Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4

February 14, 2020

Table of Contents

Notes from classes at Arsha Vidya Gurukulam.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 41

discovery, intelligence vs. machinery of knowledge

Part 1

samsara = worldliness = bondage
cognitive knowledge <-> accumulated knowledge (intellect - in braincells) <-> jnanam as satyam jnanam anantam brahman (intelligence; all-pervading truth). All are called jnanam even though different in nature.
Intelligence is not limited to the braincells only. In is in the braincells but not of the braincells. Intellectual knowledge is in the braincells and of the braincells.
jiva becomes Shiva by jnanam.
If you are wise you appreciate the speaker if he is abolishing what you know. If otherwise, you want confirmation.
Human mind becomes mechanical because it is burdened with machinery of knowledge. Truth doesn’t fit into the machinery of knowledge.
Intelligence comes when you free the mind (constantly) from accumulation. Unless you make mind free of accumulation of the known there cannot be discovery (even in science). What you know keep aside and watch with open, empty (not blank) mind. Then you discover.
Shankara: jnanam is darshana. Seeing is learning.
Whenever you’ve learned something, your mind was empty (silent).
Anything associated with the cultivation of memory is traditional. Therefore (in) time. Timeless cannot be approached keeping the time in tact. That’s why you never get there.
Beginning of intelligence is when you’re ready to put aside all the known. That intelligence helps you to see the truth of yourself.
Atma, Brahman, Rama, Krisha, Truth … is fresh/new all the time.
Information = knowledge. Most of the time we gather information therefore the mind never gets quiet.
Surrendering to a belief (school, society) doesn’t solve the human problem. What you need is not a label, tradition, accumulated knowledge (that’s needed for a profession). Here you need a free mind.
Your heart, digestive system … is functioning well because intelligence is operating in your heart. The moment you introduce your intellect it will start misbehaving. Why your mind is not able to discover the truth?
Intelligence is operating everywhere except in the mind because the mind doesn’t allow it to take over. It is not ready to become fresh, shed its categorizations, identities …
Truth is not traditional. Truth is timeless.
Human being is the starting point of the discovery.
Are looking for submission, conformity, not discovery.
An intelligent mind is a mind which is not satisfied with conclusions. -> no discovery. If you are satisfied will there be search and will there be discovery in your life?
Belief is just another form of conclusion. Same for dos and donts. An intelligent mind is an enquiring, watching and learning mind.
There is intelligence only when there is no fear. Religions of the world put fear in the mind. When you use word tradition it comes with a very subtle fear.

Part 2

Knowledge has anchorage, intelligence is not attached to something. It comes into being when you understand the total process (of your own mind - if you want to discover your self). If you do it comes forth and helps you. You need not study a single book if you understand your mind.
You know it - you command it, that’s how it works with the mind.
Your mind is all. It is entire humanity. It contains the entire evolutional history of the mankind, of the past.
Examine yourself in relationship with the people, physical things around you.. How do you relate with Isvara? Understanding of the self is understanding the self in its relation with the others.
Tattvabodha is additive, conceptual book. Bhajagovindam is pure experience speaking. The way the poet thinks and feels. Bhajagovindam is (a book) of intelligence. Tattvabodha is conceptual collection of information.
Intellect (knowledge) you can acquire from outside, intelligence not. Intelligence comes when it is not hindered by knowledge.
At the moment of discovery the other (guru, scripture, you the person, …) is not there. All the structures are put aside.
There must be a revolt against your own mind that hold you back. It believes in structures that the mind created for itself, where the mind finds some gratification. All the time you’re seeking gratification of the mind. There is no fear, it is replaced by the love of truth.
A heart which loves the truth cannot entertain fear. They don’t go together.
The intensity with which you believe shows how much insecure you are.
By the time you define intelligence it becomes intellect.
Jnanam is intelligence.
Atmavantam = manovantam (of excellent, pure of inadvertence mind). Atma can be satchitananda, body, mind.
Mind can be a hindrance into intelligence or can flower into intelligence (atmavantam). If you keep it buoyant, cheerful, fearless, not anxious and not hurried (don’t try to accomplish too many things at the same time - do one thing at a time). And keep the body moving. If it is too convenient you don’t feel like get up, you don’t get up and finally you can’t get up.
In the name of religion people accumulate a lot of fear (superstitions)?
If fear or anxiety takes up your mind get aware of it. Don’t use prayers, after the prayer the fear is less or strengthened? Suppose I wear a talisman because I’m afraid of an evil spirit. Is it a proof of my fearlessness or fear? Pray with love.
sakA - the one who likes the company. bhakta - the one who love.
When you feel a bit down, get up on your feet, don’t sit on a sofa, go into open air. Walk briskly. Slowly means low feelings has taken you over. Breathe deeply the cold air, the cold air that caresses your face - it will cheer you up. If it is time not to go out, stand in the corner and open the mouth, take air in fully and exhale through nostrils while bending without bending the knees. And feel that the universal Vayu you’re taking it. Walk alone chanting OM. Feel oneness with all. Try to rise above petty cares and anxieties.

