine Mission regarding how to make the courses affordable to the so-called devotees and yogis who cannot pay for them.  My core team members are getting trapped by this misplaced compassion.  Some say we can make it installment payments, some say we can make it partial payments, etc.  If you have this compassion, why not you give the money to these people?  What type of fake compassion do you have?  This is self-deception.  If you feel X is not having the money, why don’t you give it if you feel it is necessary for him?

For fourteen years I have been traveling to only one place, speaking to only half a dozen people or a dozen people, and they are still not able to know why I am doing what I am doing.  This is like what is happening here in India.  For ten years I have been giving money but they are not able to chant ten verses.  This is why the liberated beings don’t care if there is an earthquake or a tsunami or a flood or an epidemic.  They know everybody has to go through the consequence of his karma.  This is kurukshetra, this is karmakshetra, this is dharmakshetra.  People are not following the path of dharma.  That’s why they are creating karma and karma has its consequence.  It has to be neutralized, and it is only neutralized through experiencing the result of karma.

The danger of jñäna is, it will vicariously give you a state of jñäna and make you feel that you are a jñäni.  That’s vishnumaya.  The danger of prema is that it will make you feel that the one to whom you are giving your love is divine.  This is all maya.

The point is, those who see should not be trapped by the compassion of showing it to others.  You are able to see.  March on, reach the goal, become a seer.  Then through the light of a seer, a seeker will be able to see.  Blind men feel fortunate when they are surrounded by the blindfolded.  The blind man knows that he has become blind due to some past karma, but those who are blindfolded are continuously creating karma.

So even if you give the purest knowledge, one who is not destined to receive it will not receive it.  Even if you give every drop of your love to one who is undeserving, he will never, never change.  Even if you die for a lazy man, he will not be active.  This is the truth of this Earth-plane.  This is the reason I had said in ’95, “For the sake of the soul, O Seeker, ignore the whole world.”  First ignore, reach the goal.  Then you embrace.  First become Jesus, then carry your cross.  If you carry your cross without becoming Jesus, who will save you?

This misplaced compassion is the most formidable enemy of a true awakened yogi.  This is the reason our people in Orissa have to earn to live.  Look at the birds.  Are they coming and disturbing us, saying, “Give me the fruit?”  No.  They go to the tree where the fruit is.

Man, being the best species in this creation, is expert in one thing: how to blame God, how to find fault with the creator, although the creator has given everything.  When we human beings think, we first think negative things about others, find fault and pass the blame.  This is the state of the human consciousness on Earth now.  So if a couple of million such human beings out of six billion perish, what harm will come to Earth?  No harm at all.  This is the reason I do not feel empathy or sympathy for those who are destined to be doomed.  Let there be a holocaust, let the millions perish; what harm will come to this creation?  Nothing will come.  When I speak of intervention, I am talking of saving those who are really aspiring to live a divine life.

Yoga means finding the path, having the determination to march on the path, having the strength to endure the pressure of transformation, and finally, yoga means not to be trapped by misplaced compassion for those who do not deserve it.  This is the message I am giving to the awakened yogis in this transitional period that lasts only two more years.

After 2012 this transition cycle will be over.  Even these two years is more than enough for someone who really wants to change, someone who truly wants to live through this holocaust.

Verse 103:

Arjuna has asked how can one know who has attained the state of sthitaprajña.  Sthitaprajña we have translated as the state of equanimity.  One whose prajña is fully established in the being is sthitaprajña.

Prajña here is not the surface intellect.  I have given a new term to this: creative intelligence, that intelligence which decides what is right for a seeker.  This creative intelligence, this prajña, is not found in those who are leading a gross material life.  They are just working from the plane of normal human intelligence.  Animals and birds also have some type of intelligence.  Human beings have higher intelligence but that intelligence is used for interacting in the gross material plane.  The animals and birds use their intelligence for living.

Those who are only identified with gross living have no higher purpose.  Higher purpose does not mean to become a scientist or a professor or an engineer.  It means to establish a connection with the atman within, the paramatman within, and to dedicate life to living with spirit, living for spirit.  The lower purpose is to lead a happy life in the material plane.

The true purpose of life is to live for God.  How can one move towards that purpose—who gives guidance?  It is the higher intelligence, the creative intelligence, not the surface mind, that guides the seeker to be able to discriminate between gross human life and elevated spiritual life; it is not discrimination between gross human life and dignified human life.

Who arrives at this conclusion?  In the human system there are several components: the gross physical that is dominated by the senses; the lower mental that is dominated by thought and memory; the lower vital that is characterized by feeling and impulse; and the higher vital that is characterized by aspiration for a spiritual life, ambition for spiritual realization and strength to pursue the spiritual goal.  Then there is the higher mental that is full of godly thought and godly intuitive memory; the sadhana that is done from a previous life is higher mental.  Finally there is the psychic.

The intelligence that gives the conclusion for gross human life is just above the lower mental, but the divine intelligence that guides human beings to arrive at a conclusion for a higher spiritual life is above the higher mental.  The intelligence forms the conclusion and a yogi goes by that conclusion and knows what to do, and how and when to do it.

