ARJUNA: 1. O Krishna, you have recommended both the path of selfless action and also sannyasa, the path of renunciation of action. Tell me definitely which is better.

In the last chapter, Sri Krishna was talking to Arjuna about sannyasa, renunciation of action, and karma yoga, performance of action. In particular, he was telling Arjuna that it is by karma yoga, through hard, intense, selfless performance of action, that we reach the unitive state where by our very presence we help those around us and even influence our environment.

Arjuna now shows how representative he is of all of us in his tendency to classify everything into this or that. We can imagine Sri Krishna listening to him with a friendly smile in the same way that we listen to our little children at home when they ask questions which amuse us. For example, the other day little Geetha asked me whether she could tie the laces of my shoes. When I said yes, she asked, “Tight, loose, or medium?” For a first-grader I thought she was commanding a wealthy vocabulary. She is right in the Arjuna line of thinking, but while he talks only about two classes, she had three.

This need to categorize is a characteristic of the intellect; it must divide everything into two. One has to be either good or bad according to the intellect. However, there isn’t any person who falls into such categories. Most of us are sometimes good, sometimes bad, and at other times both. Just as there is no human being who cannot show signs of utter selflessness, there is no one among the majority of us who also cannot show signs of utter selfishness.

SRI KRISHNA: 2. Both renunciation of action and performance of action lead to the supreme goal. But the path of action is better than renunciation.

It is difficult for us to understand those rare creatures in the history of mysticism who help people around them by their very presence. Sri Ramana Maharshi was one of these. Sometimes when people came to him for help, he would sit reading the newspaper. This is not our usual conception of action: somebody sits rustling his newspaper and helps people. But many who were sore in spirit, or insecure and resentful, having knocked on all other doors, have gone into Sri Ramana Maharshi’s presence as a last resort, sat and looked at him, and come out with their burden relieved, with their heart strengthened and their spirit soaring.

A distinguished philosopher once went to Ramana Maharshi’s ashram with his pocket bulging with a long series of questions. He wondered whether the sage would have time to answer all his questions in detail. With utter simplicity, not very characteristic of a distinguished philosopher, he tells us how he went in and looked at Sri Ramana Maharshi, kept on looking at him, and found that none of his questions were necessary. This is the best way to answer questions – by making them unnecessary. Remember, too, the story of Jesus; troubled people had only to touch the hem of his garment, and they would find an upsurge of security and strength within. This is an experience even you and I can have when we go into the presence of someone who has attained the supreme state. When we are with such people, by some strange means of communication they send some of their strength, love, and wisdom into our hearts.

A Westerner once asked Sri Ramana Maharshi why he wasn’t leading a productive life. Sri Ramana Maharshi just chuckled. As far as I know, he is one of the few productive figures the world has produced. Because he was always meditating on the unity of life, everyone belonging to the human species has received an unearned bonus. Gandhiji, however, gives us another ideal: that of helping through selfless action. Sri Ramana Maharshi’s way of helping is as effective as Mahatma Gandhi’s, and both have a legitimate, important place on the spiritual path. It is the same whether we try to help through selfless action or selfless inaction; the whole world will receive the benefit of our contribution.

Arjuna, however, is an intellectually oriented person given to action, and he doesn’t understand that there is a place for both selfless action and renunciation of action. Confused, he asks Sri Krishna which path is better: “Now, think clearly, and don’t be vague. Can’t you put these two ways in the balance and tell me which is faster, safer, and easier? That’s the only language I can understand.”

Sri Krishna, so loving, so patient, begins from Arjuna’s point of view. He says, “It’s true. I have placed renunciation of action before you as a great ideal, and I have also placed intense selfless action before you as a great ideal. But since you have an intellectual need for comparison, and an inescapable tendency to weigh one thing against the other, I am prepared to concede that selfless action is better for you than renunciation of action.” At present we are not ready to renounce action. Even if we try not to act, even if we take a vow not to act, we will be forced into action. If there is no action physically, action still continues to go on all the time in the mind. The choice, therefore, for you and me is: shall we act selflessly for the benefit of all, or shall we act selfishly for our own personal aggrandizement? Meister Eckhart advises us in glorious words: “To be right, a person must do one of two things; either learn to have God in his work and hold fast to him there, or give up work altogether. Since, however, we cannot live without activities that are both human and various, we must learn to keep God in everything we do, and whatever the job or place, keep on with him, letting nothing stand in our way.”

In the practice of meditation, particularly as concentration increases, you should see to it that you engage yourself in intense, selfless action during the day. You should ask yourself if you have plenty of opportunity to be with other people. Suppose you have been meditating for a number of years alone in the forest, away from the hurly-burly of life. When you come back to the city and somebody pushes you aside on the sidewalk, not all your meditation in the forest is going to make you smile sweetly and say, “Forgive me for having been in your way.” This capacity comes through regular meditation, and by walking on sidewalks where people push and are pushed about. Then you learn that if somebody pushes you, the person may be just looking in the shop window and not seeing you. It is only by being with people who are irascible, sometimes because of you, that the angles and corners of your personality are slowly smoothed out. You, of course, are never short-tempered, but you sometimes run into people who are short-tempered, who do not easily understand your point of view. The answer here is to repeat the mantram, become patient, listen respectfully to the other’s point of view, and be even more persuasive in presenting your position.

The world has become so difficult, so violent, that no one today can afford to keep quiet. No one can afford to drop out of society or fail to make a contribution. Each of us can change the whole world by changing ourselves a little. When, instead of reacting violently, I renounce all violence in action, in word, in thought, and in my relationships with everybody else, I have actually changed my environment. When I can show others love instead of hatred, good will instead of ill will, respect instead of criticism, I not only change myself but also those who come in contact with me. In everything I do, every day, I am affecting my environment either favorably or unfavorably. To make this influence completely beneficial, and to enable it to reach as many people as possible, hard, intense, selfless action is a necessity.

In meditation we are going deep into ourselves, into the utter solitude that is within. As a counterbalance to this, it is necessary to be with people: to laugh with them, to sing with them, and to enjoy the healthy activities of life. It is not a luxury on the spiritual path to have hard work, or to have the company of spiritually oriented people; these are necessary for our spiritual development.

SRI KRISHNA: 3. Those who have attained perfect renunciation are free from any sense of duality; they are unaffected by likes and dislikes, Arjuna, and are free from the bondage of self-will.

Sannyasi, ‘one who has renounced,’ usually refers to a monk who has retired from the world to a monastic order to seek the supreme goal of life. Sannyasa is often misunderstood as renunciation of the world, but for the vast majority of ordinary people like you and me, when the Lord asks us to renounce, he is not asking us to renounce the world. He is asking us to renounce our ego, our self-will, our separateness, which is the main obstacle to spiritual development.

In a story from the spiritual lore of India, the jackfruit is used to bring out the meaning of renunciation or detachment. The jackfruit is a big, burly fruit that grows plentifully in Kerala and Bengal. If you’re a guest in Kerala, when we want to know if a household is well-to-do, we ask, “Do they have a lot of jackfruit and mango trees in their back yard?” A back yard groaning with jackfruit and mangoes is the equivalent of a land flowing with milk and honey. None of the jackfruit is wasted; the thorny skin is a delicacy for the cows, the pods are a delicacy for us, and the seeds are used in curry. People in some other parts of India, however, are not usually acquainted with the jackfruit. If you’re a guest in Kerala a mischievous boy may ask you to eat a piece of it, and after you have eaten the fruit and enjoyed it thoroughly, the boy starts asking you all sorts of questions: where you come from, what your name is, and where you went to school. When you try to speak you cannot articulate your words, because the jackfruit has a very thick, gluey juice, like cement, and your lips have become glued together. But in Kerala, before we eat the jackfruit, we smear our hands and lips with coconut oil. Then, if I had been the guest, I could have finished eating and started in, “To be or not to be, that is the question”; and I would have been able to continue with the whole soliloquy of Hamlet because the coconut oil would have prevented my lips from being glued together. Sri Ramakrishna in a magnificent simile says that we cannot love God, we cannot put others first or forget ourselves in the welfare of all those around us, because our heart is glued so that not a drop of love can come out of it. Love circulates inside, wanting to flow out; but there is not a pinprick of a hole that is not completely glued up by the fruit of the ego, which is much bigger than the biggest jackfruit to be seen in Kerala. If we want to release our capacity to love all those around us and find the joy of selfless living as members of our family, our community, our society, then we should apply the oil of renunciation and dispassion so that we will not get stuck in the glue of the ego.

