Bhagwan Sri Krishna and Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga

Lord Krishna whose birthday we are celebrating today is one of the greatest personalities who ever came into being. Some vested interests try to brush his existence as a myth and all the episodes and stories about his life, which keep everyone in this country in awe, and ecstasy as only fiction. It must be made clear that other religious institutions tried to make fun of the life of the Lord and some even now continue to do so. Be that it may. We have a hoary tradition and no one can simply ignore it unless one wishes to live in his ignorance which grants him certain amount of happiness if not bliss! No part of Indian culture and its art forms - may be drama, dance, music or literature etc., is uninfluenced by this great personality.

Historically Sri Krishna belonged to Vrsni clan of the Satvata sect of the Yadavas. There is ample evidence of the historicity of Lord Krishna. The Chandogya Upanishad refers to Krishna, devakiputra, the son of Devaki and speaks of him as the pupil of Ghora Angirasa. Sage Angirasa is priest of Sun God according to Kausitaki Brahmana. It is just possible that Lord Krishna himself composed hymn 74 of the 8th mandala of Rg. Veda as he is called in Kausitaki Brahmana as Krishna Angirasa. Ghora Angirasa after interpreting the meaning of sacrifice and making out that the true payment for the priests is the practice of austerity, charity, uprightness, non-violence explained to Krishna the son of Devaki that at the final hour one should take refuge in the three thoughts. 1. That the self is indestructible, 2. it is achyuta and 3.the self is the very essence or Prana. It is not our intention here on this happy occasion to recount various stories about the Lord.

How can we identify a historical individual with the Supreme God? The representation of an individual as identical with the Universal Self is familiar to our thought. In the Upanishads, we are informed that the fully awakened soul which apprehends the true relation to the Absolute sees that it is essentially one with the latter and declares itself to be so. Lord Krishna himself says in the Bhagavad Gita "Delivered from passion, fear and anger absorbed in Me, taking refuge in Me, many purified by the austerity of wisdom have attained to My state of being." It may not be difficult for us to see the similarity between the teachings of the Lord Krishna and our beloved Sri Ramchandraji Maharaj.

I bring to your kind notice that Lord Krishna is the Head of our Samsthan - the Institute, it does not matter much. For all that is there in spiritual life, He is the Head. The purposes for the descent of the Avatar are entirely different from those of the descent of the Special Personality. There is also some confusion in the minds of some people that the mergence that is talked of, is a total mergence. This will be remembered by all of us here and you will try to be in the thought of the Master, in whom Krishna is expressing himself as on date. All the powers of Lord Krishna are vested with him and perhaps something more if you have read this in "Towards Infinity" properly. You will then understand that not only the power of Sudarshana Chakra is there, but something more is also there with which we have nothing to do. All powers we have nothing to do with at all. We are here to be submissive all the time.

I must also inform you that Krishnastami was being celebrated and continued to be celebrated by the Master as late as even 1981 when I was with him. That it was not a formal function is a fact after 1968 or 1969. Peculiar reasons were given that people may identify Krishna with Hindu religion and that we need not get into this controversy. This is inspite of the fact that ISKCON has been able to propagate the Sri Krishna Consciousness in its own way according to its direction. The main point to note is, it is something universal and it has nothing to do with any religion. Krishna himself transcended all religious barriers. If you kindly think over, from his childhood, the phenomenon of lifting Govardhanagiri itself, is an act against the ritual to be performed to Indra or Varuna for rain, and he said that it is better to worship the mountains which have the trees and in turn give the rain. Some sort of a scientific approach and He said that we need not bother about these functionaries. It does not mean that he was trying to throw away all religion on that day. I am not here to argue on all that but I only try to tell you that he was not for it. So, if you look at it from an entirely different angle, you will find that even the principle of Pranahuti, Babuji says, was something that was practiced by Lord Krishna and afterwards somehow, the theory of Love has taken over and Bhakti has taken over. Now, we say that we got into a state of absorption, deep absorption, enjoyment etc. These words we are using instead of thinking about the grace of the Master or the love of the Master in having given us the benefit of his company. We talk about ourselves only. So, we are here to think about our Master and our Master alone. We do not, even for a single moment, think about Lord Krishna in the sense of having access to him or giving more importance to him as a Superior Being. For us, the Master is all. If we go through the pages from 140 to 150 or so, of the autobiography of Ram Chandra; Part II, Volume 3, there you will find the seeds for the article of Bhagavad Gita (By Revered Babuji Maharaj in "Silence Speaks") and how he had communion with Lord Krishna at that time. I appeal to you again to kindly remember the sloka of Bhagavad Gita which was given in our Patrika which is published quarterly. "Madchitta, Madgatah Pranah Bodhayanti Parasparam". The idea behind it is that we shall all share the thought of the Master again and again so that our faith gets confirmed, more than anything else. We are all trying to remember our roots - call it home, call it Master, call it Lord Krishna, call it whatever you like - that is the root. The root has to be known and Lord Krishna was definitely one, meant for it and you will find that the Special Personality that is our Babuji Maharaj Himself shares this with Lord Krishna to a large extent. We have no reason to think about Lord Krishna in exclusion to that of our Master Babuji Maharaj. Don't try to commit this mistake. When Dr. K.C Varadachari tried to differentiate between them, Babuji Maharaj, in his greatness and kindness, told him that "I am ashamed that I have to bring this to your notice". This was mainly because Dr. K.C Varadachari belonged to earlier generations. Fortunately we do not belong to that generation and we do not get confused with the goal of life with other things etc that are described elsewhere. It is for consideration that on Krishnastami or even Babuji's birthday or Lalaji's birthday, in the afternoon, we do not generally meditate. The two times meditation given to us by the Master is an abridgement of the three meditations that are required according to the Sandhya. Those of you who read the Commandment Number 1 of Babuji Maharaj's commentary will understand that there are three timings for doing meditation and in the afternoon, it is impossible for the modern person to do so and therefore it was abridged like this. Now that we have found some time to gather and to share our thoughts, I think we may have a Satsang around 12:00 noon so that we also take advantage of the timing and see the Glory of the Master who is now shining bright over the sky. This we should do on all these three sacred occasions.