Human intelligence is resting on the mind which is a monkey, jumping every moment, but the divine intelligence is linked with the being within, which is constant.  The Blessed Lord is referring to that when Arjuna asked, “Tell me, Lord, how can I know who is that person who has attained stable intelligence?”  If the intelligence is stable, actions will be transparent, and there will be no confusion and no contamination from the world of prakriti.

The Lord explains that the one who is established in equanimity, whose intelligence has become stable, is not perturbed by dukha, sorrow.  What type of sorrow is referred to here?  This is the second chapter of Gita; the yogi has just entered into the second step in sadhana.  We have divided each chapter into a step, and as the yogi ascends to higher and higher steps of sadhana, he becomes more stable.  Here at the second step of sadhana, the yogi has gone through dejection and is now learning discrimination through buddhi yoga.  The Lord is revealing characteristics of the person who is capable to discriminate: what are his inner experiences, what are his outer symptoms, how can a beginner know whether he is able to discriminate between Self and non-Self, matter and spirit, sadhana and indulgence—how can he know that he has come to that stage?  The Lord is also explaining how Arjuna can know from the outer symptoms that a person is established in the state of equanimity.  Both are necessary in yoga, because if the yogi is able to know from inner experience what are the signs of equanimity it will give him strength and inspiration to proceed further.  The outer symptoms are necessary because the yogi of Gita does not live in a forest or in a cave and has not renounced samsara.

The yogi of Gita is within samsara.  That is why Gita was revealed in the battlefield, not in the ashram of a hermit or a saint.  Very symbolic.  The battlefield refers to the turbulent, chaotic life in samsara.  Arjuna was a householder who was pushed by prakriti to perform his ordained duty as a kshatriya.  Gita is the yoga of the common man living in society, facing this turbulent, chaotic world of samsara, so how can the yogi perform sadhana?  If he is called and chosen and awakened, remaining in samsara and the material-social world of relationship, how can he proceed?  That guideline is given in the yoga of Gita.

It is necessary for Arjuna the seeker to know the outer symptoms, because if he is able to recognize a person by his outer symptoms—“Yes, here is a person of equanimity, here is a person who is able to clearly discriminate between sadhana and enjoyment, Self and non-Self”—then he will establish a connection with such a person.  Although yogis live together, actually they live in themselves.  So in the outer social life, if the yogi is able to recognize who is a seeker like him, who is on the same path like him, then at the time of confusion he can seek guidance from such a person.  He can share his experiences with such a person.  The common man will not understand what is happening to him.

This is the reason the Lord is explaining the inner experiences and outer symptoms of a yogi on the path of Gita.  The Lord says, duhkheshvanudvigna-manäh, such a yogi is not perturbed when he is facing a situation of sorrow.    Sorrow is of several types.  It can be psychic, that is adyatmic dukha, or vital, pranic.  When someone in the family dies, when a friend meets an accident, when something is stolen which you like very much, when someone shouts at you without your having any fault and you cry, you get angry—these are the examples of sorrow in the vital plane.  Sorrow in the physical plane is called pain.  Sorrow in the mental plane is depression, and when it touches the vital it becomes intense.  Depression first begins in the vital then comes to the mental.  When the mind is overpowered by this depression that is originating from the vital, a person feels suicidal tendency.  When there is sorrow in the psychic plane, you cry without any reason.

What type of sorrow is the Lord referring to here?  Remember the yogi is in the second step of sadhana.  This yogi is awakened to the inner reality, but does not know it through mind yet.  He will know it only when the Lord will reveal it, when the guru will reveal it.  The guru of Gita has not revealed it to Arjuna at this point, so he does not know that he is awakened.

If we see from the point of yoga this is the second chapter, and yoga begins with ascension of kundalini, the chit.  Chit from the muladhara, the first chakra has come to the swadhisthan, the second chakra.  When the kundalini is in the muladhara, man lives the life of an animal, only for eating, sleeping, and enjoying.  He leads a life of fear and indulgence.

When the kundalini moves towards the second chakra the person feels a pull towards sadhana and also a pull towards samsara, a pull to the world of senses and also to the world of the Self.  You cannot say what will happen to such a person.  Kundalini rises, again it falls.  This process may continue for many years.  When it comes back to muladhara, life is a life of enjoyment, running with friends to see an exciting film, to enjoy good food in a restaurant, mixing with politicians for a political speech.  Then when it rises a little, running to ashrams to listen to the saints.  That’s the movement of the chit when the chit comes three-fourths towards the second chakra.

The second chakra is where the kundalini should remain for a human being.  If it remains there, that human being will be an ideal citizen, but may not be a spiritual seeker.  Yoga, the journey towards the Self, begins only when the kundalini starts to leave the second chakra and moves towards the third chakra.

Here in the second chapter of Gita, the kundalini of Arjuna the seeker is in the second chakra, because Arjuna was an ideal citizen.  He was the best among the human beings of his time.  When the kundalini is in the second chakra the person will lead a dignified but simple life.  Now the kundalini has started moving towards the third chakra, that is, the manipuraka, the seat of the fire element, and turbulence begins.  At that time a person becomes a jijñasu, a vairagyi or he experiences dejection.