Satsang

The question of freewill (a term not found in Indian scriptures) is because we jump between two levels. Freewill is karta/bhokta that comes when you wrongly identify with the ksethra. It is not your nature. You are the presence, and in that situation you’re not the karta/bhokta therefore you do not have freewill. You are the purusha and the question of freewill doesn’t even arise.
Children are born intelligence and once the intellect takes over intelligence takes back seat. We have to bring it out one more time.
Role of the guru: the pointing finger. He tries to help the student see his own nature.
Telling of puranic stories to children will be useful only if you understand them. Adopt highly symbolic stories or one with good message. Heroic ones, ones with a moral message, stories of great struggle (like creation of state Israel). Those who inspire. Don’t tell stories that make superstitious. Majority of the stories are useless. Pancha-tantra stories - good ones.
Animals know that they exist (satchit - I’m and I know that I’m) and have some basic identity. Dog befriends dogs not cats. Even a plant knows it exists (sat-chit). All are atma.
When doing work be totally immersed in it. That itself is meditation - karmasamadhi.
Atmajoti: when you look at the body only there is body. If you look at the mind only there is mind. Otherwise you alone are.
Q&A can come from srsti-drsti-vada (“real” multiplicity) or drsti-srsti-vada (you yourself alone are).
Madhyamarga: Bhagavan Buddha’s central teaching is moderation. As thought before by Krishna. Moderation is extremely important, going to extremes is very wrong. Middle-path is the natural and spontanious path. You get it by losing the struggle to get middle-path.
Sat has no levels. There is only paramarthika sat - brahma. pratibhatikam (no sat added) - jagat, vyavaharikam (no sat again) - jagat. Swami TV: I prefer not to say “sat” at all.
If you are not greedy, not ambitious, totally devoted to your work, patient there is no need to promote yourself (or work). The results will start running after you by themselves.
For sanyasa lifestyle India is the optimal place.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 41

Part 1

Karma by its very nature binds. Good action = golden shackles. Bad action = iron shackles.
Understand that prosperity or adversity, all is because of my actions from before. Instead we blame others, external agents. Man is the one who molds his own destiny.
When you seek a result, the thing you do is not important anymore. It is the result. Learn to love the thing you do. There will be no hindrances, no frustration. Such a person will be able to create something original.
Find out what is the incentive behind your action. If my objective is a result I’m not happy with what I am and/or what I have. That means I’ve an ambition. All the energies are spent on the ambition (phala) in which case the inward feeling of love for the action will be missing. In doing so people are getting frustrated.
Ambition -> acting through the narrow funnel of me/mine. Action without ambition is a creative action. Ambition kills creativeness.
Buddha (not anatmavadi, but non-ego-vadi): truth is, when the me and mine is not there. Brahmanirvanam - satcitananda.
Pray without seeking anything. There is pure love in it. It becomes upasana - that inner feeling. That feeling will take you to the oneness with Iswara.
As long as there is a motive in your action, there will be distortion. It is not creative. You’re likely to be frustrated (because the result might not come).
Karmayoga - action without ambition.
It is not enough to just do the action. You must also think. What is this action? Why I’m doing it …
There are three issues with every action. Bhoktrtvam (mine). Kartrtvam (me). Akartrtva (I don’t want to do it attitude; opposite of kartrtvam).
Nature works. Human being acts. Work is by the nature for the nature. Human act is based either on desire or fear or both. He longs to possess and enjoy. Or is afraid of pain and/or death. That’s why he’s doing his actions. River is working, human is acting. River doesn’t flow out of personal desire or fear. Entire nature is working without a sense of me.
Are you the actor or are you the presence who is aware of the action?
You cannot do anything for self-realization. No need to climb the mountains or sit in the cave. Just be.
Always the deed is first. Then comes the doer. Example: Seeing happens. And then you come and say “I see”. The dream happens. You claim you yourself have seen the dream - “it is my dream”. First is teaching, then there is teacher.
People mistake doing and being. Fan is doing the rotating. Not the electricity. It is just present. Body/mind is the instrument, you’re the spirit. The spirit never acts. There is no doership in the spirit. Higher power is acting (Prime Mover is moving), I’m just a witness.
For realization, action is incidental, understanding is essential. Actions happen. I do not act.
Yoga - me and mine is given up. Yoga sanyasta karmanam. Such a person is not bound by the actions.

