Day 5 - Sep 8, Thu

Chapter 5 - Live all your Dimensions

The fifth chapter starts with Arjuna’s question: “First you ask me to renounce work, then you recommend work with devotion. Which is most beneficial?” Arjuna must be playing a game. A man who is a king cannot be this ignorant. Krishna is explaining so clearly and Arjuna keeps coming back to the same question. Either they are both playing a game so that the Gita can be delivered, or Arjuna is in such a state that he cannot be saved. There is no other book that is so clear!

You can never solve the problem of which is most beneficial. What is the scale which you are going to use to measure if you have benefited or not? Before you come to any conclusion, you need to know the scale with which you are measuring your life. What do you call falling out of a plane without a parachute? Jumping to a conclusion. Whatever you use to measure your life with, for example, let us say that you use dollars as your scale, then at the end of your life, you can measure how successful you are by how much money you have made. I tell you, at the end of our life, if we learn from Existence, from life itself, the scale changes, fortunately.

A small story: There was this barber: the king’s barber. He used to live very happily and his life was blissful. He had nothing at all to worry about. He would go to the palace every day and get ten gold coins for shaving the king’s face. One day when he was coming back from the palace, he heard this booming voice: “Dear Son do you want a jar filled with a thousand gold coins?” And the barber thinks, ‘ten coins are enough, I don't need any more.’ The voice says, “I will give you twenty four hours to think it over. Go home, tell your wife and then come back and tell me.” So he goes home and tells his wife and she shouts at him, “Fool! you should have taken the jar, you never buy me anything.” The next day he asks the voice for the jar. Immediately a Yaksha appears. A Yaksha is a man who is wealthy but who never enjoys or shares his wealth. The jar has nine hundred and ninety coins, just ten coins less. The barber brings the jar back to the house. He is very happy because he can relax for ninety-nine days. But the jar is not overflowing, something is wrong. His wife starts worrying immediately. The next day, she takes the coins out again as it is not overflowing, there is a little less this time. For one week she is very unhappy. She doesn't give the barber anything to eat and she keeps trying to get the jar to overflow. The barber starts to look dull and tired. The king notices and asks, “You look dull and tired, what happened? Did you accept Yaksha’s jar?” The barber is shocked. “How do you know this?” he asked. The king says, “Whomsoever is unhappy in this country, has surely accepted Yaksha’s jar.”

If you are unhappy in your life, look to see if you have Yaksha’s jar. It is in your head; it is your mind. Yaksha’s jar is like our mind. In the same way, in just ten days our mind will take anything for granted. It always makes us feel not enough. The man who is continually feeling he is not fulfilled, or who is measuring according to some scale, will be suffering. Yaksha’s jar will never be full.

Arjuna asks, “Now will you kindly tell me which of the two paths is most beneficial?” This is the question we are all asking. Man is dilemma. Your mind is nothing but dilemma. Your mind will only exist as long as you are between the two extremes. The moment you come to a conclusion you will be Enlightened. Don't think that ignorance is bliss. If ignorance is bliss, why is there so much suffering in the world? Innocence is bliss. If you don't have a scale, you will feel fulfilled. The first and last disease is dilemma.

Life has no separate benefit. Life itself is a benefit. Do something for no result or benefit: write poetry, paint. Don't think of Nobel prizes or gallery exhibitions. Just do something for no benefit for just thirty minutes and that thirty minutes will lead you to Krishna Consciousness. It will be the most useful time you spend in that day. For thirty minutes you will drop from your head, which is constantly calculating and expecting, into your Being. When you work without motivation, you will never be tired. You will be working out of bliss. Let this teaching just sink into you. Don't prepare any speeches about it to share with others.

Krishna is so compassionate and patient. He replies, "Work in devotional service is better than work". From time immemorial, this question has been asked and answered but still this question is new. It is still relevant because man has not learnt this as yet. Man as such is an unconscious process. And he never achieves. If he allows one single depression to work on him he would be Enlightened. Life is the greatest Master. Life is always teaching us but we never learn. If every day you had decided to learn just one lesson, you would have been Enlightened long ago. But we keep on making the same mistakes because our mind always works along the same routes because of engrams or samskaras (recorded past patterns). If we live out of recorded memory, we will not be able to realize Enlightenment on either the path of work or devotion.