One can enter into yoga through three gates, either through jijñasa, vairagya or vishäda.  Arjuna is in the battlefield.  He has no knowledge of yoga.  He has knowledge of warfare, ethics, morality and idealism.  Suddenly, in a very unlikely environment the kundalini movement has begun vigorously.  Why?  First, Arjuna is in Kurukshetra, a very powerful and holy place.  Most importantly, Arjuna was too close to Krishna, the Supreme Being, although Krishna has not yet revealed who he is.  Arjuna knows Krishna is his cousin.  In his mental plane Arjuna might know Krishna is god, but knowing in the mental plane makes no difference.  Sadhana is not through mind; sadhana is a struggle to go beyond mind.  Sadhana is through psychic.  When psychic will overpower mind, vital and senses, then the real sadhana begins.

This Krishna in the battlefield is different from the Krishna that Arjuna had seen before.  Krishna at the battlefield is known as Yogeshwara, the Lord of yoga.  Krishna has gone to the battlefield with his full power of the Supreme Being.  Arjuna’s system was pure, his chit was in the swadhisthan, and suddenly due to the physical proximity to Krishna, the Supreme Being, and due to the impact of the holy place, Kurukshetra, Arjuna’s kundalini started moving towards the third chakra vigorously.  Swadhisthan is the water element, and manipuraka is the fire element.  If you move from water to fire, from cold to heat, what will you experience?

Everything we experience, everything we feel, everything we think, whatever we understand, it is all in the realm of chit, prakriti.  Only when we become aware—awareness without experience—that’s the realm of Sat, that’s yoga.  When you are aware, but you are not experiencing anything, that is samadhi: your individual soul is connected with the universal Soul.

Suddenly Arjuna was experiencing many things that his mind was not able to understand, which his intellect was not able to comprehend, because the chit was moving towards the third chakra.  The chit is the seat of all experience; the Sat is the seat of all awareness.  Now Arjuna is experiencing what we saw in the first chapter.  Dejection becomes total and sudden, and within that little time, the movement of kundalini from second to third was complete.  So rapid was the movement that Arjuna, the greatest warrior of his time, was not able to handle this pressure and his system collapsed.  He could not think coherently, his intellect could not guide him, his vital started feeling a tremendous turbulence between the enemies and the relations, and even his physical was weak.  He could not lift his bow, he started feeling a burning sensation and his head was reeling.  The kundalini moving from second to third chakra normally takes three years, but for Arjuna maybe it took ten or fifteen minutes.  How long does it take Arjuna to look at the enemies on the opposite side and see who they are?  He already knows who they are, so it must have taken just a couple of minutes.  Meanwhile Arjuna is less than three feet away from Krishna in the chariot, and that cosmic radiation from Krishna’s gross physical body is activating the chit within and the yoga process has started.

It was extremely painful for Arjuna because he never wanted to be a yogi.  Arjuna, the seeker, is in the second stage; he still does not know.  He has said, shishyas teham shädhi mäm  twäm prapannam, “I am thy disciple, I surrender at thy feet, guide me on the correct path.”  He might have said it, but who in Arjuna said it?  The mind in Arjuna said it, and the mind did not know why he is speaking that.  If he had known it correctly, then after saying this he would not have again argued with Krishna, because a disciple, once recognizing the sadguru, never argues.  He blindly obeys.  But we are seeing Arjuna still arguing, still trying to justify.

Arjuna is in the second stage, learning how to discriminate, not yet fully stable in discrimination.  When he is stable he will pursue the sadhana, and Krishna will teach him the secret of yogic action.  That will wait until Arjuna comes to the third stage of the journey, the third chapter of Gita, the yoga of action.  Here he is asking, “Tell me how I can know I am in the state of sthitaprajña.”  That means he has not had the experience.  “Tell me how I can recognize someone who is a sthitaprajña.”  One who has the experience will not ask what are the inner experiences, because he is having them, and one who has the inner experiences will not ask how he can recognize one who is having that experience.

The Lord says, duhkheshvanudvigna-manäh, unperturbed by sorrow.  What type of sorrow?  The sorrow in the social-material plane.  Arjuna is yet to know what is psychic sorrow.  He has not come to that stage.  This is called in our scriptural terminology adibhautic and adidaivic dukha, not adyatmic dukha.  It is not spiritual sorrow.  When such a seeker is facing sorrow, he is unperturbed because he is established in prajña, the higher intelligence.  His prajña is linked with the being, the atman.  One whose intellect is linked with the being, not with the mind or the vital, does not feel perturbed when faced with the situation of sorrow.

Next is sukheshu vigata-sprihah.  Asprihah means attraction towards happiness.  There is no attraction towards happiness or the possibility of gaining something.  You got a million dollars, you did not feel elated; you lose your million dollars, you don’t feel perturbed.  That is the state of equanimity, the state of sthitaprajña.  It is not a small attainment.  Not feeling any attraction towards happiness in the material, social, mental world, nor feeling any perturbation when faced with a situation of sorrow, loss, deprivation, defamation: that’s the state of equanimity.

Then comes the third condition, vïta-räga.  Here räga is attachment, not anger.  Vïta-räga means attachment to your near and dear ones.  Try to understand how I am interpreting.  Free from attachment does not mean detachment.  Detachment is a long way to go.  A sthitaprajña person has attained freedom from attachment.  Not getting identified with, nor being pulled towards the near and dear ones, kith and kin.

