Day 11 - Sep 14, Sun

Chapter 11 - Krishna - The Cosmic Window

In this chapter, Krishna shows His cosmic form to Arjuna. He reveals experientially how He is present in every level of Existence and in every way. He declares: “Whatever is best, I shine in that.” Here Krishna doesn’t just declare that He is God; He proves it by giving the solid Experience of the Universal Cosmic Consciousness. Only an Enlightened Master can impart this Experience. This is how you can tell if someone is Enlightened or not.

Just listening to these spoken words, we are transported to a different plane of existence. It creates auspiciousness within us. We feel the bliss and joy as we let these immortal words penetrate our Being and work upon us. And be very clear: if you are sitting here listening to these words, they are already working on your Being, and if you feel that you can’t wait for the next discourse, you are already in tune. Automatically your unconscious has accepted these Truths. This is why you come back every evening.

In this chapter, Krishna doesn’t give any teaching; He just shares the experience of Ultimate Universal Consciousness. He shows very clearly that He is in the whole Universe.

There are three things to be understood. The first is: Is it possible to experience Universal Consciousness? The next is, what is the qualification to receive this Experience, and lastly, what happens when the Experience happens; what happens in our Being?

The Truth should be declared to someone who is mature enough and deeply connected. When you are mature enough, you see everyone as God, including yourself. As long as you carry a frame and try to fit everyone into the frame of how you expect God to be, you throw the person out instead of throwing the frame out. An intelligent Being throws the frame out. This is why we feel suffocated and feel the need to have space. It is because we feel that others are trying to fit us into their frame, their imagination, of how they think we should be. Small pieces are removed from our Being.

Shiva teaches that when you are deeply connected with someone as they are, you have a deep Divine relationship. For this to happen, we need to accept ourselves first, and then we can accept them as they are.

A small story: A man gives a puppy to a couple getting married. After a few months, he visits his friend and asks how things are going. His friend replies, “Oh things are well, a few small changes. In the beginning the puppy used to bark at me and my wife would bring me my morning newspaper. Now, the puppy brings the paper and my wife barks at me.”

So how can we experience God?

There are two ways we can do this. One way is through tapasya (intense meditation). We acquire the maturity to achieve the experience through tapasya. The second way is, a Master can pour tremendous Energy into our Being; He can instill the higher frequency Energy into our Being. Then, we need the maturity in body and mind to keep the Experience, and we are Enlightened!

To give some understanding about the difference between the higher frequency energy that is 'Divine will' and our Energy that is 'our will', it is useful to think of it in this way: One of my devotees asked why the hurricane 'Katrina' happened. There is no answer to this ‘why’. Imagine that you run over a whole community of ants in your SUV car. The ants may call it ‘hurricane SUV.’ Now can they ask us why it happened? No! Because their logic is so different from our's. In the same way, God’s will is so different from our will. Will you be able to say whether these things are free will or predestination? No! No logical answer is possible. If the ants ask us, we cannot answer. And these ants may even be asking an Enlightened ant the same question! Their religious leaders may be teaching them ideas about how and why it happened. But the truth is - they are cheating those ants. In attempting to answer these questions, all organized religions prove that they are useless, because no logical answer is possible. We must understand that the level of will is totally different. This is how it is with 'our will' and 'God’s will'. All we can do is - raise the frequency of our will to the level of Divine will.

Neither God nor your spouse can be understood! All you can do is just try to live with them. The more you try to understand them, the more trouble you get into!

So know understand that whoever tries to answer such things is cheating you. Often they preach to just convince themselves. A preacher once confessed this to me, that he felt there was truth in his teaching because he had a following of ten thousand followers. Such preaching can disturb us deeply. Our deeper Being feels at odds with the superficial understanding that we get from such teachings. We experience depression and schizophrenia.

Divine Will never disturbs us.

We must have the courage to enter into the Spiritual Experience. After a year of meditating, many begin to have experiences; People sometimes don't experience their bodies anymore. They are shaken and they try to run away from it, yet meditation IS to experience this. It is like inviting a friend: first you call them, then you email them, you are eager to see them arrive, but when they show, up you say that you were expecting someone else! We have to learn just to go with the experience; to dive right in. There is no such thing as 'overdoing it' or ‘too much’. If you think in this way, you will always have a problem. Know that it is just your fear that creates these thoughts. With the Divine, nothing is ‘too much’.

Out thoughts are so powerful. When we chant mantras over food, it energizes it. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese Doctor and research scientist, has conducted extensive experiments on water samples taken from all over the world. He took similar samples of water and exposed the water to different influences. In one sample he spoke positive words such as love and gratitude and recited Buddhist chants. Over another - negative words such as anger and war. Then he froze the water so that he could photograph its form. With the samples that had been exposed to positive energy, beautiful clear crystals formed, like a diamond. With the one exposed to negative energies, it did not form crystals; it looked like tumor pathology - dark and without any geometrical formation. It looked like a demon, even. Over three hundred experiments were conducted to prove the effects of our words and thoughts on water, on matter. Our bodies are ninety percent water; imagine the direct effect our thoughts have on us!

