A reader of Tattva wrote to me: “As part of Sanatana Dharma, our
duty as human-kind entails that we become DIVINE in our metamorphosis,
constitution, lifestyle, and composition. Divinity and divine spiritual thoughts
bring us firstly peace, secondly love, and thirdly compassion: the three most
significant qualities we need to understand our own kind and our own Atman.” One
suggested strategy for attaining that metamorphosis is to set your feet on the
following seven steps to divinity.
1. Relax. There is nothing to agonize about so long as you keep the objective
of spiritual progress in mind.
2. Study the scriptures. Broaden your reading to include the Upanishads,
world history, astronomy and philosophy. Exploring a wide variety of ideologies
and beliefs creates an individual value system that is as unique as you are.
Your personal ideology will begin to flow through the whole of your life,
growing ever more broad and specific to your life, benefiting you in ways you
never thought possible.
3. Believe in your heart. Within each of us there is a source of wisdom that
is ours and ours alone. It is the inner voice we occasionally hear advising us
during periods of uncertainty. Whether we label it the conscience or the heart
of consciousness, this voice is usually quiet and unassuming, which means that
it can easily be overshadowed by other concerns. We must listen to it carefully
and attentively; the wisdom it offers will guide us toward the most rewarding
alternatives.
4. Purify the personality. We all have things we keep closeted away in our
minds – thoughts about who we think we are, thoughts that are so personal and
embarrassing that we would never want to let anyone see them. In this step, we
let these thoughts go. This brings an amazing sense of lightness and
freedom.
5. Know the self. I have always found the fifth step most satisfying. Now
flip the exercise around and examine your own goodness. Feel the radiance of
your own heart; touch the depth of your own wisdom. This exercise helps us
imbibe more divine qualities.
6. Meditate everyday for at least 15 minutes. During the meditation,
experience your divinity by identifying with Lord Shiva or Mother Lakshmi or any
other form of God. Start by visualizing the deity “out there” in front of you.
Gradually draw the Being within yourself with each breath until it becomes who
you are.
7. Trust the Sanatana Dharma. This is a science verifiable by reasoning,
research, and experience. Even in this world, plagued by terrorists and wars,
there is something which helps us awaken. As great saints discovered through
direct experience, the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman, the
Absolute Principle of all existence; the goal of every human being is to
discover this fact for himself, to find out who he really is.
So let us recognize and respect the sacredness of everything. If you have
seriously cultivated enlightened consciousness, the next time all hell breaks
loose, you will see it for what it is - a movie on the screen of material
existence. And you will be able to flip the channel to another program even
while expertly dealing with the calamity on hand. This is the divine nature of
consciousness.
Why live an ordinary material existence which culminates in old age, disease,
and death when you can instead live a life of unlimited adventure at the
vanguard of existence, relishing unlimited transcendental bliss at every minute?
It does not matter where you are or who you are. You can constantly taste the
sweetest happiness if you will take shelter of the transcendental platform.
bahya-sparsesv asaktatma vindaty atmani yat sukham sa
brahma-yoga-yuktatma sukham aksayam asnute
“Such a liberated person is
not attracted to material sense pleasure but is always in trance, enjoying the
pleasure within. In this way the self-realized person enjoys unlimited
happiness, for he concentrates on the Supreme.”
-Bhagavad-Gita 5.21
This is the final article in the Bhagavad Gita series.
We have seen that the Gita sets out a system of practices, yogas, for
bringing us into union with Brahman. And when those practices work, as they did
in the case of Arjun, then comes the mystic vision. In the eleventh chapter
Krishna gives him “divine sight” so he can see Krishna’s cosmic form. Arjun sees
the whole universe there in front of him, all around him, with the radiance of a
thousand suns – all creation coming and going to Krishna.
Yoga is really any practice we undertake with the intention of coming closer
to God. There is no human act that cannot be hallowed into a path to God. That
is why the Gita is mainly concerned with the path of Karma Yoga. It tells us how
to carry on our spiritual quest right in the midst of our lives in the world. It
spells out the way we can do that: by offering our actions to God, by acting
without any attachment, and by accepting the results as His “Prasad.”