It is most important to remember that all of us have this inborn capacity to love. We don’t have to go to India or any other place to learn to love. Love is right within us; what prevents us from letting it flow outward to everyone around us, flooding our home and our community with happiness, is the glue of the ego which is so sticky that it hinders any attempt to love.

What is the evidence that we are detaching ourselves from our ego, that we are making our mind serene, that we are going beyond separateness? The word Sri Krishna uses is nirdvandva: ‘without duality,’ free from the pairs of opposites. As long as we see life divided into good and bad, right and wrong, success and defeat, birth and death, as long as we groan under the tyranny of likes and dislikes, always seeking the pleasant and avoiding the unpleasant, so long will our mind be like a sea that is agitated all the time.

Yesterday I happened to remember something my grandmother did that shows how she could change her likes and dislikes at will. Many years ago, in our village, one of my uncles wanted to marry into a family which his family did not approve of on very legitimate grounds. Seldom in our village did any marriage take place without both families agreeing, and my uncle’s choice caused a good deal of agitation. My granny, who was quite fond of my uncle, told him, “This choice of yours is making all your people unhappy. Tomorrow your wife has got to come and meet them, and she is not going to be happy when they are unhappy.” She tried all kinds of persuasive ways to get my uncle to choose another girl and let the girl choose another man, but it was springtime, and all of her persuasion fell on deaf ears. They married, even though everybody in his family showed their disapproval. On the very day when the marriage took place, when all the others were sulking, my grandmother dropped all her opposition and disapproval and went up to them saying, “You are both meant for each other.” She had tried her level best to dissuade my uncle in the interests of the whole family, but when she saw that they wanted each other so much, she immediately dropped her opposition. This is how freedom comes, even in attitudes. There are times when we feel that we should oppose a certain course of action, but when we find there is another side to it, a better side, we should be able to drop our opposition immediately. There are few people capable of this, but through the practice of meditation, we can all develop this capacity to change our likes and dislikes at will.

How to go beyond likes and dislikes in everyday living is an immediate problem. For those of us who are living with our families and friends, and who have wide contacts, I think reducing self-will and going beyond likes and dislikes is an easy job because of the many opportunities we receive for putting others first. Arjuna has four brothers, and Sri Krishna reminds him that five brothers all living together should have ample opportunity for overcoming likes and dislikes. In our own case, therefore, it is good to put the needs of those around us first in matters like food, recreation, and of course comforts and conveniences. We can find opportunities even in little things. We want to go to one movie and our friend wants to go to another. His may be more likely to suit both of us, but we have read all about our movie: the stars are our favorites, and the music is by someone we like. There are all sorts of ways we can support our arguments, but all we have to say is, “I would very much enjoy going to this movie, but I’d rather go with you to the other movie which you will enjoy.” This is an excellent spiritual discipline.

SRI KRISHNA: 4. Children say that knowledge and action are different, but the wise see them as the same. The person who is established in one path will attain the rewards of both.

Sri Krishna is making a statement here about people who think that knowledge and action are different. People who talk about wisdom but are not able to translate it into their daily life are children, says Sri Krishna. If we have spiritual wisdom, it has to show itself in our daily living. There is no condemnation in this; the Lord, very compassionately, looks upon us as not fully grown up when we talk about the spiritual life yet yield to our self-will, have difficulties in our personal relationships, and are unable to exercise reasonable government over our senses.

St. Francis of Assisi expressed this same truth when he said that our knowledge is as deep as our action. In the Upanishads, the sages make a useful distinction between two kinds of knowledge. One, called apara, is intellectual knowledge, which is useful for living in the world and manipulating our physical environment but is of little help in transforming our character, conduct, and consciousness. The other, called para, is spiritual wisdom. This spiritual wisdom is directly connected with the will, and shines radiantly through our every action.

Intellectual knowledge is unfortunately not readily transformed into everyday action. Take, for example, smoking. We have such alarming evidence of the causal connection between smoking and cancer, yet there are millions of educated people, quite aware of this connection, who still continue to smoke because they cannot give it up. Even in hospitals we see many of the patients, who have come to be cured, smoking while sitting in the waiting room. I, for one, do not understand why cigarettes are sold in hospitals. This is the contradiction between intellectual knowledge and action. Intellectual knowledge, apara, does not seep into and transform the deeper recesses of our consciousness.

Contrasted with apara is para, spiritual wisdom. As our meditation deepens, we can ask the Lord, who is our real Self, “Let this craving fall away from me,” and it falls away. This is the miracle of meditation. When we have gone sufficiently deep, many old cravings fall away without any violence done to ourselves; as our desires become unified, they are withdrawn from lesser cravings.

All of us would like to be more loving, but we cannot love those around us more until we have learned to withdraw our love from material things. Victims of money, who are always thinking about money, are not capable of loving their families, their friends, or anyone else. People who are on drugs are not capable of giving their complete love and loyalty to another. Every little desire for pleasure or power diminishes our capacity to love. Desire is the raw material of love.

The mind is really an endless series of desires. To desire, to desire, to desire – this is the nature of the mind. In our attempt to recall our love from all the wasteful channels into which we have allowed it to go, and to still the continual waves of desire agitating our consciousness, the intellect is of no avail at all. Whether it is the frantic pursuit of money, material possessions, pleasure, power, or drugs, the problem is the same: we are caught in these cravings as long as we do not have access to our deeper resources. In meditation we develop the spiritual wisdom and the strength of will to recall our desires little by little. Our desires are like untrained puppies; they will run down any blind alley we pass. We may be walking down Telegraph Avenue; they see a blind alley and immediately they’re off and we don’t know how to call them back. In meditation, we can actually train our desires by telling them, “When we are on the Avenue, we keep on the Avenue. We don’t go down side streets.”

Little, little desires, thousands of them – for this dress, for that car, for this candy, for that prize – by themselves weigh only a little, but when put together, they amount to a large sum. All these little desires, every day, drain our vital capacity to love.

To quote the bank advertisement, “It all adds up”: a few pennies here, a few pennies there, collected every day. While we were living on the Blue Mountain in India, we noticed that our local bank there had a very homely arrangement for collecting funds from the villagers. Poor villagers have very little to save, only a few copper pennies at most. To encourage them to deposit even these few pennies every day, the bank employed a boy who would go into the village to their homes, collect their few coppers, and enter the total in their account. In meditation it is the same: when the Lord comes, we can say, “We are no great mystic, but a few times today we have tried to be patient. A few times today we have tried to put our family first. A few times today we have resisted some little craving for personal satisfaction.” And the Lord will say, “Give me your coppers.” This is how most of us are going to lead the spiritual life for a long time. It’s mostly in coppers. But in these innumerable little acts of selflessness lies spiritual growth, which over a long period can transform every one of us into a loving and spiritual person.