Part 2

Not bound by karmas = not afflicted by sorrow. Liberated from the bondage of samsara.
Examine, what is the jnana, karma doing for you?
If you look at the guru, is he free from the samsara?
Vedanta is negative way. As you understand the ajnana, you get free of it and come to jnanam.
Talk of love will be all negative. Once you know what is not love you come to what is called love. Same for jnanam.
When people are ignorant of the true self they are given to egoity - selfishness. Their palaces become worse than jails, worse than graves, worse than hells. They have all kinds of petty cares, low-sorted desires. They forge their own chains (karmani). Example: silkworm.
Ignorance is a bed of thorns. As long as you are steeped in ignorance you’ll not be able what is called freedom.
Ignorant people pursue worldly pleasures. Sensuous pleasures are like narcotics for temporary relief.
Jnanam is renouncing the temptations of the world. Becoming dead to the world. Not going out of the world. That is not possible anyway.
Rituals, celebrations, ceremonies create a lot of excitement in people. Then worries come, finally sorrow.
You’ve to be brave to throw off a yoke. People are essentially superstitious. They want to follow, not to think. You need bravery that comes out of clarity of the thinking.
In the social and community life you should not entertain the ideas of revenge, punishment, jealousy, antagonism… That is the ignorance.
ghatajnanam is not knowledge. It is ignorance. It is cognition.
What you call knowledge is information and memory. This way vedanta-knowledge will never work.
Tradition is cultivation of memory.
In pursuit of self knowledge - guiding the human being inwardly, tradition as accumulation of memory will not help.
To discover the truth about yourself you need an open, empty mind. A mind free of accumulation. Otherwise it will be just recycling the accumulation.
Mind uses the knowledge as psychological safeguard. It doesn’t help in discovering the truth of yourself, God. When the mind is open, the intellect takes rest and creative intelligence in it starts operating. You’ll realise you’re not the actor. This realization will not accumulate, it is a learning that is very fresh and in this learning you’ll know your svarupa.

Satsang 2020-12-19

Satsang: examining the issues of life.
Am I the slave of the body or am I the master of the body.
Shift from wordliness into spiritual life should be slow and steady. It is not about the time element.
Whatever might be the worldly accomplishment it has two qualities - it is transient and it is superficial (makes your mind excited).
Final achievement - realising the self.
Purity results in quietness of the mind.
Atma is inward, world is outwards, the mind is in between. Mind is the meeting place between matter and spirit. You choose where the focus is. Are you bahirmukha or are you antarmukha.
When the mind becomes quit you enter into the unknown and unknowable world. A world without images, words, waves of memory. A world of love, where there is death every minute, full of beauty not created by human thought.
Where there is death there is renewal of life.
The known is memory, the content of the mind. It is the known that binds us.
Meditation: in spite of all that you’re aware of get hold the dimension in you where nothing happens.
You created all your vasanas, you are able to get rid of them. You have to address, lecture yourself. People are used to lecture others instead…
Buddha: by holding on to antagonism you cannot solve the problem of antagonism.
There is jealousy? Understand that it is there only when you compare yourself to others. This is a habit from childhood. Why should I compare with others? “I’m what I’m, I will try not to compare with others.”
Learning, understanding is not a process. You do not collect understanding peace by peace. Understanding, learning is instant, timeless. It’s like ripening a fruit: it takes a lot of time to get ripe, but it falls suddenly.
Atmajnanam has nothing to do accumulation.
Chinmayo’ham: Remind yourself for 5 minutes that you’re the awareness, not the changing body/world. This will help you overcome the sense of doership. You do not anything, things happen. You are not digesting, you are not pumping the blood, you are not reading.
Science and Vedanta are not dipoles, there is no common ground like magnetism for polar poles. They are complementary. Science is the study of names and forms, of the ephemeral universa. Spirituality is the study of the changeless.
True pilgrimage: inner pilgrimage. You’re aware of the body/mind but now you have to find that inner being in which there is no movement. Unless you dismiss the outgoing attitude you will not be able to make the inner pilgrimage. Isvara is out there is dvaita. Isvara in my heart is the first step. Last step tat tvam asi.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 41 (giving up desire for the result)