A small story: Two friends rent a boat and go out fishing. They catch one hundred fish in one spot. One of them instructs the other to mark the spot so they can come back and fish there the next day. The next day, the friend asks, “Where is the spot?” The other friend says, “Oh I marked the spot on the bottom of the boat.” “Fool!” says his friend, “If we don't get the same boat, how will we know the spot!”

Our mind is like water. We can never mark it. We will never know where we put the mark. The path of karma is created out of greed and desire. The path of sannyas is always created out of fear of life, fear of being hurt. Karma is running after life while sannyas is running away from life. If we change our attitude, it does not matter which path we are on. If we have the wrong attitude, whether it is karma or sannyas, it will lead to suffering. With the right attitude we will be blessed, we will drop into Universal Consciousness. Both paths can lead to the same Truth. Unless you change your attitude, you can’t experience bliss. Know too, that we play both roles. We are not purely karma or sannyas.

An optimist is a man who creates airplanes. A pessimist is a man who creates seatbelts.
Being, doing and having - these three words need to be understood. If you are continually doing in order to have, you will never have anything. The man who is doing just for the sake of having will never be able to experience the having because he is still doing. Yet the man who is established in his Being will enjoy both having and doing. Our whole life we have been running after greed and away from fear; we have been caught up in doing and having. If you center yourself in your Being, doing and having will happen to you out of extreme ecstasy.

The American president goes to God and asks, “When will our country be number one?” God answers, “In fifty years,” and the president starts weeping. “I don't know if I will be alive then or not.” The Russian president asks God the same question. He answers, “One hundred years” and the Russian president starts weeping. The president of India goes to God and asks the same question. God starts weeping, “I do not know if I will be alive or not!”

Anything created out of greed creates more greed. Anything created out of fear creates more fear. When you experience an emotion in your body, that emotion gets settled in your system and will be created again and again. If you can remain centered in your Being and don't allow your body to move with that emotion, you will be liberated. If you can just do this eleven times, even after just three times you will know the technique of being centered in your Being. That emotion can happen to you again and again, even more intensely and you will remain centered. Decide consciously not to live out of fear and greed. You don't need to fuel yourself or motivate yourself with these emotions. You need to trust that you have enough energy to achieve, that's all. When you are caught in fear and greed, you see the world in terms of fear and greed. When you are liberated from fear and greed, you see the world as it is. So this is the technique: Just trust that you have enough energy to run without fear and greed and just start living with it. Then you will live out of Divine Consciousness.

Try this for just ten days. You may feel restless until you become accustomed to living with more inner space. You will feel as though you are missing something. Knowingly or unknowingly we have this constant irritation in us, which is why we feel ready to explode at the slightest little instance. This is only because we are not settled in ourselves. There is uneasiness between our Being and us. This is disease. We don’t feel we are at home because we don't know our Being. We don't know how to relax into our Being. We are always holding such tension in our muladhara (root of desire) and swadhishtana (root of fear) centers. Krishna explains how to relax these areas by stopping the fear and greed and getting the energy from Divine Consciousness.

In a dark theatre one man goes out to get popcorn and soda. When he returns, he asks a lady, “Did I step on your foot?” “As a matter of fact, yes you did,” she says. The man thanks her: “Then this is my seat.”

Actually, the more entertainment we need, the more there is something wrong in our system. It means that we are carrying depression in us. Tiredness is only the inner contradiction between your will and your action. You have a greed and fear problem. Your greed and fear are attacking you. If you can’t bring your mind and body under control, nothing can be under your control. As such, they are under control of your greed and fear.

If you can learn bliss without your body and mind, you have achieved the purpose of the body and mind. You may still have your body and mind but you are not affected or disturbed by them. Quite simply you will be Enlightened!