When we meditate on an inspirational passage, repeating it every day in the depths of our consciousness, we will find that it releases our inner resources of spiritual wisdom. When, for example, we meditate on the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, “It is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,” we find in our daily relationships that we are not getting angry any more, that we are not being resentful, that we are beginning to forgive and forget. This transformation of character, conduct, and consciousness comes naturally to us when we begin to draw upon the power released in meditation.

SRI KRISHNA: 5. The goal of wisdom and the goal of service are the same. If a man fails to see that knowledge and action are one, he is blind.

6. Perfect renunciation is difficult to attain without performing action. But the wise, who follow the path of selfless service, quickly reach Brahman.

The search for transcendental wisdom through negation of the world, and the path of karma yoga or a life of selfless action in the world, are both based on the practice of meditation, and both lead ultimately to the same goal. But Sri Krishna points out that the path of karma yoga is the easier of the two. Renunciation of the world, or rather of our selfish attachment to the world, is impossible for the vast majority of us without first practicing the disciplines of selfless action and meditation. Often we hear people, particularly the young, saying they want to lead the spiritual life and, therefore, have dropped out of school, quit their job, moved away from their family, and are living in the woods. They hope this will enable them to pursue their spiritual goal in peace. But the only barrier between the Lord and ourselves is our self-will, called ahamkara in Sanskrit. There is no other barrier, and the whole purpose of spiritual living is somehow to break through this barrier, which can assume gigantic proportions in our modern world. To eliminate our self-will, we need the salutary context of our family, our friends, our campus, and our society. Friends and family are not always easy to be with, but they give us the much-needed opportunity for rubbing off the angles and corners of our self-will little by little, in the innumerable acts of give-and-take in everyday life.

When we were living on the Blue Mountain in India, we ran into a young fellow from the Northwest who used to come to our place now and then and had become very fond of us. He had led a very lonely life: if ever there was a lone spiritual wolf, it was he. He used to avoid people completely, staying in lonely places so as not to come in contact with them. Sometimes he would twit me affectionately for always being with people, and would invite me to go on long walks to see the trees and hills. But even though I admire a beautiful landscape, I pleaded guilty to the charge of being more fond of people than of trees: I didn’t try to argue with him when he praised the virtue of solitude, but one day a suitable opportunity presented itself, and I explained my point of view.

He was fond of talking about “flower power” and about being able naturally to love everybody. One day he was working in the garden in the midst of the flowers with the gardener’s son, who was given to fist power. There was some altercation between them, and the gardener’s son, being a simple boy, took a spade and threatened our young friend, who retaliated by threatening him with the hoe. Someone separated them before they could do each other any harm, and our young friend came to us so agitated that his hands were trembling. His teeth were clenched and he was bursting with fury. Instead of arguing with him, I asked him to join us at dinner. It is difficult to be furious when eating, and this gave him a little time to cool down. After he had finished his dinner, I said, “What happened to all your flower language? What happened to all your love? Why didn’t you show him the universal love that you are ­capable of?”

He didn’t know what to answer. He said, “You tell me what happened.”

I said, “You are not used to people. You have never had the opportunity of living together with people who provoke you. You haven’t learned to grit your teeth, repeat the mantram, stand firm, and move closer to people when they provoke you. It takes a man to do this. To be angry, to take a spade and hit the other person – that is not worthy of a human being.”

He said, “How do you learn to do this?”

“Oh,” I said, “by living with people like you!”

Even for a deeply spiritual person, selfless action is necessary for a long, long time. Today our troubled world is clamoring for action from each of us to help resolve the dilemmas with which it is faced. The Gita must be interpreted in accordance with the times in which we live, and in our age, we all must make a contribution to the world. It is not the time for us to “do our own thing”; it is the time to make selfless action a part of our spiritual way. Those who try to drop out of life, to turn their backs upon society, are depriving the world of the contribution they can make. Without being the president of the country or the prime minister, even in our own small life, in our home, with our neighbors, on our campus, in our town, all of us can make a real contribution to peace by not being violent under any circumstances and learning to live in harmony even with those who may cause trouble to us.

Even if there is one person in the home who is really selfless, he or she – usually she – helps everyone else in becoming selfless. I never tire of pointing out that the noblest role of the woman is to be the selfless support of everyone around her, whether as a mother or wife, as a sister or niece. Through my simple eyes, any home is beautiful where there is a woman looking with love at all those around her, forgetting her own self-will and separateness in supporting those around her. Even though a home may have carpets from Bokhara, candelabra from Italy, and all the conveniences of modern civilization, if the woman is not selfless, I do not see beauty in the home.

Meditation and selfless action go hand in hand. When we try to live more for others than for ourselves, this will deepen our meditation. When we deepen our meditation, more and more energy will be released with which we can help others.

SRI KRISHNA: 7. Those who follow the path of service, who have completely purified themselves and conquered the senses and self-will, who see the Self in all creatures, are untouched by any action they may perform.

8–9. The person whose consciousness is unified thinks, “I am always the instrument.” He is aware of this truth even while seeing or hearing, touching or smelling; eating, moving about, or sleeping; breathing or speaking, letting go or holding on, even opening or closing the eyes. He understands that these are the movements of the senses among sense objects.

In our villages in Kerala, bags of rice, water jars, and other heavy burdens are often carried on the head. Villagers will walk long distances to market with their produce balanced on their heads. After carrying a bag of rice for many miles, when they want to rest, they find it difficult to sit down, take the burden from their heads, and then, after resting, put it back on their heads and get up again. So by the side of the rugged country roads they have constructed stone parapets, called athani in my mother tongue, which are about the height of a person’s head. When I have been carrying a heavy burden for a few miles, I come to a stone parapet, and all I have to do is move close to the athani, nod my head, and the bag of rice will slide onto the wall. I can lie down and rest peacefully, and when I have refreshed myself, I can go back to the slab, give the bundle a little push, and balance it on my head again.

Vallathol Narayana Menon, a Malayali poet who was a Hindu, but who was deeply in love with Jesus as a divine incarnation, wrote a poem about Mary Magdalene in which he uses this image of the athani. In this beautiful poem in my mother tongue, with the title “Magdalana Mariyam,” Jesus tells Mary: “Why do you carry the load of your guilt, the burden of your sins on your head? I am here, like the stone parapet. Don’t stand far away. Come close to me; keep your head right near me, and when you nod your head, I am ready to take your burden.”

This is an experience that will come to all of us when we lead the spiritual life and are prepared to live for others around us. Sometimes our problems will be greater, sometimes the challenges will be immense, but the Lord will always say from within, “I am the stone parapet. I am your support. Shift your burden to me.” My spiritual teacher, my grandmother, who had more than her share of problems – partly because she had me on her hands – was never oppressed by her burden nor trapped in action and the results of action. When she had a great problem facing her, all that she had to do was close her eyes, surrender herself to the Lord, and then come back to us with wisdom, love, and the skill to help me or the family solve the problem.

The God-filled person, who is an instrument in the hands of the Lord, doesn’t get discouraged or fatigued. He is so completely identified with the Atman, so sure that the Lord is the operator, that he does not get entangled at all in the interplay of senses and sense objects, in which all of us are caught when we live for ourselves. His every action is done with utter detachment, as an offering to the Lord. Even when such a person eats, it is not for the sake of satisfying the palate; it is for the sake of serving the Lord. When we eat nourishing food as an offering unto the Lord, it strengthens the body, the mind, and the intellect. Similarly, we can keep our body strong and healthy with exercise so that it can be used for many years in selfless service.

We have another opportunity to move closer to the Lord when we go to sleep repeating the holy name. Between the last waking moment and the first moment of sleep there is an arrow’s entry into the depths of our subconscious, into which the name of the Lord, whether it is Jesus or Rama, can enter if we keep repeating it as we go to sleep. It takes some effort and perseverance, but when we have learned to fall asleep in the mantram, throughout the night the healing process continues in our sleep, and we wake up refreshed in body, mind, and spirit.