Then comes freedom from bhaya, that is, fear.  There can be three types of fear: fear of material deprivation, fear of losing honor, and fear of losing near and dear ones.  These are the material, mental, social fears, not the fear of losing your attainment.

Next is krodhah, anger.  Anger comes when desire is obstructed.  A person who has attained the state of sthitaprajña does not have anger due to material, social, mental, or vital causes.  He has irritation, but not anger.   Irritation is different than anger.  Anger remains for hours; irritation vanishes within minutes, maybe within seconds.  Anger comes when a desire is not getting fulfilled.

How many conditions is the Lord explaining?  Five conditions, and five conditions means five miles to go to the state of sthitaprajña.  Find out how many miles you have crossed and how many miles remain to be crossed to reach the goal of sthitaprajña state.

[From Swamiji’s 3 May 2010 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India.]

If you face any difficulty, send questions via the Contact page, second option.

QUESTIONS ON THE  YOGA OF DEJECTION

Q 1. Which of the following correctly explains the cause of dejection in the human system and why?

A. Sudden infusion of tamas energy causes dejection in the human system.
B. Sudden infusion of sattwa energy causes dejection.
C. Sudden infusion of rajasic sattwa causes dejection.
D. Sudden infusion of sattwic tamas causes dejection.

Q 2.  Which of the components in the human system is most vulnerable to dejection:

A. Mind
B. Vital
C. Intellect
D. Physical
E. Psychic

Q 3.  What happens to a yogi when dejection is total:

A. Vital revolt
B. Mental confusion
C. Psychic surrender
D. Physical collapse

Q 4.  Which is the correct symptom of dejection?

A. Sudden interest in yoga
B. Lack of interest in material pursuit
C. Less interest in material pursuit and more interest in spiritual pursuit.
D. No interest in any pursuit; a state of rejection of everything is experienced.

Q 5.  What definitely happens to a dejected person

A. The Guru is found
B. Dispassion becomes intense
C. Life appears meaningless and worthless
D. Material indulgence is increased

Q 6.  What is not dejection and why:

A. Not having interest to pursue sadhana activities like before.
B. Not having interest to continue with the routine material activities.
C. Feeling worthless and having low esteem.
D. Feeling of total confusion

For assistance, read the Foundation Course and listen to the Advanced Course on the Yoga of Bhagavad Gita.  Write your answer on a notepad or send it to the website administrator (via the Contact page) if you want to get a personal reply.  Swamiji’s answer was  published in the Experiential Guidance section on 17 July 2010.  Tally your answer with Swamiji’s answer and evaluate yourself.  Where do you stand in Gita Yoga?

Verse 242:

A yogi who has attained the highest state accepts all equally, whether they are well-wishers, friends, enemies, persons of indifference, mediators, relatives, saints or even sinners.

From Verse 240, Lord Krishna explains to Arjuna the inner experiences and outer symptoms of one who has really attained the yoga siddhi state.  First he explained what the yogi will experience if he has attained the highest state in yoga.  What does ‘highest state in yoga’ mean at this stage of sadhana?  Yoga means union and yoga means linked, so at this stage the yogi is linked with the Self within.  This yoga siddhi state should not be understood as the highest siddhi, or attainment, that Gita wants to give to a seeker.  Gita gives siddhi, higher and higher siddhi, highest siddhi, final siddhi, and finally no siddhi.  When you transcend siddhi you can become a true, dynamic instrument of manifestation.

This is the reason after receiving all jñäna and going through the state of the Being, beyond the state of merger and through the state of universal vision, transcendence, and the experience of the satchidananda state, what was the final word of Arjuna?  He said to the Lord: karishye  vachanamtava, I shall do as directed by Thee.  This is the highest state of Gita.

Gita’s highest state should never mean that the yogi has no interest whatsoever in creation, in the manifest world, in the environment around him or her.  The highest state of Gita is the state of Krishna himself.  The state of Krishna is involved in everything, identified with nothing.  Krishna never in his life has missed a single signal coming from prakriti.  Whether it brings fame or defamation, success or failure, defeat or victory, acceptance or rejection, Krishna has always responded to prakriti’s signal, not the way Krishna wanted to, but the way prakriti wants to be responded.

If you don’t understand it correctly, you will be stuck up at the level of highest ethics or morality.  You will be an ideal man but not a spiritual man.  I remember a priest in a church who was explaining the Bible.  He said, “Jesus said that if someone slaps you on the right cheek, show him the left cheek.  That is the highest ideal of tolerance.”  What is Gita’s view?  Does Krishna say that?  No, Krishna does not say that, nor has he done that, nor has he approved that.  Krishna says respond to prakriti the way prakriti wants to be responded because the whole process is a play.

Somebody is shouting at you, how are you to respond?  Gita says if you are reacting then you are violating the rules of the play.  If you are acting that is also a violation.  This is my realization.  What will I do?  I will try to understand why he is shouting.  If he is shouting because of his ignorance, because he does not understand me, I will endure it calmly.  You cannot punish a person who is ignorant, like you cannot punish a child.