The slokas that are there in Bhagavad Gita, they are around 700 - some add a few more and some people delete a few. The number of slokas given for Dhritarashtra and Sanjaya; Dhritarashtra puts some questions and Sanjaya answers them; there are around 110 or 120. So you have to minus that from the total number. Why I am telling all this is, Babuji talks about the duration taken for delivering the Bhagavad Gita and the counter argument you will find that some other person gives is this. It is not 700 and odd but 700 minus 120. All this is not going to make the point of Babuji less important. I am only trying to tell you what are the arguments that can be advanced, insisting that they were told in so many slokas. It is not only Arjuna who asked Lord Krishna to take the chariot inside, afterwards Dharma Raja goes and offers his pranams to all the great people on the other side - Uncles, relatives, gurus to seek their blessings. One more thing that we should remember is - on one side Bhishma Pitamah was fighting and the other side his grandsons; one side Drona and the other side many of his disciples including his most favoured Arjuna; close blood relatives were divided on both sides. Even the other four Pandavas were faced with similar dilemma. So Dharma Sankata was not only for Arjuna but for many more. But they were not sensitive enough to put any question to God. Perhaps they had the answer by birth. People think they know.

The most significant aspect to be noted is that nobody can gain Brahma Vidya by reading the slokas. Nobody can come to the condition of attending to his duty without any attachment or with due attachment to Dharma just by hearing the slokas. Just as we have been hearing for quite long time many of these slokas, many of these stories, not only of Lord Krishna, but of Revered Babuji, of Revered Lalaji, of every person, but nothing has promoted us to act in the way in which we were asked to. This I think is a matter of Sadhana for all of us. We have been reading Babuji Maharaj, we have also heard him. People have been hearing. But how many of the people have got the conditions that Revered Babuji was talking of in his book or in his tapes? If you put this question, it has not. One will come to his own conclusion, which I think he knows. I don't have to tell what it is. It does not make any sense to say that. So the question is that Arjuna could not have been prompted to act in the way in which he did if those conditions were not infused into him. That surely cannot be done by just preaching through the slokas. And this is one of the points Revered Babuji makes that several people have sung but not a single person has understood what it is. This is the most important point you should catch in that message. It says that people have been singing but what use is it? How many of the people have become That? They could not become That because that particular thing was not done. And that particular transmitted power was not there. I do not know whether you have appreciated that point when he starts with the first paragraph, he says that things have become so very colourful now a days. This colouring is not of today's doing. It has started from the very beginning. Our individual identities - Revered Babuji makes a reference in one of his talks that have been recorded and are available -- have no form of our own originally; we never had any form when we were in a balanced condition, nor a name but we got all these things later due to the passage of time as he puts it. This is a very very eloquent statement presented in the most appropriate etiquette without accusing us of anything else. He simply says, that is what it is, and that, these conditions we never maintained for whatever the reason. The ego is the beginning of all these coverings. 11 Rings of egoism is what we go through before we enter into the Mind Region - onto the Central Region through Seven Rings of Splendour. So in the higher realm itself, 11 sheaths are there. 11 various types of egoism are there. And they are the colourings of various hues. Once we go through them, then we get into a state of what one may consider the most powerful region of God. So, while everybody sings in praise of God, the song is remembered, the tune is remembered, God is forgotten. The casualty in singing is, we remember the taala, raaga etc and also the words but in the process, we miss the essence because of it being sensory in its knowledge. Senses take over and they dictate terms as to how we should experience and such a thing has happened even for Bhagavad Gita. That is what He says. Even for the song of God, the same thing has happened and that has led to various commentaries given on the subject. Now, why commentaries were written is a question. Not because they wanted to write commentaries. If any person were to propound a new system, they have to somehow or the other, integrate the meaning of the Upanishads, then the Vedanta sutras and also the Bhagavad Gita. If the common philosophy is not built keeping in view the statements given here, it will not be accepted as something that is right. These are called the Prasthana Thraya. So the people have commented on all these three. Some of them commented consistently; some of them did not comment consistently. For the first time commentaries on Gita have come without reference to the need of integrating it with the advent of the spiritual renaissance that we had in the last century, followed by the political freedom movement. Tilak wrote his commentary, Aurobindo wrote his commentary, so did Mahatma Gandhi. These are the three very important persons who have written the commentaries on Bhagavad Gita without bothering about integrating it with either the Upanishads or the Vedanta Sutras. For the first time, Revered Babuji goes further in this process and doesn't even give the commentary on Gita but only tells us what the crux of the matter is. If you had at any point of time read an essay on Bhagavad Gita of Aurobindo, or that of Gandhi or Tilak, you will really be feeling the understanding they had of the whole subject and how their movements were dictated by the meanings they generated from Bhagavad Gita itself. They were all inspirational. Significantly, Revered Babuji does not refer to all these three though he must have been aware of it. He must have thought, they were serving a different purpose than that of establishing the importance of Bhagavad Gita and each man has worked out his own theory out of it. This is my guess because there is no mention at all about this. The philosophical perfections that several matacharyas have been able to establish through the Bhagavad Gita is not a matter of importance for us. For a philosopher; for a person who constructs the system, it becomes necessary. For a yogi, for a person who practices the path of spirituality, it makes no sense at all. We do not gain any inspiration spiritually. We get intellectual clarification on many points. This is followed by another commentary by Dr S. Radhakrishnan after independence. I would not like to comment on his motives for that but I can tell you that it is a comprehensive