Every activity of ours should be performed as a service to the Lord if we are to become completely united with him. No harsh word, no sarcastic crack, no resentful look should come from us. We can see how demanding the Lord is: even the opening and closing of our eyes should be done with love. In all our little acts, we should come to feel that we are an instrument of the Lord. My grandmother used to say that even in our dreams we should not have resentful thoughts or hostile attitudes toward anybody. We can come to have such mastery over our consciousness that even in our sleep we reach the state where nothing but love and the awareness of unity pervades us.

SRI KRISHNA: 10. Those who have surrendered all selfish attachments in work to the Lord are like the leaf of a lotus floating clean and dry in water. Sin cannot touch them.

The lotus is a favorite flower in the Sanskrit scriptures, both Hindu and Buddhist. Pankaja, ‘born in the mud,’ is one of the Sanskrit names for this flower which grows abundantly in the pools and lakes of India. Born in the mud and dirt at the bottom of the pool, the lotus grows up through the water, rises above its surface, and blossoms towards the sun. The leaf of the lotus, which floats on the surface of the water, is a large one. In the villages, it is often used as a plate because it is waterproof; you can pour water on it and the water will not soak through the leaf but will just run off. Similarly, when we surrender ourselves to the Lord and become his instruments for carrying on selfless service, even though difficulties are sure to come to us, they will not cling to us; we will be able to face challenges without fatigue, tension, or diffidence.

SRI KRISHNA: 11. Those who follow the path of service renounce their selfish attachments, and work with body, senses, and mind for the sake of self-purification.

12. The man whose consciousness is unified abandons all attachment to the results of actions and attains supreme peace. But the man whose desires are fragmented, and who is selfishly attached to the results of his work, is bound in all he does.

All of us begin the spiritual life with mixed motives. Perhaps we perceive dimly that selfless action is a sure way of removing the barrier between ourselves and the Lord, and we want to contribute to the welfare of those around us; but at the same time, we are concerned with ensuring our own private advantage. It takes quite a while for most of us to become fully aware that our welfare is included in the welfare of all and to realize that when we are working for everybody, we are also ensuring our own well-being.

To imagine that we are going to learn the secret of selfless action in a few months, or even years, is being a little optimistic. Even sincere philanthropists, who do a lot of good for the world, are sometimes motivated by personal drives. I, for one, do not think it possible for anyone to become completely selfless in action without the practice of meditation. It is rather easy to think that we are living for others and contributing to their welfare, but very often we may not even know what the needs of others are. In order to become aware of the needs of those around us, to become sensitive to the difficulties they face, we must minimize our obsession with ourselves. This requires the discipline of meditation, which enables us gradually to reduce self-will and preoccupation with our private needs.

It is all right for a child to be very aware of its needs and unaware of the needs of others, but for grown-up people like you and me to be conscious only of our wants and blind to those of others puts us back in the nursery. Sometimes I think that whether or not we have children, the nursery is an essential component of the modern home. When we are designing our house we shouldn’t forget to include a nursery, into which we can crawl whenever we lose our adulthood and maturity and begin to brood upon ourselves. On such occasions we can simply crawl into the kiddie corral and put up a little sign, “Spoil me or spank me.” Even brilliant intellectuals and people who are very effective in action sometimes crawl into their kiddie corral and do not know how to come out at all. For this reason, I would question whether it is possible to lead the spiritual life without being able to draw from a deeper source of power the energy we need to reduce our self-will. Meditation is the method we can use to reach these inner resources which are hidden deep in our consciousness. It is the bridge from the individual to the universal, from the ephemeral to the eternal, from the human to the divine.

We all have to begin the spiritual life with action that is partly egoistic, partly egoless, and none of us need be discouraged when we find, in the early days of our sadhana, that there is some motive of enlightened self-interest driving us on to action. Without this motive in the beginning, action may be difficult. But even though we may act partly for selfish reasons, we must make sure our action is not at the expense of other people. Any occupation harmful to others is not right occupation. Take, for example, the field of advertising. Though advertising of cigarettes has gone off television, we can see the increased vehemence of the advertiser’s campaign on all the roadsides. Not content with billboards, the companies are giving out sample cigarettes on the streets. The other evening, coming back from San Francisco, we were grieved to see young girls distributing free cigarettes. Just imagine the cupidity of the human being: when people walking by were offered attractive cartons of cigarettes by these nicely dressed girls, they would turn and go out of their way to take them. Even though these girls are not doing this with any ill will, even though it may be just a job to them, they are going to acquire a certain load of karma because they are actually tempting people to get cancer. They are selling cancer to the people around them. Every day we have to ask ourselves how much of our life and work is for the welfare of mankind. If it is to the detriment of anyone, it does not matter how much money we are making, or how much power the job is bringing us; it is much better to live and die in poverty than to continue working at such a job.

When we are driven by the motive for personal profit, continually working for money, power, and prestige, anxiety takes a heavy toll on the nervous system. It is not work that tires us, but profit-motivated work: always doing work we like and avoiding work we dislike. It is the preoccupation with results that makes us tense and deprives us of sleep. When we are enmeshed in the results, anxious whether we will fail or win, our very anxiety exhausts us. For the majority of us, uncertainty is worse than disaster. Disaster comes to us only rarely; worry depletes us often. We never know whether we are going to get a brick or a bouquet. If we knew for certain it would be a brick, there would be no anxiety. We would just say, “Throw it and be done with it.” For those who have become aware of the Lord, however, it is all the same whether it is brick or bouquet, praise or censure, success or defeat. These will neither intoxicate them nor discourage them. When we can say, “Whatever disasters come, we will not be afraid because the Lord is within us,” then this resoluteness and faith will enable us to work in complete security, free from tension, agitation, and fear of defeat. The person who works with this attitude is always at peace, always secure, because he is not anxious about the results of his action.

SRI KRISHNA: 13. Those who are self-controlled, who through discrimination have renounced attachment in all their deeds, live content in the city of nine gates. They are not driven to act, nor do they involve others in action.

If you want to enjoy life, you have to renounce, not the world, but your ego. If you really want to have a merry time, all you need do is take out your ego and hide it where nobody will be able to find it. Unfortunately, the ego usually does not want to be thrown away; every time you try to throw it away it will come back to you.

No amount of trying to throw it away, no amount of resolving to be completely selfless from this moment on, is going to rid us of this unwanted ego-burden. Only by gradually learning to think about others, to love others more than we love ourselves and serve them rather than our own self-interest, can we finally get rid of the ego. By some strange magic, the more we love others, the wider we extend the circle of our love, the less the ego seems to like us; and one day, when we forget ourselves entirely, it disappears. Then we are free of it once and for all.

In the second line of the verse, there is the dryly humorous description of the body as the little town with nine gates. Our eyes are two wide-open gates through which sights are marching in procession. Our ears are two gates where sounds are coming through in long, long queues. Most of us are firmly convinced that we are the body; we are not aware that the body is just the little city in which we dwell. Because we identify others as well as ourselves with the body, we go through life without ever really seeing those around us. We do not even really get to know our own dear ones. Even after years of marriage, we have never seen our partner. Living with the members of our family all our life, we pass out of this world without even having seen them as they really are: as the Atman, the pure, perfect dweller within the body.

SRI KRISHNA: 14. Neither self-will, nor actions, nor the union of action and result comes from the Lord of this world. They arise from ignorance of our own nature.

15. The Lord does not partake in the good and evil deeds of any person. When wisdom is obscured by ignorance, a person’s judgment is clouded.