But if the person is shouting from his ego plane and wants to subjugate me then I have to discriminate.  If I find he is more powerful at this moment and I cannot overpower him, I will not react.  But that does not mean I am surrendering.  I will not react, I will endure it.  But if I can handle his rajas, I will invoke my rajas and smash him.  One of the names of the Lord is Ranapriyaya namaha, salutations to Thee who love to fight.

Rajas has to be countered with rajas, but you have to see whether you are you getting contaminated with it.  Here is the test of yoga siddhi.  If by invoking higher rajas to neutralize lower rajas you are smashing yourself, that’s not yoga siddhi state.  If you have not attained that stage, you will be trapped by it and you will have to face the consequence.

Krishna endured the humiliation in the Kaurava court, although having full strength to smash them, because he knew that although these Kauravas are acting from the ego plane, Krishna is not the person who will bring an end to their ego.  Otherwise he could have beheaded the Kaurava brothers when they insulted him and threatened to kill him.  When Jarasandha the asura chased Krishna, he ran away seventeen times because Krishna knew that Jarasandha was not destined to be killed by his hand.  There were many other evil acts that Jarasandha needed to commit so that his sin would be so great that he would be taken care of by someone who was born to kill him.

How can you know this?  Gita says you need not have the foreknowledge of a Krishna, you should have the knowledge of how prakriti acts and reacts.  It is prakriti that initiates action, and purusha is supposed to only respond, not react.  Prakriti acts, prakriti reacts.  Purusha neither acts nor reacts.  This is the secret principle of karma yoga.  If you are established in purusha consciousness you will be able to know how to respond.  If you are not established in purusha consciousness, that is the yoga siddhi of Gita, the state of the Being, you will be trapped.

In Verse 240, Lord Krishna is explaining what will be the inner experience of one who has attained the state of the Being but is not stabilized there.  Verse 241 explains the inner experience of one who is stabilized at the state of Being.  After explaining this, Lord Krishna explains what are the outer symptoms of a Self-realized yogi.

Gita’s yoga is a continuous journey to the state of Krishna, and many siddhis will come.  The first siddhi was sthitaprajna state, the state of equanimity.  This is the second siddhi, the state of the Being, the Self-realization stage.  What are the outer symptoms of one who has attained the state of Self-realization?  Verse 242 says a yogi who has attained the state of the being accepts all equally.  Suhrit means one who does a favor to you without having any expectation of return.  Hrit means heart, su means uttama, best, one who is having a very expanded heart, a superior heart.  You are in difficulty, in need, and a suhrit will come to help without you expecting it or asking for it.  And he will help you without expecting any return or recognition, not even thanks.  Such a person is called suhrit.

In English we translate it as “well-wisher.”  It is very dangerous thing, because the English language cannot fully explain that, it can explain only the feeling of the mind and vital.  Your father is a well-wisher, your neighbor is your well-wisher also, but neither your father, nor your neighbor can be really called a suhrit.  If you start misbehaving with your neighbor the next day he will sue you in court.  You disobey your father constantly, there is every chance he will throw you out of the house.

Next is miträ, or friend, one with whom you have a social relationship.  He may be your kith and kin, he may be someone with whom you are interacting in your day-to-day life.  How does a friend differ from a suhrit?  You may not know a suhrit, but a friend you know and see again and again.

The third category is ari, means enemy, one who is constantly trying to do harm to you.  Next is udäsï, indifferent.  He does not care about whatever is happening to you.  The person neither acts nor reacts nor responds.  He is simply a witness.  Then madhyastha means one who comes to settle a dispute between you and others.  He is not the middleman.  A middleman always has a motive of personal gain, but here it is one who is coming out of his good intention to settle a dispute and reduce the tension.  Next is dwesha, one who hates you, is jealous of you, always scandalizes and speaks ill against you, and who feels happy if you are going through some loss or defamation.  That is dwesha.

The next one is bandhu, your family friends, your kith and kin.  Next is sädhu.  Sädhu we have translated here as saint.  A sädhu is one who is living for sat and living with sat.  That is a sädhu as per my definition.  One who is living for sat, with sat, struggling to realize sat or struggling to manifest sat.  He is a sädhu, a saintly person.  The final category is papi, a sinner, one who is constantly doing all unethical, immoral, illegal activities.  Every action on his path takes him away from truth consciousness.  Such a person is called sinner.  I am expanding the meaning beyond ethics and morality.

One who is stabilized in the state of the Being will respond to each of these eight categories of persons equally.  If you are stabilized at the state of Being you are able to only witness, neither acting nor reacting.  In your state of witnessing you are responding equally to all these.

How does a Self-realized being respond to one who has done something favorable in the past?  Suppose you are a Self-realized being.  You are stabilized at the state of the Being, and a person comes to you who had saved you from great difficulty two years back.  How will you respond?  You get up and greet him and ask him what he needs, or what you can do.  If the person is a suhrit, he will say, “I have come here just to see you.  I was going this way and I heard you are here, so I came just to see you.  That’s all.”

If you reply, “No, no, you please stay here two days with me,” does it fulfill the condition of Self-realization?  No.  I should reply, “Okay, that’s fine.”  I will not request him to stay, unless he wants to stay.