work he has done as a student of philosophy. But if you try to seek any spiritual inspiration from that, you will not find it. He tries to expound it from several angles. Good work - Intellectual work. But all are agreed on this point that there was Dharma sankatam. In this connection, a few days back I was reading a small book. It seems there was an Indore Maharani called Ahalya who was not literate. So she asked some Purohit to read for her the Bhagavad Gita and he starts reading "Dharma Kshetre, Kuru Kshetre " and she says "stop it, no need for reading further". He was confused because he was a scholar himself and asked her "What makes you say this". The message of Krishna is understood in this, she said. What is it that you understand Madam? I understand the sentence as, (in Sanskrit this is permissible) "Kshetre Kshetre Dharmam Kuru". That is, in every field of action, do your duty. That is the meaning of the whole of Bhagavad Gita. I don't have to read the remaining portion. Illiterate she was, I think she was more illumined than others. The spiritual aspiration of the person was met with, without going through the commentaries. Why I am saying this is - so long as we retain our Viveka and our thinking capacity, we will be in a position to understand the real meaning of this. But if this is given up, it is here that we fall most of the time, we tend to be attracted by presentations - extraneous, which appeal to our senses in so many ways. They are all religious. This is a beautiful icon of Lord Krishna we say. Perhaps, after a few years we will say it is a beautiful icon of Babuji Maharaj. I understand, one of it has already been installed. So the remaining things should follow. It is a matter of time. But before that we have gone to the two-dimensional presentation of the Master and yes, some of us would say that this photo is more beautiful than at other centres. That is the worst statement. The way of looking at it, also appreciating the photographic capacity is a different issue but if we try to put Revered Babuji there, then go on saying that this is Revered Babuji, the most beautiful way of presenting it, I think we are getting into this colourings. Revered Babuji uses a very interesting phrase for this, why I call it interesting is, it is that which attracts you most. And for people who cannot see or cannot appreciate like me the difference in colours, I think the sound appeals. If the sound does not appeal, the taste appeals through prasad. So this prasad is more tasty. So, this particular desire to stick on to the lowest level is the basic reason why our sadhana does not proceed. To move from the lower portion of the heart to the upper portion of the heart. We have tended to philosophise it because there is no other way of explaining. By saying that from self-orientedness to others-orientedness is what we are talking about. Basically it does not make any sense if you are looking at it from a practical angle, it does not make any sense.

In the course of yogic practice, we generally aim at freeing ourselves from the bondages in our being by means of various practices. When you are free from these inner bondages and coverings, you begin to feel something higher existing in yourself. This is the indication for his later statement in "Efficacy of Rajayoga" where he talks about the lower and upper heart. You have to move from this to the other. So he is talking about the inner coverings we have got. What are the coverings that we have got? We had occasion to talk about it several times. It means that you are loosening the ties. It seems that you are feeling as jumping into higher state of yourself. The point to note here is, we have to free ourselves from these inner bondages which are all coloured. None of them have an existence of their own, we have given them the importance beyond a limit. So this can be achieved only by continuous process of receiving transmission, several times, and unless this is done, the proper attachment or detachment will not come. What disables us from having proper attachment or proper detachment to things is the inner coverings. In this case, Arjuna says "I am now faced with the problem of Dharma Sankata" "Dharma sammoodha chetaha" and what does he do? He says "Sadi mam tvam prapannam". I seek your refuge. You alone can sort out this problem. And the answer to this is, what you find in one of the last slokas of Bhagavad Gita "Sarva Dharman Parityajya, Maamekam Saranam Vraja" which is really an incongruous statement. In the sense, in the beginning he says I have already fallen at your feet "Sadi mam tvam prapannam" I have taken refuge and at the end, the Lord says " You take refuge in me" so what is it that has gone in all these 18 chapters? If you look at it, you will find that just as you and I are sitting here, saying that "Oh Master! that we have surrendered unto thee" from this state of consciousness to the state of consciousness when you say "I am now accepted by thee" and "I accept whatever you say" intermediary stages are various; doubts we have got, clarifications that we require. All of them are the products of our coverings. There is no exception to any one of them. All our doubts are due to these five coverings we have got. We will not be in a position to start the journey unless you start with the prayer "Sadi mam tvam prapannam" and end the prayer with the statement "That I have now surrendered unto thee". That is what is summed up in our prayer "Thou are the only God and Power to bring me upto that stage". That is the prayer for the beginner and that is the prayer for the person who has realised. There is no difference between these two. The prayer is same. It takes care of all the people in this world, at all stages of development. That it has been followed by Babuji Maharaj in his own lifetime. You will understand when he says "whatever I got is due to the grace of my Master and there is nothing that I have got on my own". This prayer is not only told to us, but it is also something he has asked us to practice and he himself practiced it and shown whatever may be His state; He said that it is due to the grace of his Master, he has got. This helps you to come out of this cloak of Gurudom that seems to get thrust on every person who knows a few slokas or perhaps who talks about a bit of Vedanta. Not to speak of people who say that they practice spirituality! All these people are gurus of various kinds. Unless we understand this saranatva, we really don't understand anything of spirituality. It is the beginning and the end of it. So the seven slokas that are supposed to have been referred to by the Master, refer to the Six knots and they should not be confused with anything else. What Lord Krishna did was, he was able to activate the five knots of the Pind Desh so that sufficient release is had by him and he was in a state of really surrendering and not just crowing surrender. We all crow surrender, but he was able to come to that state. And why it is not beyond six and why is it not something that is Ultimate? We ask the questions because Advaitans will definitely ask this question. Bhagavad Gita will