Though we may have committed many mistakes in life, as most of us do in our ignorance, the Lord will never desert us. Sri Krishna is telling us with great simplicity: “I love everyone because I am in everyone. How can I hate anyone, even though he commits mistakes, when I am in that person?” We often forget in dealing with people who have gone astray that the Lord continues to dwell in them even though they have made mistake after mistake. It is a great art to be able to resist wrongdoing without withdrawing our love from the wrongdoer. To be able to love someone very deeply and yet resist firmly the wrong that person may be doing us out of ignorance is one of the most important arts we can learn in life. Such people cannot resist for long when we use the spiritual technique of embracing them with all our love while still resisting what is selfish in them. Under no circumstances should we condemn people even if they are being selfish and self-willed. It serves no purpose to attack them. The only thing to do is to love and respect them because the Lord is present in them, and to resist them nonviolently, bearing patiently whatever suffering they may be inflicting upon us in their ignorance.

Mistakes are a natural part of growing up, and there is no need to brood over the sins of the past. The purpose of making a mistake is to learn not to make that mistake again. As my grandmother used to tell the young girls in my ancestral home when they began to work in the kitchen, we can all expect to do a little spilling and burning in order to learn to cook. Even though we have a certain margin for error, the sooner we can learn from our mistakes, the less suffering we will have to undergo in life. Mistakes are inevitably followed by consequences. The consequences of a mistake may last for many years, and in making a major decision, many of us are prone to overcalculate the satisfaction we are going to get out of it and overlook the suffering involved for ourselves as well as others. We often forget that the action we are contemplating contains the seed of its result. We try to connect wrong means with right ends, which will never work. Right ends are included in right means; wrong ends are included naturally in wrong means.

SRI KRISHNA: 16. But ignorance is destroyed by knowledge of the Self within. The light of this knowledge shines like the sunrise; it reveals the supreme Brahman.

17. The person who has cast off all sin through this knowledge, whose mind is absorbed in the Lord, and who is completely established in the Lord as his one goal and refuge, is never born again.

When our self-will dies completely, when our separateness is extinguished completely, then we see the splendor of the Lord.

Yesterday we had a triune celebration at Ramagiri. It was Easter, the wedding reception of our dear friends Steve and Debbie, and also the Kerala New Year. I had forgotten all about New Year, so I was a little surprised when I came out of our room after meditation on Sunday morning and found our two little nieces waiting on either side of the door. I had my red knit cap on. They said, “Close your eyes, uncle.” I closed my eyes like an obedient uncle, and they pulled the wool over them. Taking my hands, they led me into their room and had me sit down. Then they asked, “Would you like to see the Lord?”

“Very much,” I replied.

“Then open your eyes!”

I did, and found myself looking into a mirror all beautifully decorated with fruits and flowers. The face I saw was my own.

This is the Kerala tradition, in which all members of the family are led to a mirror and reminded that the face they see there is the Lord’s. Once this tradition has seeped into our consciousness, it is enough for a woman in the home – mother, sister, wife, or niece – just to say in a very loving voice when we are getting angry: “Don’t you remember where you saw the Lord on New Year’s Day?” I have seen angry people breaking out in angelic smiles when they heard this. It is a beautiful thing to remind those who are getting angry that they are really trying to prevent the Lord within them from looking out through their eyes.

In order to see the Lord within we must do what the Bible commands us: “Be still and know that I am God.” This supreme state is stillness of the body, mind, intellect, and, of course, the ego. In the Katha Upanishad the King of Death tells his disciple that when all these have been stilled, that is the highest state, in which he will find the Lord in his own heart and in the heart of everyone around him.

We cannot attain this state as long as we are searching for fulfillment without. It is difficult for us to understand that we are always out, always going on a trip somewhere. Today, when we were coming back from Ramagiri, we saw an unusually large number of hitchhikers with all kinds of sign boards. They have now started making changes on these little placards: formerly it was just “LA” or “SF,” but today we saw one board which read, “Chicago – sister’s wedding.” I thought this was a personal way of getting the message across, something that touches all of us. After all, we have to give him a lift if he is going to attend his sister’s wedding. Then there was a very quiet sign, “East, please.” To me this also was rather personal. Another sign, probably by an Eskimo, just read “North.” Now, if you ever find me with a placard by the roadside, it will read “In.” This is what we do in meditation; we try to recall all our wandering energies back to the original source which is our home.

SRI KRISHNA: 18. Those who possess this wisdom have equal love for all. They see the same Self in a spiritual aspirant and an outcaste, in an elephant, a cow, and a dog.

In the one beautiful word samadarshin – ‘looking upon all equally,’ having equal love for all – the Lord tells us the mark of those who live in God. The person who lives in God will love and respect all, without ever deprecating anybody because he or she is of a different religion, country, race, culture, or sex. Once we have realized the unity of all life, we will be incapable of feeling that we are superior to another, no matter what surface differences there appear to be.

In developing the capacity to love and respect all, we must go beyond superficial gestures. We must learn to be understanding and sympathetic to all. It is easy to appear cosmopolitan, to seem well disposed to all, but deep inside there still may be a tacit sense of superiority – the feeling that our culture, our country, our religion, or our race is greater than someone else’s. Some of the books, for example, that are published about different countries by respected scholars are attempts, whether conscious or unconscious, to deprecate other countries and other cultures simply because they are foreign.

One of the deep causes of agitation in India during the British regime was the quiet pervasion of all levels of society with the attitude that British culture was superior. The worst thing about foreign domination is that it can gradually undermine the self-reliance and self-respect of a nation. Because of these far-reaching consequences of long periods of foreign misrule, it is not surprising that most of the Asian and African countries which have endured colonial governments have a kind of national neurosis. Western nations which have not had the misfortune of being dominated by a foreign power must bear with these nations of Asia and Africa, remembering that because they have been mercilessly exploited, they have the constant suspicion that they are likely to be exploited again.

As Mahatma Gandhi has pointed out, imperialism damages not only the ruled, but the rulers also. Even young Englishmen – often university graduates from Oxford or Cambridge – who came to India with high ideals and the desire to serve would in the course of a decade or so slowly become arrogant and come to believe that they belonged to a superior race, culture, and country. In recalling the dark days of foreign rule, however, we should not forget that many British people tried to make amends during the freedom struggle by joining Mahatma Gandhi to help him in his work. Today there are many British people who have settled down in India as citizens and who love the country as much as they loved England.

We begin the practice of equal love and respect for all right in our home. We need not be afraid or agitated if there are people with different opinions living in the same home. What makes us afraid of opinions opposed to ours, often causing the so-called generation gap, is the tendency to identify ourselves and others with opinions. Just because you happen to be one color and I happen to be another does not mean that we are different; we are just wearing different colored jackets. Similarly with opinions: even if our opinions differ, this is no reason for us not to love and respect one another. Even though there may be differences of opinion between them, each generation can greatly enrich the life of the home. There is a contribution that older people can make with their experience of life, for which there is no substitute. Similarly, young people make a contribution to the home with their vitality and freshness. Children also can add to the life of the home with their innocence; they remind us of the words of Jesus: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.”

In this verse Sri Krishna also refers to animals. We should show love and respect even to animals because the Lord is in them also. I need hardly say how much animals respond to a person who really loves them. Because they understand in some way that we have great love for them, that we are trying to realize the unity that makes us all one, more and more creatures are now coming to Ramagiri. I remember how nervous the jackrabbits were when we first moved to Ramagiri. As soon as we saw a jackrabbit, he would go sit behind a bush and say, “I am a bush.” I used to reply, “If you believe that, all right. I won’t look at you if you don’t want me to.” Then I would go away. They had probably been chased and were afraid. But our people at Ramagiri are extremely loving and particularly solicitous of the welfare of the creatures which live there, and one year has changed the atmosphere of the place considerably. So yesterday, when I saw a jackrabbit and immediately said, “That’s a bush,” he didn’t try to hide. In fact, he might have heard me – jackrabbits have very long ears – because he turned around, came back close to the path, and started performing.