All karma originates in thoughts.
Where do you put emphasis? In organised religion the focus is on the superficial action, not on the motive behind it.
Krishna: you cannot entirely give up the actions.
Here giving up is not physically actions, it is giving up by understanding. In the form of vision of the truth.
Nobody desires karma, only karmaphala. Desire for karmaphala creates the actor. Action directly doesn’t create the actor.
Result of teaching is dakshina or compensation. Not that you understand. I speak in a way that you understand. There is no phalam in the karma. Phalam (is what) comes later.
If the speaker loves the job, he doesn’t desire anything out of it. There is no actor now. Desire for the result binds binds the actor to his action. Action is not binding if there is no desire behind it. He just loves it.
Desire for the action is because you want to become … - process of becoming. Through rituals. Poor man has no time for rituals.
This process of becoming is strife, pain, struggle. This is the bondage.
If I don’t desire to become anything than I’m already what I’m. The infinite being comes to the foreground. This is moksha. By giving up the becoming you arrive at the being.
Paramartha darshana: action is there but no struggle to become. Samsara, bondage of karma ends. Another name for paramartha darshana is yoga.

Satsang

How to understand celebrations and festivals from advaita perspective? We avoid them. They are attempts to escape from the sorrow of life. As long as you do escape from life, you do not understand (problems) of life. Students of Vedanta would prefer solitude, study, contemplation and meditation.
Science and Vedanta should guide your life. Not (religious) superstitions.
Golden era of India 200BC - 500AD. Since then downfall until 1895 when Swami Vivekananda addressed the parlament of religions. Since then Hindu renaissance.
All prayers come from self-pity. Fear of sin as well (abrahamic contribution?).
How come an uneducated person can know all that? The fact that one gets surprised shows that one’s conditioning is betrayed.
The single message: find out your self by inquiring into yourself and be self-reliant.
Brahmakaravrti: silent mind merging into brahman.
There are no things happening in Prakuruti until you know them. There is no galaxy until you see one. We do not accept existence without knowledge. Things happen only when you know. Until then they don’t happen. There is no “three days back” until you think of “three days back”. Until the cancer is detected it doesn’t exist. Knowing is everything. Cancer is there only when it is detected (known). Do you have cancer when it is not detected? Once the cancer is detected people get anxious and that accelerates its growth.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 40 (jijJasA)

Seeker of the truth.
Sraddha = ripeness of heart and mind.
Symptoms of the (samsara) disease: fear and sorrow.
Light of awareness I cannot show to you. You have to see it yourself.
Doubting nature vs. questioning nature. Effort to scuttle vs. effort to know.
People have anxiety about possessions and relationships but don’t acquire discontent to know the truth. It is replace by complacency.
Whenever you’ve given a name to yourself or to your pursuit, the name is such a maya and will cover the truth. Avoid the naming business. They are very enticing, binding … just go for the truth, knowledge.
If the desire for truth is associated with some other desires, it becomes a tremendous distraction. Desire for the truth is your working capital. Use it and it will pay rich dividends.
Life is nothing but seeking. Sraddha is when all other seeking ends. And there remains only one seeking, i.e. seeking of the truth. This is (the spirit of) sanyasa. Family people have some notion that they have to seek few other things as well. Otherwise life will come to standstill, we’ll become beggars or unhappy people. We seek the truth 1x a week in the Gita class otherwise we seek other things.
When the seeking becomes single pointed the truth will appear before you. It neither comes nor goes. It timelessly is. Only the right seeking is needed. That’s why you’re missing it.
When you seek with undivided attention only the seeking will remain, the seeker will dissolve. No more Hanuman seeking for Sita, but just the search. The search is the truth, the ultimate, the timeless reality.
Hanuman must perform the search correctly. Whatever comes across and is not Sita, it has to be put aside (mentally). Search is all negative. It is refusal of the unreal.
The search for the reality itself becomes the movement of reality. What is real? Setting away the unreal!
Make the truth, the real, yourself, guru, the god your inner guru. The day they are seen as one you’ve found the truth.
Source of I’m, the unknown and unknowable foundation of your life experience.