give the Ultimate knowledge. Revered Babuji says no - no, it will give you only this; and he explains it saying that while he had the entry into the Virat, he was given the full scheme of things of the Brahmand and he was not able to swallow the condition and therefore he says kindly withdraw. He gives a very significant explanation to the statement of Arjuna because you and I seem to be aspiring for that condition which he was granted namely that of the real state of the Master and the man who had it, said "please withdraw". Others who never had it seem to be seeking after that but the man who had that said that "please withdraw", I am not capable at all. Why is it in that state? Babuji gives a very significant interpretation when he says he knows he has got the entry only upto Virat whereas the scheme of things at the entire Brahmand was given to him and he was not able to swallow that. He was not able to accept it. His condition was not such as to understand the particular state and so it shows that he has not gone beyond anywhere near this state. So this is to say that it gives you the Ultimate knowledge etc doesn't mean anything. They are all philosophical constructs in order to establish the importance of the system of either Advaita or Visistadvaita or Dwaita. They have given umpteen number of interpretations. One more thing that has happened due to this colouration is the misfortune of the Chaitanya cult. They have taken to more of music, more of bhajans, more of reciting, more of mantras, more of rituals, because these are all sensory problems. We can have a rath yatra. You have got several rath yatras and one more rath yatra can be started. There is nothing wrong about it. Only thing is, I am now waiting for the day when ankaalammas and mahankaalammas will also have the rath yatra. A day will come. You will have it soon because the way in which we are proceeding is so very odd, and all that is going on in the name of bhakti, nobody can do anything about it. In the midst of this our aspiration here is to talk about the Spirituality proper and not fall prey to these colours. This is the basic point. Three things Babuji stresses most while explaining the Bhagavad Gita is that you do not have Kartrutva Bhaava, i.e you are not the doer under any circumstance. This is a very significant point that we should understand and you will appreciate it only when you come to the minimum state of consciousness or developed consciousness of the Atma Swaroopa Jnana. Viveka and Vairagya will lead you to this condition. So it is paramount that you should come to this and until you come to this state Revered Babuji says, you accept me as the person who does everything and he gives so many suggestions saying that please think that I am the person who is going to the office, I am the person who is brushing your teeth, several things he gives and he says in the beginning it is only mimicry but still do it. It will do you good. We have been hearing it. I would leave it to you people to decide whether you have been following it or not. While eating you think that it is the Master who is eating. While you are discharging your duty in the office, think that it is the Master who is doing it. While coming it is he who is coming. You go to a cinema, think that it is the Master who is seeing the cinema, second time you will not go. But then, since we will not go the second time, we refuse to think in this manner the first time itself. This is a peculiar logic which we apply ourselves, and that is the hold of the sensory things. Sensory and sensuous things hold so much. So this doership is something of an illusion. It is not correct and is of no advantage spiritually? If you see this, it enables you not to form further samskaras. When you don't own an action, then it does not form a samskara. And accumulation of samskaras if you can stop, half the journey is over. That is what Revered Babuji has said in some other context. This, I think, is what we should learn from the fundamentals of Bhagavad Gita and he says that it is not you who is fighting and I am the person to do it. And when you do really, it is a Divine dictate that happens. Now it leads us to the question which is answered in Revered Babuji's works, namely, are we condemned to such a fatality? Is fate something that will govern you to that extent that ultimately everything is what he has planned for? The fact is, while it appears so, but that is so only when an Avatar comes for His purposes. That is what he has planned already for the solution of the Indian race problem on that day. Similarly, today the plan is, whether we like it or not, that we will be coming out of this competitive world, we will be coming out of this aggressive world, and we move into a world where there is cooperation and coexistence. Sharing and sacrifice will be the governing principles of life. Solid materialism governed by the civilisation backed on magnetism and electricity - civilisations, not magnetism and electricity - they will continue to be there, but the importance given to that will come down and there will be a balance that will be struck. The most important thing that you and I should understand here is, while Arjuna was the only person to whom this particular vision was shown, and he was not able to swallow, he has made explicit, the vision now and he says this is my vision. Vision is a very peculiar word. People have interpreted to mean, vision as some sort of an idea, some sort of a dream, some sort of a picture that somebody is presenting to us. Now vision is something that is what I see as future. Some sort of a principle that is given to us to understand. Babuji Maharaj makes this clear in the chapter of "My Vision", very few predictions, very few. Some of them have come true, the remaining will come true. That is the concept of vision here, that is my perspective, that is what I plan for, this is what I am planning for and I want you all to cooperate with me in achieving this. That is His call. If we surrender to Him totally and think that you are not the person to have that vision but we are only implementing it, then I think you will understand. So it is not that as though each one of our life's action is dictated by the Divine in the sense of that something that is coming from above but what is to be noted is, that your own samskaras will be governing to a large extent and you are accumulating your samskaras. So stop accumulation of samskaras so that I will take care of the remaining things. He also gives another vision here. You are not condemned to fate or those things, but you can form a fate of your own, namely by attaching yourself to me, you will be forming a fate of your own. To some extent, life in the microcosm will affect the macrocosm also. It is time that macrocosm vision descends but it is also time in this case that the microcosmic vision and microcosmic existence will be in a position to influence the above. Not that it influences to the adverse, it will influence to the positive. That is, we will be in a position to strengthen the hands, if at all it is required, to participate in the programme of the Divine.