Suppose a criminal comes and says, “Swamiji, the police are chasing me.  I want to take shelter in the ashram.  Please allow me to stay.”  What will you will do if you are Swamiji?

If there is room and if those who are already there do not feel threatened and do not object, I will say, “Stay.”

Now if the police come the next day and ask, “Swamiji, a criminal is hiding somewhere.  Are you aware where he is hiding?”

I will say, “He is staying here.”

That’s my state.  But if there are ashramites who say, “No, no, Swamiji, he is a criminal, he is being chased by the police; we should not keep him.”  I will say, “Okay, you cannot stay, better go somewhere else.”

Why?  Because ashram is meant for ashramites to do sadhana.  If they feel their sadhana will be disturbed if a criminal is hiding, because police will come or a neighborhood problem will arise, or this person himself will create nuisance, then who am I to impose my will?  If I impose, I am creating karma.  Do you understand?  I am explaining every detail, why I do what I do.

But if nobody is around, a room is vacant, and a sinner or a criminal asks me for shelter, I will give.  No doubt about it.  Why?  Because his sin or his crime is in no way going to affect me.  But if the police go and drag him away and the person is asking for help, I will say, “What can I do?  You asked me for shelter and I gave it to you.  Now your karma is taking care of itself.  Endure it calmly.  Go to jail, finish your karma, then come back with a resolve to stay with me.”  That’s my life.

I am explaining Gita three ways: as per the scripture, as per my understanding, and as per my realization.

Suppose a choice will be given to me.  Suppose X and Y both want to come to stay in the ashram, and there is one room available.  Should I allow Y to stay or X to stay?  My action will be, I will allow X to stay.  I will tell Y to find accommodation elsewhere.  Why?  Because Y feels he has reached a stage, whereas X feels his sadhana is continuing.  He feels his life is meant for this path, this sadhana, this work.  Both X and Y played their roles to create this ashram, but Y has declared his independence whereas X is still linked with the form.  I am neither favoring X nor disfavoring Y.  I am responding to the need of the soul.  This is how I act.

The action of a Self-realized yogi will be different.  He will say, “There is one room available.  You both stay.”

If either of them will say, “No, I cannot stay with him,” a Self-realized yogi has no further clue what to do, except become a witness.  But I will not become a witness.  I have crossed that stage.  There was a time when I was a witness.  When there was only one room in this ashram, Maa and I were staying in the same room.  I will be sleeping in the bed, she will be sleeping on the floor.  A person came.  He said, “You are staying in the same room with a woman?”

I said, “Who is woman?”

He said, “Maa is a woman.”

I said, “Okay, she is a woman.  Now tell me where you are staying?”

He said, “I am staying in my home.”

“How many rooms do you have?”

“I have two rooms.”

“How many children do you have?”

He said, “I have four children.”

“Where are they all sleeping?”

He said, “They are sleeping in one room, I and my wife sleeping in another room.”

I said, “How old are they?”

The person said, “I have two daughters, one is twenty-year-old, another is sixteen-year-old.  And I have two sons.  One son is working and he is twenty-four; another is eleven years old.”

“Four people are staying together?  How are you allowing man and woman to remain together?  You are a householder.  First correct your action, then you can question a Swamiji.”

Then he asked, “What would you do?”

My children were visiting at that time.  I called the eldest child, and said to the person, “Ask her.  Why should I answer you?”

My daughter said, “I have never seen my father and mother sleeping together in one room.”  And when the children come, where will they stay?  They will stay where I am staying.  My children and my wife, four persons, plus Maa and myself, six persons stayed in one room.

The point is, as long as you are a male, you will see a female.  As long as you are a man, you will see a woman.  It is a matter of consciousness.

I don’t see anything wrong if out of compulsion two yogis stay together, if they can handle it.  Who am I to interfere it?  I have come here to do my sadhana, not to compel someone to do his or her sadhana.  This is the state of an enlightened being.  But if someone has surrendered to me, “Please guide me on the correct path,” for such a person I take the responsibility.  If the person has not surrendered, I have no responsibility at all.  I don’t want to create karma by imposing, advising, motivating or inspiring.  No.  That’s the state of true enlightenment.

A Self-realized yogi will not feel to treat anyone differently.  I treat someone differently because I know the need is different, because I have taken a responsibility.

If you are stabilized at the state of the Being, you will also not feel the pull to do this or that.  This witnessing stage will not continue lifelong.  It is a stage.  Attain it, then transcend it, go beyond it.  Don’t be at that stage.  If you are at that stage, be one hundred percent sure prakriti will not allow you to remain there.  Prakriti will either push you beyond or pull you down, back to this mire of action and reaction.  There cannot be another way; I have gone through the whole process.

Our core people are able to clearly see the difference.  Not only in teaching, but also in action and reaction and interactions.  That is why they are not feeling the pull to go to any master or listen to any discourse, because they are getting it in such crystal clarity, everything is self-revealed.