Q&A

Have a simple life and allow the instruments you posses to be put to good use by the higher will.
Focus should be on the inner guru.
Schism: search in me, truth is in the books, guru in building, god is in the temple, atma in the heart … as long as this division persist and you act accordingly you’re creating the element of time into timeless reality.
sa:sham -> shantihi, shama. sa:dam -> danda, dama. Quietude (related to the mind), control (related to the sense organs).
Sense-organs and mind create a veil. In some very thick, in some medium, in some very thin. If the screen is very thick vedanta will not be useful.
Religion keeps you bahirmukha. Instead of looking around they tell you to look up. Only chance is to come around antarmukha teaching/vision.
Consistently put the person aside (your own, guru). Otherwise it will take over. Focus on the teaching.
Center
- Center is ego. If I’m a teacher, I’ll be watching the other teacher how he is teaching (to compare the centers). Not this kind of watching.
- Watching, in which there is no watcher, no center, and no jealousy etc. will raise.
- Practice first with the outside, weather, birds-in-flight - what you have no attachment with. Watching will be happening and there will be center. Grow into it. Now apply that to a human relation.
- To like or dislike, there must be center. Without center, there is only watching and understanding.
- Now come to the inner. Now watch the movement of thought. How it is creating a life for you. A cocoon, a dome, a cell. Sitting in a cell your view will be very narrow.
- You now understand that inner equipment. You get a very good leverage over the equipment. You are a free person. This is the great job of awareness. This is niddidhiasanam. What happened is meditation has become some futile pursuit of imagined goals and visions. It is a degradation of the very discipline.
You can only say one thing about the real I. “I’m” or “I is” or “I be”. All other is done body or mind.
You don’t need a solution for sorrow. Sorrow is in place because of ignorance. Sorrow is in the equipment. Be aware of the sorrow and trace it’s cause.
Nobody grieves over death. People grieve over attachment to the person that died.
Things like suffering, sorrow, thinking, notions, ideas, feelings persist only because you have not given full attention to them. Inadvertence. Because of inadvertence they are there.
vyakta: whatever is known to the senses of mind. Sleep experiences is not cognised by any of the two, that’s why it’s avyakta. sa:avyakta -> undifferentiated (unmanifest).
When you identify with the equipment, due to habit (another name for ignorance), a person is created. The name of such individual is vyakti.
Look at movement of thoughts and how it is building an enclosure for you. Thought is divisive and concave in the sense of including some and excluding everything else.
Psychology did not find a link between the human mind and phases of the moon. Even though there is no connection when you believe there is a connection it appears to you that there is a connection. Solution to that problem is right understanding.
The purpose of this classes (vedanta) is to establish harmony. Harmony is divinity. Whatever is the sentiment of the other person in your relationship, go by love and harmony. Not by reciprocity. In a relationship, harmony must be the foundation. You forgive. You ignore the missteps of the other person. Then the relation will blossom.
Equipment must be put to action. If it is idle, it will become sick. Work, not for the center, but for others (for loka sangraha).
Harmony is you. It is you. Mind is the other. Mind is equipment.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 40 (sraddha)

Those who say self-knowledge is in the future they themselves are ignorant of the self. Self-knowledge is now. You’re the self. You need not to know about yourself.
If you know yourself correctly, thought stops creating fear.
Once you know yourself your relationships with people and with the world will be in good shape.
sa:sraddha = intensive enthusiasm for truth. Hold the truth and nourish the truth.
sa:srad = truth
sa:dha = contain and nourish
How do you go about finding anything? Keep your mind (intellect) and heart (love) in it. Intellectually and emotionally you’re with it and then you find it. Same way you have to be devoted, then you come to realize.
Sraddha: there must be interest, love, steady application of mind.
When you convert the devotion into a ritual you will lose devotion. In sraddha there is no place for ritualized reverence.
Test for sraddha: steady remembrance of the right thing at the right time. To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret to success.
Power of attention: somebody insults you. You investigate, who is getting insulted. Body, ears … can’t. You remember and realize and then there will be insult but you will not feel the insult.
Sraddha: earnestness, steadfastness.
PIE -> Vedic sanskrit -> sanskrit of Gita. PIE -> Latin -> English.
Whatever is particular, I’m not. I’m the non-particular, impersonal, pure light. Remind yourself.
The knowledge of self happens in peace and silence. Not in celebrational context.
Life your life in natural way but always alert and watchful. Everything happens because of the higher power.
Sraddha is the vision.
One who doesn’t have sraddha in the vision of sastra is bound to perish in the sense of spiritual death - you believe you’re going to die and the everybody else believes you’re death. Spirit has no death!
Sraddhavan labhate jnanam. Those who cultivate the sraddha are sure gain the truth and liberation, because it is with you all the time. (Matthew 28:20)