So this is the crux actually of the doership concept that he talks about. Why should we feel that it is the Master who does it? Because you will be strengthening his hands thereby. It is a matter of participating in the Divine function not only for your advantages, it has got its own advantage at the higher level. The second thing that he talks about is the Nishkaama karma, about which several books have been written, in so many ways, so many people have interpreted it. Some extremes are there particularly in the Mayavadic Advaita saying that action itself can be abandoned and sanyasa can be taken. That type of interpretation will not work. We have to do our duty. What is the duty that is there, that which is governed by the social laws. The social laws on that day were different from the social laws today. Whatever may be the social law, there are four things that govern all action. Any society if you want to structure it, there must be some people to plan, some people to execute. This is a must, some people to supervise. If you understand the caste structure from this basis, you will be in a position to understand, it is mostly a class division and not caste division and the plan, the vision of the Master is, as you can see in the Reality at Dawn first chapter itself that eradication of caste is the first thing that nature has taken up. It is happening. It will happen. There is no point in our resisting any one of them. If you resist it, then you will suffer. If you accept it, you participate. That is how we should understand the whole vision. So this Nishkaama Karma is about what is the karma that you have got to do and that has to be in accordance with your Dharma. The Dharma in that case of the Bhagavad Gita was one of that of a warrior who had to fight. And he said I will not fight and he was not prepared to do his duty. And he had to be told that you better do your duty without attachment. If you don't do, I will anyway get it done because this is a plan that is already laid out by me and if one Partha is not there, I will find somebody else who can do that job. That is what is the crux of the message given to Arjuna. Revered Babuji says, things will anyway mend, they will change, if you participate, I will be happy, if you don't participate, I will anyway get things done. The call is very clear. You should understand that our duty is to participate, not to discuss about whether it is possible to lead a life of cooperation and co-existence? Is it in any way sensible to lead a life of sacrifice in a world like this? Is it possible also for us to serve without any motive? Incidentally, one can't help remarking and this should not be taken as a judgement on the person, I read recently in some article in which the claims of Mother Theresa as a person oriented to service are questioned. They say, it is motivated with the missionary zeal and specifically oriented to the beggars of Calcutta. There was the depiction of the entire country of India as one of beggars. An attempt was made and then that had to be saved, salvaged. This being the motive, it is devilish in pattern and therefore she doesn't deserve the saintliness that is sought to be conferred on her. Why I am saying this is, most of the external services can get into this particular argument, when you try to do some good to others. There is always the question why this person is doing this service for me? There must be some motive behind it. Without motive how is it that this fellow is helping us? Now, without hitting at any one of your conscience, I must tell you, this seems to be governing our thinking in many, many ways. That the Institute has been publishing books and also meeting with certain amount of loss in the matter is known only to some people. Majority of the people think that unless there is money how can the institute be spending it? The point to note here is, our thinking is so very clouded that we think always on these lines. And it is clouded mainly because of our attachment to either Dhaneshana or some other eshana that is there.

The country which has talked about sacrifice, as a way of life for a grihasta, today has come to a condition that sacrifice is a difficult word to find in a grihasta's life. The fourth God is the Athithi. And I don't think, of him, the first God himself is not welcome, where is the fourth God? Fourth God is not welcome. This is the unfortunate state to which we have descended .One has to understand that this life is a product of the sacrifice of the divine. That is the essence of the Veda itself. The Purusha Medha has happened and therefore this existence here. If God has not sacrificed Himself, there would be no existence at all. So the principle of life itself, the principle of existence itself, is based on sacrifice and we do not seem to fall in line with it. This is one country which fell in line with that particular thing. But I think, thanks to the coloured view of things that have been presented to us, by our brothers and sisters elsewhere, made our vision also blurred. If it is not due to glaucoma, it must be at least due to cataract that most of us are suffering, something like that. There is some pressure in the eyes. That is what I mean. Glaucoma, I was told is the pressure in the eyes and these pressures are the eshanatrayas. That is what makes you really confused. And these were the eshanatrayas that were in question in Mahabharat. Attachments to my people - kith and kin. This attachment to kith and kin - That is the problem there. Undue attachment is what is not wanted. And that is the first state that we are asked to develop in sadhana and that is the state of consciousness that we get around the Knots ONE and TWO provided we do the sadhana properly. So this state had to be brought into him. Why is it that we are not able to do the karma that is given to us without desire for result? If you look at that question, what makes us not to, perform our duty just for duty sake? It is because of our attachment to these things. If I do that, this will harm my man, or harm my interest in some way. Nishkaama karma becomes an impossibility mainly because of that, not because of anything else. So if you want to come out of that, naturally, it is the preliminary stage that we have got to cross over. This attachment must be crossed over. So however much we go on arguing about the Nishkaama Karma, it is not possible to have it. You can go on telling the importance of the objective work without any subjectivity, without any self-interest, there is no difficulty in talking about it. But how to have it? Unless that particular condition is with us, and so you must know that ultimately Arjuna takes up to arms and then he fights. That means he has made a decision to do a Nishkaama karma. This is the crux of the whole issue of Bhagavad Gita. He is making us understand, Krishna is making us understand that you have to NOT own up the doership but work with due attachment to everything. And what is the due attachment? The attachment is always to Dharma; that which maintains the universe is more important than our personal attachments. So it is the dharma that becomes superior and in the dharma today as I told you, is to participate with the Divine for the working for the transformation. The dharma that we are talking about individual clans or castes etc, things about which many people go on arguing, is no dharma at all. Where society has evolved considerably, and nothing will happen now if somebody is not going to do this or that, somebody else will take over. It will still be done. The thinking process will go on, the planning process will go on, and maintenance jobs will be done. Anybody who is in the maintenance is considered as the lowest of the level. Anybody who plans is considered to be the highest. And today, we have also refused to accept the difference and equality of pay structures, and difference in wages we don't accept more than 10 times or 5 times or 15 times - I don't know, whatever is the rationality behind it. Something is governing all of us. Things have changed considerably on that aspect.