SRI KRISHNA: 19. Such people have conquered separate existence. Their minds are even and reflect the unity and perfection of Brahman.

In order to look with an equal eye of love and respect on all, whether they conduct themselves selfishly or selflessly towards us, we must have the capacity to keep our mind even at all times. In the Gita, Sri Krishna defines the unitive state as evenness of mind (2:48). Now what usually happens to most of us is just the opposite of even-mindedness. As soon as someone pleases us, we begin to get exhilarated; when someone does what we want, there is an automatic sense of satisfaction. On the other hand, when someone says no to us, we immediately get dejected. This constant fluctuation of the mind takes away from our capacity to deal with everyday difficulties. To deal successfully with a difficult situation, all that is usually required is that we preserve our equilibrium and not get agitated. When someone is flying into a rage, it is very easy for us to get angry in return, which can only change things for the worse. Arithmetic tells us there are now two people in a rage. The question is, how has the situation been improved by doubling the number of people in a rage?

When we are getting agitated and angry, the best thing we can do to maintain our equilibrium is to go out for a long, brisk walk repeating the mantram in our mind. In the early days, after going around the block, we will want to come back because we have thought of a sparkling repartee which in our normal state of consciousness we wouldn’t have been able to think of. When we want to come back, knowing what satisfaction our ego is going to get by making one more crack, that is the time to propel ourselves onwards saying the mantram. It is painful, because we have such good things to hit with. It seems a sorry waste. But after we have kept walking for an hour and the rhythm of the footstep, mantram, and breathing has calmed the mind, we will remember some of the nice things about the other person. When we were upset, it was unmitigated evil that we saw embodied before us. But it takes only an hour’s walk, with the repetition of the mantram, to know that the evil is mitigated. If we can control our anger a few times this way, we will be able to remember when people provoke us that even though they are angry now, when they come back to normal they will be good, kind, and loving.

When we are burning with anger, we often conclude that this burning is going to last forever. But if we could quench the flames of anger consuming us and remember that in a little while we will have forgotten our anger, none of us would go to the extreme of moving away from people, which we now often try to do. Moving away is the worst thing to do in case of differences. Alienation deprives both parties of becoming aware of the unity in that relationship, and it weakens both. By strengthening the other person, in contrast, we are also strengthening ourselves. Living in peace and harmony with people who are agitated is one of the greatest services we can render them. Everyone is prepared to move away from people who are troubled, who are angry or afraid, but when troubled people find that we can bear with them and support them, and at the same time guide them by our personal conduct, they respond beautifully with greater love and respect. It is the capacity to bear with people, whatever they do, which is the secret of love.

SRI KRISHNA: 20. They are not elated by good fortune or depressed by bad. With mind established in Brahman, they are free from delusion.

Those rare people who are able to receive good fortune without getting excited and bad fortune without getting depressed, who are able to treat those who are good to them with love and those who are not good to them with love, will never be deluded by the seeming multiplicity of life. When the mind gets agitated, we do not see life as it is, as one. The scriptures say that it is the constant agitation going on in our mind that deludes us into believing that you and I are separate.

The question we may ask is, “If we are to have neither pleasure nor pain in life, are we not likely to become insensitive to the joy of life?” The Gita says this doubt arises from the wrong assumption that in life there is only pleasure and pain and nothing else. One of the fatal weaknesses of the intellect is that it must always cut things up into two classes – everything must be either this or that. Because of this intellectual trap, we may find it difficult to understand that the person who has gone beyond both pleasure and pain lives in abiding joy. The Gita is telling us to go beyond pleasure and pain so that we may come into our legacy, which is the state of continuous joy and security.

To enter this state of abiding joy we must be very vigilant in the early years of our sadhana and often say no to pleasure while welcoming pain with a smile. In this way the nervous system can be reconditioned. Because of the conditioning we have received through the long travail of evolution, we are always looking for what is pleasant in life and trying to run away from what is not pleasant. This is the reaction that has now become inscribed on the nervous system: to the pleasant it says “Good, good,” and to the painful, “Bad, bad.” The Gita does not say we should not go after pleasure. When I first heard this from my grandmother, I really took to the Gita immediately, but I wasn’t expecting what she said next: “The Gita doesn’t say not to go after pleasure; it says that when you go after pleasure you are also going after pain.” It is not possible for most of us to accept this. There is always the distant hope in every one of us that while no other human being has ever succeeded in isolating pleasure, we are going to achieve this magnificent feat and live in a state of pleasure always.

For a long time, sadhana is a reconditioning of the nervous ­system to accept a temporary disappointment, if necessary, when it is for our permanent well-being. Sometimes on the spiritual path, when we want to eat a particular dainty that appeals to us, or when we want to eat a little more than is necessary, we can’t help feeling a little tug at the heart as we walk out of the restaurant. We cannot help thinking that we could as well have stayed on at the table and had five more minutes of pleasure, forgetting that it would probably be followed by five hours of stomachache at night. The right time to get up from the meal is when we want just a little more. This is real artistry, real gourmet judgment: when we find that everything is so good that we would like to have one more helping, we get up and come out.

We should learn this art not only with food, but in all aspects of daily life. Even in personal relationships, when we call on a person or are at a party, we shouldn’t linger until we reach the dregs of the cup. When the party is really bubbling and everyone is saying, “You are the life and soul of the party. Why don’t you stay on?” – that is the time to leave in good dignity. If we can do this, we are living in freedom. To be able to break up the party at its zenith, before the downward curve begins, we must not get caught in it. In everything, we must have the freedom to drop what we are doing at will. We may not get the little pleasures that we have been going after, but we shall gradually find ourselves in the permanent state of joy which is indicated by the mantram Rama.

SRI KRISHNA: 21. Not dependent upon any external support, they have realized the joy of spiritual awareness. With their consciousness unified through the practice of meditation, they live in abiding joy.

When the mind has become even, when we can retain our equanimity in pleasure and pain, friendship and enmity, treating everyone with equal love and respect, we truly have realized the Lord who is enthroned in every heart. Then our love will be given to all those around us without any expectation of return. This is the mark of true love. As the Catholic mystic St. Bernard puts it, “Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love; I love in order that I may love.” The moment we say, “I love you because I want something from you,” it is no longer love; it is a contract.

When we are able to love all those around us and to live only for their welfare, we will find that all our support comes from within. It is when we are expecting something from other people in return that we are leaning on them for our support, but when we do not expect anything in return, and love with all our heart, we are free. We are not dependent upon any external support but derive our support from the Lord within. When we discover that the Lord of Love is ever within us, we have entered into the state of joy and security which Jesus calls the kingdom of heaven within.

This joy and security that knows no end can never come to a person who is dependent upon external circumstances and external stimuli for satisfaction. It is when you become dependent entirely on the Lord within, who is the source of all joy and security, that you become free; and until you have this freedom in some measure, you will not be able to use even material resources wisely. In order to use money or any material resources wisely, you must have no attachments to them. Otherwise you will get caught in them, as can happen when, for example, you start going after money. I often tease a friend who works with the media by saying that one day we hope to make a movie called Leave the Money and Run. “Take the money and run,” as the real title goes, and you run into despair. Leave the money and run, and you run into fulfillment. In order to use any material possession wisely, whether it is a house, a car, or a guitar, you must not be attached to it. When you are greatly attached to a guitar, for example, the guitar will say at the time your term paper is due, “Now is the time for you to strum on me,” and instead of writing your paper you will have to play your guitar.