Satsang

Daydreaming
- people have this habit, because they don’t accept existing things / situations as they are. Mind develops a kind of an addiction to its own imaginations - you feel good in daydreaming. Work on it, work on acceptance of the situation, of your lot.
- Meditation: watch the past as it flows into the present and creates sorrow. Guilt, sense of failure etc. happen only because of past visiting the present. Solution: be observant. Control doesn’t work. Have patience, don’t be in a hurry.
Reincarnation doesn’t exist for atma. For it to happen, atma must die first. The topic of reincarnation applies only to shadow/egoic/body-mind self. And that is not real. If you want to remain in mithya, there will be reincarnation.
Mistreatment:
- When the other is mistreating you, it is not judgemental from you too see it as offensive behaviour.
- At the moment when you are mistreated become attentive, pay full attention to the insult. You will not feel insulted - when there is full attention there is no thought. Insult is a product of thought. Then remove yourself from the situation. And then from a distance bless the person - may god give him/her happiness. Insulting is done by his/her upadhi - sick mind. Atma is the same. Take precaution not to put ourself in the way of the person so it can repeat the insult. Cut off every possible contact with the person and keep that way.
- There is no family, there is no friend. You’re just imagining.
- Paying back insult with insult doesn’t work. The other will laugh at you because he could provoke you. Getting provoked is a reward to the insulting person.
Reincarnate of XYZ - could mean that the person is as great of XYZ.
A jnani doesn’t appear like a jnani. He appears like a mUrkha. He conducts himself in the world like dumb guy. He doesn’t give display to his jnanam. Outwardly there is no difference between jnani and ajnani, inwardly there is nothing in-common. Only from the speech and acts you’ll be able to make out. Jnani hides his/her virtue.
Meditation
- Posture in the meditation makes a tremendous difference. Minds gets tuned, you feel at peace immediately.
- When there is no thought, only alertness, there is no division. You do not experience the second, the other. You remain thoughtless - pure awareness.
Anger
- Meditate on the question: is there a justifiable anger? Answer should be no. Frustration is OK, anger is not.
- Becoming angry might come naturally, but then you overcome the nature. When there is no attention, anger takes over. When there is attention, thought becomes powerless.
Waking consciousness - movement of the thought. What lies beyond that is god.
All the so called trials are just mere ignorance. Don’t label it. If you label it, you have to face it. There is no failure until you call it failure. It is an event.
The food is not so good? Leave it. Don’t label it. It becomes routine and loses its capacity to make you ecstatic or sad. It becomes routine stuff. All these outer things become bland. When you stop labeling everything “becomes” bland. Let it be. You’ll be in uninterrupted happiness! That’s the secret of happiness.
There is no place to go and no place to travel. Travelling for pleasure is to escape the sorrow of our monotonous, painful and ugly daily lives. Therefore one needs an escape.
American System: first they make you work like a slave to get a lot of money and they they have a system to take away the money.
Ananda
- Worldly achievements are all illusory (don’t tell to high-school students). All is well and perfect as it is. In this creation, there is nothing imperfect. Correctly translated sa:ananda = perfection. Another translation: sat-cit-ananda = existence, awareness, perfection. Having originated from Brahman jagat cannot be anything but perfection. Brahmadrsti: there is perfection everywhere, except whatever you project with your own mind. Did you ever come across the law of gravity being violated?
- How to sustain it? If you try to, then you’ve lost it. Just have an open mind. Don’t try to be perfection, you are. Don’t try to repeat it. All you do: whatever disturbs the insight, keep away. Don’t try to grasp it, repeat it, let it happen. Then the natural thing happens the natural way.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 40 (ignorance)