The social order will continue to function. Nothing will happen to society because of that. But everything will go haywire if we don't understand this. And it is already reaching that state. A selfish, motivated activity is the present day bane. We have to come out of that. So He gives you a picture of what are the things and what is the type of things that is likely to emerge and He says you participate in it. I enable you to do that. The transmission that was given to Arjuna alone would have impelled him to do his duty is very obvious when we look at it from this angle and that is what Revered Babuji talks about in his essay on the Bhagavad Gita. It is a much more profound commentary than the commentaries given earlier. They have tried to get inspiration from a few sentences this way or that way. Most of them were poetic and none of them wrong. If you take them independently, none of them is wrong. So, state of surrender has to be developed and this develops only by the Grace of God. And grace of God comes to you only when you seek it. Unless you say "Sadi mam tvam Prapannam", you don't get that abhaya in the end. So the seeking is our job and giving is His job. But in the process the transmission technique that he has brought in here, which was something that very few people enjoyed those days and he made it available to all, is another new thing that has come. It is changing the order in a different way. The urge of the Centre or the Divinity to transform all of us, to make this creation of His more beautiful, because He is naturally interested in keeping it beautiful and not make it more and more dirty. That is the motive of the Divine now. To help us in the whole process, the principle of Pranahuti is the most essential thing that we should understand and these are the states of consciousness that every one of us is entitled to have. And we are assured to have them. It is for us to work up for that. That is the article there. This is followed by the Stages of Realisation which of course is not our topic of consideration. But anyway, it is not something that Arjuna had. That is more than proved, even according to tradition because he never went to Brahmapadam. He was a victim at Mahaprasthan and he was the third to fall. So there is nothing spiritually great about him. That is in spite of the transmission that he had from the Master on that day and in spite of the clarity that he had developed to perform his duty, he could not move further. This is one point that we should understand more and more in the context of Sri Ramchandraji, because the assurance talked about here is that of a non-return. Simply because a man goes to Swarga doesn't mean that he will not come back. He will come back. Arjuna must have been born several times afterwards, so did Yudhistara. He should have. What they were all is not of any interest to us. Maybe he is one of us here. We really don't know. We don't have to make idle search. What was promised in Bhagavad Gita is not any state of Realisation. It was meant for a specific purpose of making you understand that you have to discharge your duty without attachment. And due attachment is what is emphasised. That is the crux of the whole of Gita. And in order to make you understand that he also must have told you a bit of Atma jnana, make you understand that you are dependent upon God. Don't worry about people who die, because death is going to happen. It has happened to you several times. It has happened to me several times, He says. The thing to note is I know what had happened to me, you do not know what has happened to you. That is the sloka. The point to note is we should know that the states of consciousness relating to the Brahman, or the Virat that he was given are not that of the Ultimate. The Ultimate, that is something that has been already stated in Upanishads and the Vedas as something that cannot be described. It is described as Neti Neti. So it is not a vision. So the Ultimate doesn't grant you a vision of the type that Arjuna had. If you know a bit of tradition also, you know that very clearly, It is not that. It is not the Ultimate that was shown to him. We do get the visions of the Master. We are also granted that, certain times, if we are blessed and if we are really attached to him, in the real sense of the term. As one who had such a type of vision, I can say yes, we are also blessed. But that was not Ultimate. This much of clarity was also coming along with it. Though this is my state of consciousness of performance, the real state is something that is behind, far far behind. That is Neti and what is it? What is it like? If you ask a question what is it like? Then it is like the one thousandth part, of one hundredth part of the width of the hair. That is how it is described and that is how it is experienced also. Babuji also writes it to be a pulpy substance. Still the journey is on. Does it end there? It is towards Infinity we move because there is no limit for this humility that we have got to develop. We start with surrender; our surrender is accepted, we move on and on and there is no end to this. As He says it, the first person who has got into this region, is still swimming, after so many lakhs of years. The reason for that is, till the Mahapralaya happens, that person cannot merge. Till that time the identity is maintained. It is a very complicated conception from a mundane angle, because we try to put one triangle over the other triangle and then say that they are identically equal. This identical equality will not work. It is the consciousness that we share and the extent to which we can share.

The Being or the Centre is not something because that is Null. There is no end to Null. There is no end to Void. We have to move on. Always certain identity is left which when gets grossened becomes individuality. A very very intellectual way of looking at it is that. But real experience says that it is very difficult to know what exactly happens to you. I can tell you, in the first stage of our sadhana, we get all sorts of thoughts banging around our head, very confusing, disconnected, all sorts of thoughts. That is the beginning stage. When you loose your consciousness of identity of individuality, you are forced to reckon with umpteen number of thoughts with which you have no connection at all. They are all individual existences. Each one has got its own individuality and identity of its own. And there is a very bizarre condition which really is something one has to cross again but then is never crossed. Imagine the identities in the Central Region, so many are floating around. Each one of them is not capable of being aware of the other for the only reason, he has lost his capacity to see. His only point of concentration is the Centre or the Base towards which he is moving but he is constantly aware of the impact of the other people. People who are parallel to him, or opposite to him, who are behind him. Everyone of them will be affecting. It is a matter of experience. I will not be in a position to explain more than this but that is the extent to which we can move towards Null. Even in a state of Null, this position is still there, because several people have moved on there. It would not be only your good self who will be moving there, but several good selves have gone there. Each one getting attached to the Centre have moved there. At the most grossest level, you will ask what is that? What is this? Who is the next person by your side? The misfortune is, no such attention is there. There is an interesting remark by Babuji Maharaj about Sri K.C. Varadachary's condition when he compared him to that of Atri Maharshi. Your condition is like that of that person and people who know a bit of tradition know Atri is the most revered among the saints. And he is given the task of maintaining the seasons, the world order, so far as the seasons are concerned, it is under his control. Revered Babuji records on this elsewhere about this. So when he says that you are like Atri, he is only referring to the participation in such a similar Divine function entrusted to him and the line will be in accordance with that. So humility is taught, simultaneously the work is entrusted by suggestion. A person who develops Viveka understands it, a person who doesn't understand he will go on talking whether Atri is still supposed to be living in Himalayas, supposed to be, and what happens to him if this person is that? A sadhaka asked me this question. Though I knew the answer, I was not prepared to tell because the place in which such a question was asked is not something that was sublime because people seem to ask all questions at all places and the decorum and the amount of reverence that you have for great saints will not permit us to talk about these things everywhere. This may get reflected in a statement that so and so person is arrogant and he does not answer. That is also possible. You must be prepared for that because we cannot afford to offend higher ups for the sake of satisfying the interest of some people, which is mostly based on curiosity and not on sadhana. Then there are some others who will confuse this with the Atri and the Dattatreya conditions and they go on talking about it. One person talked to me also, I said I don't know anything about it, because my Master did not teach me that. About Atri, I know that he is in charge of this. I make now and then, jokes saying that Atri must be sleeping when the seasons don't come in time. We will miss stations if guard is sleeping perhaps we may get into some accidents. We don't know what happens. Now and then we can definitely make jokes at our Masters with that much of intimacy we have without any blasphemy.