Note that the highest statement of Karma Yoga is also a full expression of
the act of sacrifice – we sacrifice our gratification into selfless, dharmic
action. We can turn any part of our lives into a sacrifice, into an offering. We
can turn our feelings into our sacrifice. If you are having trouble with
someone, make them your sacrifice. Add a picture of him or her to your altar;
like British General Montgomery did of Nazi General Rommel during Second World
War in North Africa. Sacrifice and renunciation are kindred practices.
Sacrifice, in a way, ritualizes our acts of renunciation.
The practice of renunciation is ultimately about renouncing our suffering
over this or that, and when that happens, the whole melodramic part of the
renunciation trip starts to fade away. Renunciation is a means to end. Once we
are free, renunciation is irrelevant. When we are without desires, without
attachments, we will act only when we are drawn by our dharma to act. There will
be nothing we’re looking to get from the situation that would take us away from
our doing our Karma Yoga.
In Chapter 12 Krishna says that Bhakti is the highest form of Yoga. Bhakti
yoga and Karma yoga are woven together. It’s the goal of the karma yogi to act
out of pure dharma – that is, to have every action guided by God’s will. And
here Krishna is telling us the way that is accomplished is simply by adding love
to the equation. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu taught, “Let there be all victory for the
chanting of the holy name of Lord Krishna, which can cleanse the mirror of the
heart and stop the miseries of the blazing fire of material existence. That
chanting is the waxing moon that spreads the white lotus of good fortune for all
living entities. It is the life and soul of all education. The chanting of the
holy name of Krishna expands the blissful ocean of transcendental life. It gives
a cooling effect to everyone and enables one to taste full nectar at every
step.” Simply by spreading the chanting of the holy names of God all over the
world we can put a complete stop to crime and terrorism.
When you offer your food you are directly offering it to God. When you chant
Om Namah Shivaya or Hare Krishna you are directly addressing the Lord and His
energy to engage you in their service. In this way you should be developing a
personal loving relationship with the Lord. You must always introspectively
observe your thoughts, words, and deeds to make sure that they are pleasing to
the Lord. Don’t do these things impersonally. Do them for the pleasure of the
Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord reciprocates by returning the
offered foods back to us in the form of prasadam. He reciprocates with the
chanting by showering us with transcendental bliss. I love Shiva because He is
so beautiful and so wonderful and so absolutely amazing and because He bestows
upon me the highest happiness. I can feel the bliss He is showering upon me at
every minute. (The intimate loving affairs of Radha and Krishna are an
invitation for us to become intimately involved in those loving affairs.)
Visiting sacred places of pilgrimage helps in cultivating devotion.
Chapter 9 ends with Krishna telling Arjun, “Give me your mind and your heart,
and you’ll come to me.” We can see a kind of daisy chain of practices here:
first karma yoga and bhakti yoga are linked. Now we see that bhakti yoga and
jnana yoga are linked – to get to God, we have to give over both our hearts and
minds. We need wisdom to keep us from getting trapped in clinging attachment;
but the thinking mind needs to be balanced by the bhakti heart. When that
combination of jgana and bhakti comes together, it is powerful! The devotion
gets clearer and clearer, and the wisdom gets more and more subtle. The bhakti
takes us through the emptiness, and into a loving dharma.
Pure devotional service is so spiritually relishable that a devotee becomes
automatically uninterested in material enjoyment. That is the sign of perfection
in progressive devotional service. A pure devotee continuously remembers the
lotus feet of Lord Shiva or Krishna and does not forget Him even for a moment,
not even in exchange for all the opulence of the three worlds.
The body is to be used for selfless service (karma yoga); the heart is to be
used for devotion (bhakti yoga); and the mind is to be used for discernment
(jnana yoga). There are practices that focus the mind, like meditation or
mantra. And there are practices that let us take a step back from the mind, like
witnessing. Witnessing lets us move outside the dramas of our lives. It isn’t
judging – good, bad, it’s all the same. It is simply witnessing. With this
practice comes a kind of pervasive perception of everything, which comes out of
total nonattachment.
Ask not which method you should adopt for self-realization – karma yoga,
bhakti yoga or gyan yoga. To put the Gita’s teachings to work, adopt all the
three yogas. Simply put, a person seeking self-realization carries God into all
his/her works, seeks nothing but God and becomes one with God in every thought.