Physical death is inevitable. Spiritual death should be avoided at all cost -> gain knowledge (jnanam).
To know God is to deny God. What you know cannot be God.
Nobody has complete knowledge of the world. Thus only self-knowledge - knowledge of the ignorance of the self - is left.
If you are conscious of your ignorance, you’re a vijnasu, not a ajnaha. Ajnaha is ignorant of his ignorance.
If you don’t know the truth of the self, there is no chance that you will know the truth of the world. One takes appearances for reality -> pain.
The feeling “I know” is so strongly rooted in human consciousness. There is only one thing to know - to know that you’re ignorant.
I see the ignorance in the consciousness. I declare: I do not know. This takes you out of the realm of ignorance and dawns knowledge. All I see around and within is what I do now know. That makes you a person of a humble heart.
In knowing that I do not know I cross the frontier of the known and enter into the realm of unknown and unknowable.
One who “knows” lives in his fool’s paradise, buries his head in the sand and is bound to die a spiritual death.
I know that I’m, what/who I’m I don’t know.
“Knowing” the self we take body/mind for the self and live the life of the ego. Main hallmark of this is selfishness. He lives a life of petty cares (OMG, my hair is turning white).
The palaces and castles of the selfish are worse than jails. Out of ignorance we forge the chains that bind us and live a life of hell on earth.
Ignorance is the bed of thorns. As long as you are steeped in it, you cannot enjoy the fruits of freedom.
The more you are clear about ignorance the more you become free of ignorance.
A person who dies when the body dies is dead spiritually. When you are dead to the world and the body, that is emancipation. That is moksha.
Enjoyment of sense pleasures is the direct path to decay and death.
Ignorance -> pursuit of pleasures, riches and religion that is subservient to those two.

Satsanga (Q&A)

Gita: when something happens in our favor it is not acceptable to celebrate. Accept it quietly and continue your duty. Separate from the emotion.
Only when you identify with the outer (non-self) you become sorrowful.
Some of the wonderful poetry has emerged out of quiet sadness. Wheres from sorrow nothing worthwhile emerges.
Sad person can be a good philosopher or poet. Sorrowful person is drowning in samsara.
Animals grief from instinct. Grief of human beings defines all logic.
Animals seem to have freewill as well. Dog won’t fetch the ball after several times (learning from experience?).
Extremes look a like. We’re not striving to become as animals but divine.
Grama doesn’t mean village in physical context. Grama is the assembly of five physical organs. On the other hand, a person, who has a clean heart is as though living in a forest. Don’t take “jnani” living in the forest literally. What you do in forest? You stand alone, you love solitude. You eat simple (nutritious) food (in moderate quality). That is what a forest means.
Every lifeform has its own glory. Human is superior to animals because it can inquire in self-inquiry. Animals have clean hearts.
Everything is seven in reference to agni (having seven colors), that’s why agni is called saptavan.
Throw every single kamya-karma out of the window.
Every action that you perform without seeking the action thereof is called karmajoga. “Na mama” is same as “na phalam”.
16 step puja comes from attithi-puja.
There is no such thing as my son. The boy is product of the life. Boy is the expression of aditi. Not my son.
Where is the question of praying for somebody else when the relation itself is not real? You don’t come to this world and leave it with a set of fixed relationships. Instead of having vayragyam you are having emotionalism. Don’t use prayer like a trump/debit/credit card.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 17-18

One who knows the nature of action knows alone knows the svarupa of atma also.
4.18: The seer who sees actionlessness in action and action in actionlessness is wise among human beings. He’s the one who’s done everything that is to be done. All (todo) lists are over for him.
The unwise will superimpose all the activities upon himself (I cooked, I worked, I chanted, I enjoyed the puja …). Mind, senses and body did. I is the unperturbed, consciousness, unmoved, free from modification. It just blesses, it just sees. I’ve never performed actions. In my presence all activities are done.
Do you ever feel you have done all you wanted to do in your life? The list is only growing. Puja swami said “Hari om, tat sat” and went (Jn 19,30: It is finished).
Karmayogi has a big list and it only grows. Wise person is done.
Even not doing something with body, speech, mind is also action only. Even while doing you are free from action.
Awareness can not undergo any change -> no action possible. It has no guna for it to be undergo change.
Without the presence of self no activity takes place. All activity does not effect the self and self doesn’t want anything out of the activity also. This is the consciousness.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 16-17