At the higher conditions you really don't know who is who, but you are told certain times to fall in line with somebody else. And you should have that thinking. That is the purpose of such statements of the Master. Now that He is not audible to us in sensory terms, one has to develop the capacity to hear, without words, and that is the beginning of the language of the feeling. If the language of the feeling is understood, you really grow in spirituality. That is all. Whatever we are, we are. What is there to talk about it? The states of realisation that Revered Babuji talks about are far far higher than this. And one need not get confused for the simple reason that, He explains to you that these are the three things that exist and this is the purpose of that and He explains. Now the order that is supposed to be maintained after restoration of such order by Lord Krishna, the Dharma that has been established by Him should normally be maintained for many more years to come. But somehow, some inertia has developed somewhere, you want to understand this, you should understand the theory of parallelism of Babuji Maharaj. The line of Divinity goes, moves on. The line of Humanity is also there along with it and this is definitely influenced by the line of Divinity, but for which there would not be this much of progress is what Babuji makes it. This parallel line which was there, line of Humanity has taken several curvatures not maintaining its parallelism with the Divine. The parallel lines got twisted and umpteen number of waves have come in and the Divinity is not able to accept such unparallel things here. It wants the human mind, the human existence to go parallel with it. The creation must go in tune with the Divinity. The line of Humanity is nothing but the line of Creation. The line of Divinity is nothing except the essence. Since the essence itself cannot exhibit, it comes out through the line of Humanity, creation. And creation cannot go counter productive to the purposes of the Divine. And when it develops certain aberrations, as it has already developed, it needs to be restored. It is not simple atheism that is being questioned, there is nothing wrong in atheism. It is trying to develop certain amount of possessiveness of Nature itself, natural resource itself that is running contrary to the purpose of the Divine. What is supposed to be something that is shared by all, if it were to be cornered by a few, whoever they may be, definitely it is not in consonance with the Divine. So the principle of sharing has to come back. The principle of sacrifice which is the basis of the manifestation itself, the basis of the parallel line itself, needs to be restored. Parallel lines came into existence because of such sacrifice. If there is no sacrifice, there is no parallel line. So that gets affected, and that has to be revived. The parallelism must be restored. The amount of curvature that has developed is such that there was a need for bringing in another force. To satisfy that norm alone, our Grand Master, Lalaji Maharaj has structured a person in such a way that He exhibits the Centre Itself. Just as the Purusha was capable of bringing in this creation, you require another Personality here to rectify the situation. And that Personality should be almost of the same nature as God himself. That is why Babuji says "I bring in Zaat or the Base". The Base is now in action. Because it is the Base that has created and it is the Base that can rectify. Lesser than that will not be in a position to rectify. Avatars come from the field of Mahamaya. That is the power of God. Powers of God will not be in a position to maintain this order today and the Essence of God has to come. So, in a sense, you will find the SPECIAL PERSONALITY who is working, is more than the Avatar and at the same time He is subordinate to the Avatar. The Avatar has come according to a scheme of things already set in and he has restored it on that day, and has gone back to work from the higher plane. But the vehicle got into troubles again. It was not moving well. So influx from a higher level than that had to come. But still subservient to the order of the present day; Avatar is required. Such a thing is possible only and only when a person becomes Void. If the Special Personality were to maintain certain amount of identity, certain amount of awareness of His own existence, he will not be in a position to foot this bill. That is what exactly the wonder that has happened. And here we find a Special Personality in action. Is it going to be a permanent feature is a question. And that has to be answered as NO. It has to be only an intervention for a period of some time. You call it a millennia, you call it more, you call it less, does not matter much. The Person has to work. The Personality has to work to rectify the things. And he says, I have done most of the work now itself and completed it and I have done things which will be enough for another 1000 years; rectification process. In all, that is the time gap. That is required to rectify the whole thing. Please note this stupendity of the task. It is not for our individual realisation that you find a Special Personality. The individual realisation, is an integral part of the social transformation that is required. The order has to be established and the individual realisation will happen. Unless you realise, you will not be in a position to perform like that. So the obsession with individual realisation, as some of the Vedantins would argue will not give the result. It will not. As a matter of fact, that is one of the most sensuous desires of the intellectual people. Most sensuous. Because the realisation is not a state of awareness of the Divinity, but one of loosing your Identity. Nobody will seek that. So in a sense, if you look at it, the statement of Bhagavan saying that "trigunyavisaya veda nistraigunyo bhavarjuna ..." He was talking about the Pind Desh and you have to go beyond that. Why is it? Vedas were confined only to this Pind desh. They were not capable of going beyond that. So, unless you go to a consciousness level above this, you will not be in a position to appreciate the functioning of the Divinity itself. Functioning of the functionaries that are there, you can easily understand, the five elements, you can definitely understand. But beyond that you cannot. I had occasion earlier to mention how the Ravana Brahma himself was an authority on the vedas. And he is the basic exponent of Sama Veda itself, supposed to be the most dearest to the Lord "Vedaanam saama vedoham" is what the Bhagavad Gita talks. It doesn't talk about the Rig Veda etc, Saama Veda is supposed to be the superlative of the vedas. And who is the originator of the same, it is Ravana. Pulastya Brahma's grandson, yes. But you have to go beyond that. You will yield only when you go to the higher plane and this Revered Babuji has made it possible today. He says "Now, I make it possible for you to live at higher plane, yield to me, leave your jealousies, leave your animosities, try to start sharing, service, sacrifice" is what he is talking about. So if you look at it from this angle, an entirely different angle, ours is, this system of Sri Ram Chandra's Rajayoga is an extension of the principle of Lord Krishna. Why I am saying it is principle of Lord Krishna is, it is not a person that is there. It is