If I feel X should give me a thousand dollars, then what type of enlightenment I have attained?  At the state of true enlightenment this feeling that someone should give me something will not come.  That’s the state where I live.  But if X knows that a thousand dollars is needed, and he is responding, saying, “Swamiji, I came to know a thousand dollars is needed.  I can spare it.  Please take it,” then it will be taken only for that need.  It will never be taken if a need is not there.  That’s the state of enlightenment.

You all know that in USA some land was found for an ashram.  Seventy-five thousand dollars was needed to purchase it.  I sent a letter, and eighty-one thousand dollars was pledged.  Some of my key people had not yet pledged, although they responded positively.  If I add them, maybe it will pass a hundred thousand dollars.  But the land in question is now disqualified, because there is a problem.  A devotee suggested, “This is prakriti’s signal, Swamiji.  Please issue a letter saying that this land is disqualified but we are still searching.  Since this is the right time and so many devotees have pledged money, we will put that money into Divine Mission’s account for the devotees’ ashram.”

I said, “That is not my way of doing things.  I will not enter into this trap.  Let land be found and then I will write.”

Then a very close devotee who has given thousands of dollars said, “But Swamiji, you always say that there is a right time for doing a right thing.  Is this not prakriti’s signal that we should get the money and spend it only for that purpose?”

I said, “There is a right time for doing a right thing.  The time may be right but you cannot do a wrong thing at the right time.  The letter that I issued was meant for that particular land.  That land is now disqualified.  We should not tell the devotees to put their money into Divine Mission.  And if by not accepting this opportunity that prakriti has created, we are not able to purchase any land, that’s fine.  There is no compulsion.”

Then the person was able to see clearly where he was going wrong.  He said, “For getting this type of clarity and guidance, if I have to come a thousand times, Swamiji, I pray for that.  How I was going to be trapped, I now clearly see.”

What is the purpose for which I am in the body?  Not for creating a center or an ashram.  My purpose is to prepare some individuals to transcend prakriti and to live as enlightened beings on Earth.

Action, response and reaction in the outer plane will show the state of attainment of a person.  It is automatically manifested.  As the deluded being manifests his delusion and the ignorant person manifests his ignorance, as an egoistic person manifests his ego and a greedy person manifests his greed, so also a Self-realized person manifests the Self.  It automatically happens.  That is manifestation.  If you are doing it consciously, that is not manifestation.  Manifestation happens first and is known next.  I want you all to reach that stage.

The state of the Being as per Verse 242 is a state of perfect spontaneous neutrality, not conscious neutrality, among these eight categories of people that begin from the suhrit, the well-wisher, and end with a sinner.  If you find a person with no distinction, no difference in feeling, be one hundred percent sure you are seeing a Self-realized yogi whom Lord Krishna says has attained the highest state in yoga.  Yoga means to be linked with the Self, not with the Supreme.  When you are linked with the Supreme, you are no longer a yogi, you are a bhakta, a devotee.  When you become a devotee, divinity will be manifested.  When you are a yogi, Self will be manifested.  The same Self shines through every form—that the yogi is able to see at the level of Self-realization.  But a devotee is able to feel the same God residing in every form.  He does not see it, he feels it at the state of merger.

Seeing and feeling—that is the difference is between Self-realization and God-realization.  Many of you are in different stages of seeing or feeling.  Those who are at a different level of seeing but have not actually reached the state of the Self are outwardly arrogant, although they are powerful seekers.  Those who are at the level of feeling are outwardly loving and humble.  Transformation is taking place rapidly.  Once you enter into bhakti you will be loving, humble, not uttering a word or causing anything that will create sadness in someone’s heart.  That shows you have transcended the zone of the Self and entered into the zone of the Supreme.  As long as your word, behavior or reaction is causing pain in others, you have not become a bhakta.  You are still struggling through your mind, and your journey is towards the Self only.  But if you have transcended the Self, and developed inner humility, and your words are soothing, loving, pleasant, charming, you have entered into bhakti.  This is the difference.

[From Swamiji’s 7 January 2010 Interaction, Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India]

[The following is Swamiji’s translation of his article that appeared in the Satyachetana Oriya Journal during February 2010.]

The Concept of Jitaatman

To know the true meaning of any terminology in yoga we should approach someone who has reached the culmination of all yogic experience.  Only such a person can explain the true meaning of the concept.  A mere scriptural reading, or listening to an intellectual discourse on yoga will make us learned beings, and one will struggle all through the life to have yogic realization but it may not be possible.  This is the reason I am always explaining from an experiential angle the concepts of Gita.

What is jitaatman?  Jitaatman is a state of attainment when a striving yogi has conquered his lower nature.  Lower nature means the surface mind, the surface vital, the gross senses, and that part of the intellect which is linked with the gross material world.  Lord Krishna has given the definition of a jitaatman yogi when he said in the sixth chapter, ‘Arjuna the Self can be the friend of the self; it can also be its enemy.  A yogi should conquer the self by the help of the Self, not bind it by the self.’  Here he was referring to the lower self, which means the mind, body and senses.  Jitaatman is one who has conquered the self through perseverance, personal effort and intense aspiration for striving in the path of yoga.