Krishna starts beautifully. He says, “Oh Arjuna, let you see whatever exists, everything which no ordinary person can see. This whole chapter of the Gita explains the darshan, or seeing. You cannot see the Cosmic form with your ordinary eyes. You need to see through the divya netra, the third eye.

Is Cosmic Experience possible? Cosmic experience is possible for everybody. Yet, unless you are sure of the possibility, it will not be possible. I want you to understand that it is possible. When you get this, it works on your Being. The words work on you. They are not just words. They convey the Energy of the Experience.

What is the qualification? There is no need for any qualification. Arjuna was just fortunate to be in the presence of an Enlightened Master. He neither took the responsibility nor understood Krishna’s teaching. The only qualification you need is to be here. That you are here and continue to come is enough. You have to just trust that you are ready for this Experience. The trouble is, even if you are qualified, you don't trust that you are, because you have been so disrespected; you lost faith and confidence in yourself. You just have to be open. Because you can’t believe you are growing, you struggle with yourself. You never believe that you are qualified. You always think, ‘If this has happens or if that happens, I am ready.’

Ramana Maharshi was once asked what the qualification for Enlightenment is. He asked in reply, “Are you alive?” The disciple replied, “Yes.” Ramana said: That is enough.” You may need qualifications for everything else in this world, but for the Ultimate Experience, the Cosmic Consciousness - you need none.

You need the Divine Chakshu, the Divine eye. What is this Divine eye? Let me tell you my experience:

When I was twelve, I was playing with this one technique, I didn’t even realize it was a meditation back then: ‘Just watching from where the thoughts are coming.’ One day in the foothills of Arunachala, I was sitting on this one rock, just doing this one technique that I had been practicing for two years. Suddenly something happened; something opened. I felt as if I was being pulled inside. Suddenly I could see 360 degrees in all directions. My eyes were closed but I could see everything in front of me and behind me. And whatever I was seeing I felt as if it was all me. It was such an ecstatic experience; it was so intense. It took three to four hours before I could open my eyes. And I felt this fever of bliss that lasted for three days. Then tremendous fear happened. I began to think that some Ghost had possessed me. I asked one elderly spiritual lady and she told me, “You are not possessed by a Ghost, you are possessed by God.” But for six months I was so afraid that I did not meditate. I was even afraid to close my eyes. And I never went back to that rock. I would walk miles out of my way to avoid it even. Then one day, I told this to my friend and even proved it to him by asking him to place a coin behind my head and telling him if it was heads or tails. At first he laughed, then after a few times, he became afraid. He made an excuse to leave for the bathroom and never came back! I was pulled to go back to that rock at times. I reasoned, ‘Even if it was a ghost, it was so blissful, maybe it is not so bad.’ But the fear kept me from going into it again.

After this experience, nine years of intense tapas followed, just to get the experience again. And when it happened, my body and mind were ready and the Experience never left.

With the Cosmic Experience, you realize that the whole Cosmos is living. You expand your body Consciousness to include this Experience. What you normally experience with your body you feel with the whole Universe. The problem is, even with our body we don't feel alive! When you Experience, you see everything as one form. You feel one with everything. You lose sense of where you begin and where you end; you lose all sense of your boundaries. You are Infinite. You drop all ego and dissolve into the Divine.

Krishna describes it so that we are all inspired to achieve this form. When you see 360 degrees in all directions, you see that there is no beginning, middle or end to behold. There is no other record of Cosmic Consciousness as clear as in the Gita. Arjuna is lifted into the Experience by Krishna so that we can experience it along with him. Then when fear enters, he begins to come down from the experience at the end of the chapter. Fear lowers the frequency of his will, taking it out of the vibratory range of the Divine.

Arjuna says, “My mind is perturbed by fear. I can no longer maintain the equilibrium of my mind.” Be clear: there is no equilibrium of your mind. As long as you try to maintain the equilibrium or balance of the mind, you will be in this crazy world. What he is really saying is, he wants control over the cause and effect. His ego is craving the intellectual control it is so accustomed to having. You should understand that it is just your fear that separates you from Cosmic Consciousness.

Just after my Enlightenment, I was meditating in a forest outside of TamilNadu, drowned in Cosmic Consciousness. A snake lay close to me quite happily but I was unaware of this. When I opened my eyes at first, I was not able to perceive the snake. Slowly the thought ‘snake’ came to me. The moment the thought ‘snake’ came in my mind, I saw clearly that in the mind of the snake, ‘man’ came, and fear arose in the snake, and it left.

The entire Universe responds to your every thought. Fear manifests itself in two forms: in our instinct to survive and our instinct to possess. When you drop both of these, you exist forever.