the Sri Krishna consciousness that is rightly called. But then the Sri Ramchandra consciousness supercedes that, at least temporarily, to rectify things here so that the purposes of the Divine are served. And when I say this, I do not mean to say that we are either trying to circumscribe the operational ambit of either of these Personalities. We dare not. This is what we understand. If we maintain our humility and proceed, then I think we understand more of this system. So the Stages of Progress that we are talking about is not a state of absorption that we seem to be having now and then. That is only an intimation that the Divinity is with us. It is an intimation that He is with you. And some people always tell me "yesterday it was more deep, today it is not". This is again a sensuous orientation to your sadhana itself and you would like to evaluate it. If you keep the view that you have to become Null, I don't think that you will make this statement. Such a clarity in sadhana itself is a must. Goal clarity is a must and the goal can be understood as one of participating in the Divine function which you cannot do unless you also simultaneously realize concurrently, not one after the other. Through service you progress, through progress you serve. They are inter-related. You will be in a position to perform without any motive, only when you don't have motives. So long as you have motives, how will you work without motives? So the responsibilities that we have got to do of the Divine, where trusteeship is understood in very mundane terms very well. This trust which has been given to us, in spite of the fact that it tells us, please note that you are my trustee. We don't seem to live upto the expectations of trustee of being a trustee. Does not matter much. He has given each one of us a trust. But then a trustee is the one whom he can trust. But the betrayal seems to be more often the truth. In maintaining the trust, for the first time, he has used such a big word and that is the anticipation. If you don't fill up that aspiration of the Divine of behaving as a trustee, then the vision of the Divine itself gets affected and He refuses to yield there. If you don't accept, I will find some alternative. If nothing happens, I will end up the whole thing. That is the importance of understanding the Special Personality along with the role of Lord Krishna. Our attention shall always be on our Master and how much we can make ourselves a trustee, a person through whom He can function. A trustee is one who accepts the philosophies of the person who uses, or the aspiration of the person who trusts. That means, we have to live in the consciousness of Sri Ramchandra in order to be a trustee, otherwise you will not. If we are slaves of our habits, our thinking patterns and refuse to change them, inspite of the influx of the Divine, we will be the losers. We will not be in a position to perform the task given to us. And this is one of the main reasons why people drop out of sadhana after sometime or they don't take interest in doing sadhana even though they accept that they are abhyasis and certain times also take higher responsibilities than that. There are lapses in sadhana in people, who are supposed to teach sadhana to others. It is a very ridiculous situation and most unenviable fate of the Master is that, but this has to be rectified. My appeal to you is only that much. It has to be rectified. There is no point in finding fault with others, perhaps the faults are more with me than with you, but what I would strive to point out is, we have to rectify. We cannot afford to waste or squander the little span of time every one of us is given and during which the onerous responsibility of behaving as a trustee to the Master has been given to us. If social transformation has to come, it has to come from everyone of us. All of a sudden, one good day, you are going to find the whole of humanity transformed, is more a cinematic illusion than a possible reality. Such was the expectation or anticipation of great people, let us say, we have got one standing example recently is that of Meher Baba. He said I will break my silence on such and such auspicious day and the whole world will be realised. As the misfortune would have it, even before the day dawns, Divinity thought of calling him back and he was no more. This is all bragging. It doesn't do any good. Similarly Sri Aurobindo talked about the advent of the Divine and he said once I am bringing down the supramental consciousness here, every person will automatically be enlightened and a new race will be ushered in. Maybe, he has found some super consciousness some place somewhere, I don't know. But surely we have not become any better after 1951 after he left. The task of bringing it was given to the mother who also became a victim of the Kaala Purusa. None of us are going to stay beyond the time fixed. The clock is there, ticking all the time. And however much we try to wind it back, you cannot do that. The clock moves on. Every second wasted in other than the Divine, is a criminal waste. It is a crime. I don't have the guts to call it a sin but it is a crime and definitely it is a mistrust. We have been given a trust, we have to keep the trust. The pledge is sacred and the sacredness of the pledge must be maintained. That is why, when the supramental consciousness concept was posed to Babuji Maharaj, he says, he talks about supramental, it is not going to change anything in this world. We require, the Base itself has to come. And it has already come and is attending to its duty. He was in a way referring to Himself. He was in a way referring to us saying that you please have the confidence and proceed further. So it is not Krishna consciousness, it is not Aurobindo's supramental consciousness that is going to help us. And he has hinted at it when he said that Krishna used the Sudarshana. I am using the much above - the Kaala Chakra is being used. While he maintained the etiquette of saying that Lord Krishna is my Lord, he also simultaneously says that I am using the Kaala Chakra. In this you have to find a real meaning. Are they two in one, one in two, or two and one,- these are all intellectual questions. It is a matter of your experience to know that both can be had, both can be worshipped. Elders must be respected and there is no alternative to that. We must understand the role of the Avatar. There is no alternative to that. We must also appreciate the fact that we are born at a time when we are being governed by the Special Personality. It may not be the fortune of many people, after about considerable time, 1000 years is a very big time from our point of view but from the point of view of the Nature, it is no time. So we should take advantage of this and live in his consciousness as far as possible and live upto the expectations without in any way neglecting any one of our duties to the society, to the family, or to life. So this is how I would like to interpret and personally this is how I have integrated both these in my life. If it is of some value to you, please take it. Otherwise, think over and find out your own solution. You will get at it. So long as you trust the Master, so long as you proceed, each man is taught in his own way and I have been taught in this way. So I share it with you. I can only plead with you that this is the way to do.