The concept of jitaatman is explained in the sixth chapter of Gita, the sixth step in the yoga of Gita.  Let us see at what stage of attainment is the yogi at this point.  First, the yogi has attained the capacity to be independent of doership.  He has attained the strength to withstand the pressure of attraction to the result, and also he is capable to free himself from the process.  For such a yogi every action is yajña.  Such a yogi only is called a jitaatman because he is capable to restrain his mind from desire and he is capable to command the senses to withdraw from the objects of enjoyment at will.

Until and unless this state has been attained the yogi cannot convert karma to yajña and is not able to burn all previous sanskara, so unless the sanskara is burned how can sannyasa be attained, and without attaining karma sannyasa how can the yogi feel the bliss of the being and enjoy the tranquility in the realm of becoming?  This is the state when the yogi experiences the state of dhyana without consciously doing meditation.  The meditation at this stage is not an effort, it is a natural process.  Through this the yogi frequently enters into the being and is able to transcend the senses, the vital and the prompting of the intellect to be in the world of maya, and enters into the tranquility of the being at will.  Such a yogi is established in the state of the being and can be called a jitaatman.

When such a jitaatman yogi is able to remain in the state of the being as long as he feels, at that stage he attains yoga siddhi.  Lord Krishna explained the state of such a yogi in verse 240:

‘A jitaatman is able to withstand the pressure of heat and cold, happiness and sorrow, fame and defamation, and remains unperturbed.’  It’s possible because the tranquility that a jitaatman yogi experiences inside is so profound that the mind and this vital perturbation are too small for him to be perturbed.

Heat and cold is physical sensation; happiness and sorrow is mental sensation; fame and defamation is vital perturbation.  These are all elemental in origin.   As long as the yogi is under the clutches of the lower nature he is bound to be identified with this elemental movement but when he is able to transcend, that is, to go beyond, the lower elemental forces, he will be able to witness but not be involved.  He is able to recognize but not be identified with these outer signals.  Body, mind and vital are making movement.   The yogi is able to see this, know it, recognize it, but he refuses to be identified with this.  This is the jitaatman yogi.

At this stage the yogi is not one with God although feeling that he is a portion of Divine.  He knows what it is; sometimes he feels the totality, the infinity, but is not able to remain there or is not able to prolong it, or is not able to withdraw from it always.  He succeeds sometimes but fails many a time, and even in his failure he recognizes the cause and is able to see the consequence and feels the key to infinite bliss is within, not outside.  Such a yogi slowly conquers the elemental forces of earth, water, fire, air and ether, and ascends to higher and higher states of tranquility.  The yogi who is capable to transcend this inner churning, this vital perturbation, is truly a jitaatman yogi.

Let me make one point very clear: for a jitaatman yogi, prakriti never changes.  Prakriti goes in its own way; she does not change as per the whim of the yogi, but the yogi, because of his transcendence of the elemental forces, remains independent to the signals coming from the lower prakriti.  This is the reason sound, touch, sight, taste and smell cannot create a tsunami of gross experiential pull in his infinite ocean of chit.  Through all these ripples and waves the yogi is always able to feel and experience the inner silence and the tranquility of the being.  In the outer material life there may be profit or loss, difficulty or incentive; the yogi never loses that harmony and the bliss of the being.  Such a yogi is linked with atmajñana, that is Self-knowledge, and always is merged in atmananda, that is Self-delight.  Senses are under him.  The consciousness of such a yogi is always linked with the Supreme Being, either through a form or through the formless force called jñana.

If there is a necessity, a handful of clay is more important than a ton of gold for such a yogi, and if there is no necessity, a mountain of wealth is less significant than a handful of clay.   To this the Lord has pointed in Gita saying, sama-loshtäshma känchanah:  ‘For a yogi, gold and clay are of equal importance.’  The inner meaning of this verse is not that the jitaatman yogi is not able to recognize the difference between clay and gold.  Rather, he does not feel any more or less attachment to any particular object until it has a necessity in his sadhana.  Such a yogi has reached the highest state in the relative plane of matter and is about to pierce the veil of prakriti to be linked with the supreme state of infinite bliss.

I have seen at least a dozen godly beings, those who have freed themselves from the pull of these material forces.  For such a yogi, a sinner and a saint, a friend and a stranger, kith and kin and an enemy, all are equal.  This is the state I constantly feel within me.   Just for the sake of functional necessity I respond to someone as if he or she is more dear to me than others.  How this feeling of near and dear, kith and kin, friend and enemy, comes to us?  Who created this dual consciousness?  From my experience I have come to realize that this duality is caused due to the intellect.  As long as the intellect is linked to the world of maya, the world of gross matter—matter/anti-matter, form and reflection of the form, body and shadow—as long as this type of dual consciousness is within us, our intellect will direct us to this duality and our vital will compel us to choose any one from the duality, but when the human consciousness transcends this layer of duality and becomes one with the infinite state of unity, the reflection is not found on the mental screen and the yogi is able to see and feel and know the original unity.

Depending on prakriti’s necessity and compulsion, the reflection of this one soul is projected in different screens as per the need of time and the constraints of the forms.  This state is the beginning of the state of nirvikalpa.  This is my experience.  This is my realization.  To this state Lord Krishna has said in the Gita, ekabuddhir vishishyate, one-pointed intellect.

May God bless you.

Swami Sri Atmananda