If we are to enter into a state of unending joy, Sri Krishna says, on the one hand we should not be dependent on any external ­circumstances for our happiness, and on the other, we should be meditating regularly with complete concentration on the Lord who is within us. For a long time, until we break through the surface layers of consciousness, meditation is nothing but arduous discipline. But once we enter the depths of our consciousness, we shall begin to sense the deep peace that is called shanti in Sanskrit. When the tensions of the nervous system are relaxed, there is such profound peace inside that even the body turns over like a little cat and basks in this newfound joy.

SRI KRISHNA: 22. Pleasures conceived in the world of the senses have a beginning and an end and give birth to misery, Kaunteya. The wise do not look for happiness in them.

He or she is not wise who goes after any pleasure which has a beginning and an end. Our need is for joy that knows neither beginning nor end, for the eternal joy called Rama in Sanskrit. No lasting joy, no lasting security can be ours if we pursue finite things, things that pass away.

A little pleasure will satisfy us as long as we are living on the surface level of consciousness, but when we break through to the deeper recesses of our consciousness, our capacity for joy is unlimited. If we just keep throwing little pleasures inside, they will be completely lost in that vast space that is the world within. People with access to deeper consciousness, with deeper states of awareness open to them, will not take seriously the blandishments of material possessions, because they know that these cannot satisfy them.

It takes a long time for most of us to learn that pleasure is not permanent. If we go to the beach on days when the sea is stormy, we sometimes find big footballs of foam and froth. We are tempted to pick them up and say, “Why not bring these home to play soccer with?” They look very round and inviting, but if we pick up a big foam bubble in the hope of keeping it permanently, by the time we get it home, it has vanished. This is the way pleasure slips through our fingers: when we are almost sure we have got it right here in our palm, it vanishes.

In the early years of our life, it is permissible to have the attitude that pleasure is something we can have always. But the Gita warns us to learn as quickly as we can that pleasure is impermanent. It is like the bubble that is blown away, dissolving immediately. The sooner we are able to learn this lesson in life, the less suffering we will be forced to undergo. The Gita is not talking only about the situation as it existed in India twenty-five hundred years ago, but about contemporary problems. What it says will always be found valid, because wherever we live, our fundamental need is to find within ourselves the Lord of Love who is the source of all joy and security.

The timelessness of the Gita was brought home to me today as I was reading an article about a recent convention of psychologists in San Francisco. One of the major concerns of the psychologists and medical doctors attending the conference is the increase in the use of “legal psychoactive” drugs, such as tranquilizers. Many patients who do not have an organic illness go to their doctors because of emotional problems and are given drugs which will calm them, help them sleep better, or stimulate them. As these psychologists point out, this chemical therapy is based partly on the assumption that we should all be in a state of continuous pleasure, untroubled by stress. The consequences of taking these drugs are far-reaching, and dependence upon them actually takes away from the capacity to deal with the problems of life. Also, dependence upon drugs by the older generation can influence their children to seek instant happiness through the more powerful mind-altering drugs.

SRI KRISHNA: 23. Those who overcome the impulse of lust and anger which arises in the body are made whole and live in joy.

24. They find their joy, their rest, and their light completely within themselves. They live in freedom and become united with the Lord.

This is the same truth conveyed by Jesus when he tells us the kingdom of heaven is within. He is warning us not to roam the outer world looking for security. We can only find security by entering the world within, and then we shall find we can function with complete freedom in the outer world.

SRI KRISHNA: 25. With all their conflicts healed and all their sins removed, the holy sages work for the good of all beings, and attain the nirvana of Brahman.

In this verse, the word nirvana is used to indicate the goal towards which, according to the founders of the great religions of the world, all creation is moving. The mystics are not theorizing when they declare that the supreme goal of life is to become aware of the indivisible unity that is the Divine Ground of existence. They are drawing upon their own personal experience in which they have realized that all life is one.

The source of all sorrow lies in trying to resist our evolution towards this goal by maintaining our own separateness. It does not take much depth of observation, even for ordinary people like us, to discover that the person who does not merge his or her welfare into that of the family is usually very insecure, and so is the family in which that person lives. If, for example, husband and wife try to compete with each other and maintain their separateness, they make themselves miserable, their children miserable, and even their locality miserable. In contrast, if we look at people who are secure, loved, and respected wherever they go, we usually find that they are able to base their action on an awareness that the interests of those around them are more important than their own individual interests. When I forget myself in the joy of those around me, I am fulfilling myself. It is when I try to maintain my separateness that I become more and more insecure, because my innate need, my deep, driving need, is to realize my oneness with all life.

This concept of the unity of all life is not peculiar to the mystics. Even the progress of science has brought us today very close to discovering that the welfare of the whole world is necessary if all of us are to live in peace and goodwill. The science of ecology has its basis in the spiritual truth that all life is one. We are now beginning to discover that there is a close relationship not only between human beings and animals, but among trees, land, water, and air as well, and that we cannot try to promote our own interests at the expense of even the trees. Nirvana, therefore, is not a concept applicable only to ancient India. It is a concept which thoughtful people all over the world are beginning to appreciate.

In Hinduism and Buddhism, where reincarnation is a working proposition and not just a philosophical theory, and the law of karma is taken to be as infallible as the law of gravity, the whole responsibility of my development is thrown on my own shoulders. I have sometimes been asked whether the law of karma makes people fatalistic. It is just the opposite. The law of karma says that no matter what context I find myself in, it is neither my parents, nor my science teacher, nor the mailman, but I alone who have brought myself into this state because of my past actions. Instead of trapping me in a fatalistic snare, this gives me freedom. Because I alone have brought myself into my present condition, I myself, by working hard and striving earnestly, can reach the supreme state which is nirvana.

Until we reach the unitive state, however, we have to continue to come back, life after life, to this world of separateness. In the Tibetan Book of the Dead, there is a sensible, scientific, and dryly humorous presentation of exactly what takes place in the process of rebirth. According to this description, there is a period between two lives where we wait in a place called Bardo, which is very much like a big, crowded bus depot. Between one life and another, we have to sit and wait to get the right context for rebirth. If I have been lacking in respect to my parents, I have to be born into a situation where my children will show me the same lack of respect. This is the law. We can’t blame Sri Krishna and complain, “Why have you made me the parent of children who don’t respect me?” Whatever we have given with one hand we must receive with the other. I have to get a son who drops out of college, a daughter who goes to Europe and spends the rest of her life skiing, and another daughter who goes to Mexico and learns to make pottery. It is not an easy combination to get: a Mexican potter, a Swiss ski buff, and a university dropout. Not many homes have this unusual combination. India is ruled out; Africa is ruled out. We slowly come to ask, “What is that state within two hours of snow, university, and Mexico?” By elimination comes the answer, “California!”

Bardo is a kind of cosmic waiting room where, after they have shed the body, people just sit, as we sit at a bus depot. Some time ago we went to a big bus depot in Oakland. There were buses leaving for many different places, and people of all kinds seated on the benches waiting to hear their particular bus called. A disembodied voice calls out over the loudspeaker, “Reno Special leaving at Gate 9.” Not everybody jumps up when the man announces the Reno bus; it is only those with the gambling samskara who immediately jump up and tell the others, “Stick with me; I’ve got a system.” This small group, who have bought their special Reno packet that contains fare, room, and gambling tokens, queue up and get on the bus. Similarly, in Bardo, those with anger samskaras have a special bus; they will be born into times which are propitious for bringing their samskaras into play. In the Hindu scriptures, our own age is called Kaliyuga, the Age of Anger. Everybody is angry about something or other, against somebody or other, and in such an age, it is not difficult to get a suitable context for the anger samskara.

Often I remind our young people to show particular consideration for their parents’ weaknesses because often the children suffer from the same weaknesses. Usually, the very defect we suffer from annoys us when we see it in another person. For this reason we should bear with older people, with our parents, and with others who suffer from our own infirmities. It is by supporting such people in moments of stress that we can use even unfavorable samskaras to make greater progress on the spiritual path.

The practice of meditation has been described marvelously as taking our evolution into our own hands. Instead of waiting for the forces of evolution to buffet us for the next million years and make us selfless, we say, “Let me try during this very life to take my destiny in my hands and, by working at my life day in and day out, remove every particle of selfishness from my consciousness so that I may become aware of the unity of life.” There are rare creatures who catch fire when presented with this goal, and they will give everything they have to the pursuit of it. Patanjali says that it is this enthusiastic, hardworking person who will attain the goal. Success in meditation comes not to those whose horoscope is right or who live in the perfect place and era, but to those who grit their teeth and work at it all the time. We need not be born under Capricorn, or live in the Golden Age, to attain the supreme goal. In any age, any context, we can, through the practice of meditation, realize the unity of life and fulfill the goal of human evolution. No matter what context we find ourselves in, what samskaras we labor under, or what our horoscope may read, we can always redirect our lives to the goal, because our Atman, or real personality, is eternal, immutable, and infinite.

SRI KRISHNA: 26. Those who have broken out of the bondage of selfish desire and anger through constant effort, who have gained complete control over their minds and realized the Self, are forever established in the nirvana of Brahman.

Sri Krishna uses the word brahmanirvana to refer to that supreme goal which Jesus calls “the kingdom of heaven within.” In order to reach this state, there are two obstacles which must be overcome. The first is selfish desire, which drives me to seek my own personal profit, prestige, and power, if necessary at the expense of those around me. The Buddha calls this tanha, the fierce thirst which consumes me and drives me often to be at loggerheads with all those around me. The second obstacle is anger. Wherever there is the fierce thirst for separateness, for selfish satisfaction, there is bound to be anger. Kama and krodha, selfish desire and anger, go together, because when I have a fierce thirst for my personal aggrandizement, and you have a fierce thirst for your personal aggrandizement, it is inevitable that we will clash.

In most estrangements, not only individual but even international, there is this question of my interests against your interests, my prosperity against your prosperity. Prosperity is one and indivisible. Peace is one and indivisible. We are being told more and more by thoughtful leaders all over the world that peace is necessary for the whole world, that it is impossible to have war in one corner of the world and maintain peace elsewhere. It is impossible, too, to have real prosperity in one country and starvation in another. If we start a fire in the kitchen, it is only a matter of time before it will spread to the bedroom and finally to the entire home. The central truth of the Gita, that all life is one, is applicable not only to ancient India; this truth is being rediscovered here and now, and if we do not act upon it, it is at our peril.

To overcome selfish desires and anger, we have to begin to be more loving in our own home. It is here that the seeds of war begin to grow. In a home where there is friction, where there is the clash of separateness, there is a little war going on. It may not be the Thirty Years War or the World War of 1914–18, but it is a war nonetheless. It breaks out at breakfast. There may be a truce at lunch, but guerilla warfare can rage quietly in the kitchen, and again battle lines are drawn at dinner. Sometimes, even though there may not be an actual outbreak of hostility, there is a kind of cold war carried on. War is born in the mind: first it comes to our hearts, then to our homes, then to our community, and finally to our world. This is the nature of war. We have only to observe the little state of warfare in homes to see the appropriateness of the Gita’s message that war rages fundamentally in the human heart, between what is selfish and what is selfless, impure and pure, demonic and divine. When the Gita talks about warfare, it is the war that rages in the human breast, and in this battle, all of us have the choice to identify ourselves either with the forces of light or with the forces of darkness. This is the choice that we all have, in whatever country, community, or context we may live.

SRI KRISHNA: 27–28. Having closed their eyes in meditation and focused their attention on the center of spiritual consciousness, their breathing becomes even. The wise man or woman among these, who has controlled body, senses, and mind, who is dedicated to the attainment of liberation and has gone beyond selfish desire, fear, and anger, lives in freedom.

These two verses describe the state of samadhi insofar as it can be expressed in words. Sri Krishna uses the word mukta, ‘free,’ to describe the person who has attained the supreme state of samadhi. He or she alone lives in freedom who has reached this unitive state, in which he or she knows that all life is one and has the will and wisdom to live in harmony with it. In order to live in complete freedom, which is the goal of the spiritual life, we should not be dependent upon any external object for our security, joy, and fulfillment. This is not a plea for poverty, which can be debilitating and degrading. It is a plea for being free from selfish attachments to our environment. This is the state of complete freedom that we enter in samadhi, the climax of meditation, when the windows of the senses close completely as a result of long spiritual discipline.

There is also a reference here to what happens to the eyes in deepening meditation. As our mind becomes quieter and our security begins to increase, the eyes become still, bright, and beautiful. It is an amazing commentary on our modern civilization that if we go to almost any store we will find a special section devoted to aids for eye-­beautification, with a long row of all kinds of little bottles and brushes containing things to put around the eyes. When I first came to this country I wasn’t used to these things, and whenever I saw those false eyelashes, Christine had to remind me not to stare. One day when I was riding on the cable car in San Francisco, I saw sitting in front of me a very attractive girl with some bluish stuff around her eyes. When I came home, I told Christine that I had met an awfully pretty girl with some kind of eye ailment which had made her eyelids blue. Christine said, “Don’t be silly. That’s a beauty aid.” I am told that it takes quite a long time to apply all these cosmetics. This is time that might be used for the practice of meditation.

Beauty comes into the eyes from within. We have only to look at a mother looking at her child to see how gloriously beautiful her eyes become when she loves. Or look at a husband and wife who live together in love and harmony; what beauty comes into their eyes! Even when long-lost friends meet at a class reunion, beauty leaps out from within through their eyes. All of us have beautiful eyes. But our eyes lose their beauty when we become angry, brood upon ourselves, nurse grievances, and become violent. The quiet mind, the heart full of love and forgiveness, lights up the eyes and reveals the beauty of the Lord through them.

In the practice of meditation, when we are deeply concentrated on the inspirational passage we are using, the pupils of the eyes will look a little upward. When concentration deepens, the eyes turn towards what is called the center of Christ-consciousness in the ­Christian tradition. This is usually referred to as the third eye in Hindu and Buddhist mysticism. Even in the early days of our meditation, when we are concentrating intensely, there is a sense of movement in this spot, which is considered the seat of spiritual awareness.

Another change which takes place in deepening meditation is the slowing down of the breathing rhythm. According to the great mystics, especially in Hinduism and Buddhism, the breathing rhythm is closely connected with the rhythm of the mind. We know, for example, that as we are getting angry, the rhythm of the mind changes; and as the mind changes, there are a number of corresponding changes that take place in the body. Usually when we are angry our breathing becomes stertorous. My advice here is not to go in for any occult breathing exercises, which are fraught with danger. The best breathing exercise is to go for a long, fast walk repeating the mantram in our mind. This is the natural, effective way of regulating the breathing rhythm.

SRI KRISHNA: 29. Those who know me as the friend of all creatures, the Lord of the universe, the source and end of all paths, attain eternal peace.

With body, mind, and intellect under control, with all selfish desire, anger, and fear eliminated from consciousness, the human being attains the supreme goal of life, which is to become aware of God, from whom we come, in whom we subsist, and to whom we return. In this supreme state, we see in our own heart of hearts the Lord of Love, whether we call him Christ, Krishna, Shiva, or Buddha, and become united with him here and now in this very life.