Wise person is happy without any reason. Like a child, like a crazy guy. Atmany eva atmana tusthata. He’s doing nothing for his happiness, but out of his happiness. A wise person doesn’t go for window shopping - nothing in the three worlds attract him.
I read Upanishads because I want to see how they praise me.
Bhagavan says: do actions, don’t just sit down quietly. That will not purify the mind. Also, can you sit quietly for one minute?
Wise person is constantly active and he/she has no craving for results. He even doesn’t enquire what comes. He just doesn’t care.
Idiot asking question who am I. Answer will be: idiot. Don’t ask question, don’t sit down, gain knowledge. Be active. You require action for purified mind.
Impure mind is one with unmanaged desires. Should you organize it or it should organize you?
Learn every day something. From everyone, everything. Jnana shakti.
Look at your action. Is it for the total or individual?
Guru seva, sastra seva, Veda seva, Isvara seva (whole public is nothing but Bhagavan).
Use your choices properly. Have an insight to make a right choice, right action at right time.
Clarity is all auspiciousness. What is to be done, what is not to be done. What I should eat/talk/do… One job of teacher is to create the love of clarity in the mind of student. Second, teach very clearly. There should be no ambiguity.
When you are finished, the cycle of birth to birth, death to death comes to an end. This is auspicious. Like ending a work -> celebration.
Ashubham: doubts. Like a bee going in your head and flying around. Just to destroy somebodies happiness, peace put a small doubt in his head. If you have sraddha you have no doubts.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 14-17

by Swami Pratyagbodhananda

None of rajas, tamas, sattva is superior or inferior.
Change sattva <-> rajas <-> tamas is possible. Sattva <-> tamas is not possible.
Strong coffee removes tamas and brings rajas.
Tamas - Shudra. He works to pay the bill, to fill the stomach. Employee. No thinking. Are active only for their physical needs. Don’t want to cheat. Honest and working.
Not good or bad person. Just shudra, vaishya (opportunist), kshatriya (idealist), brahmana (realist).
This four kind division and four kind of duties applies only for humans (manushya loka). Not for other lokas.
Brahmana no further emotional growth is required. The mind is always thinking. viveka is always there. Highly informed person. Always wants to help everybody in the society. Non-hurting, non-demanding and non-competitor in the society. Harmless person. He only can understand Vedanta easily (gets the easy pass).
Birth is because of previous karma. Doing before sattvic activity -> birth into a family of priests or thinking people.
Societies will initiate a process of maturing for everybody.
Bhagavan: there is no longing in reference to the result of action for me. If you understand this you are free from the karma (and its results, i.e. papa and punya). You gain the freedom.
Adrstha (papa punya mishra) alone gives right to the birth of the body.
Upadhi - that which is very close to you, helps you to be distinguished from other. As though brings limitation and still is distinct from you. Mayaopadhi for Bhagavan. Ishvara is Brahman with the upadhi of maya. Avidyopadi is jiva’s upadhi (Brahman + avidyopadhi). Brahman (consciousness) is the same. Upadhi is only as though limiting and thus doesn’t need to be removed. Maya and avidya doesn’t really bring division. Brahman is aupadikam eva. Example: swami with the glasses. Upadhi doesn’t become intrinsic to the vastu, it is incidental, always separate.
You identify with the variable because of ignorance. When ignorance is gone it never comes back. You know you are invariable, whole, constant awarenesses..
To give up action is very easy. Not to do action is also very easy. Both will not solve your problem. Only doing action properly will clean your mind and give you freedom (indirectly).
Managing your likes and dislikes is chitta-shudhi. They should not manage you. I should choose my desire, they should not push me. I should chose what is right and appropriate. A mind without likes and dislikes is not possible - stone. Culture - likes and dislikes. Makes you this person.
You know you are not the doer and enjoyer? Nice, then do things for loka sangraha. Look at me Arjuna. I’m driving your chariot, taking your orders. For loka sangrahartam.
In spite of action you are always free of action. Actionless you don’t become, you are actionless. It only needs to be recognised.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 13

by Swami Muktatmananda

Gunas are dispositions of the mind. One is predominant. Everything is a product of Maya and composed out of gunas.
SHUDRA - laziness, carelessness, dullness. Service related employment. No ambition in life at all. Motivate them by saying to earn for own pleasures. Give pocket money.
VAISHYA - ambitions for money and power at any cost. No consideration for others. Sattva is still least predominant. He goes by his own likes and dislikes (desires). Values practical approach - at the cost of others.
Desires are generated by feeling limited (by self-judgement). This is born out of self-ignorance. Self-judgement happens because of freedom.
Personal values show that we live in a private world - imagined perception of the world.
I have freedom to fulfill my desires through nourishing personal value structures or conforming to universal structure (of right and wrong). What is right/wrong for me is wrong for you. What is desirable for me might not be desirable for you. If you choose through universal structure you will be in harmony with the universal structure called dharma.
All the negative tendencies in a person have a basis in likes and dislikes which have their basis in ignorance. Anything born of ignorance will be imagination only.
Bringing Isvara into daily life means conforming to universal value structure. This makes one feel the nearness of Isvara. Even without sense objects one gains fulfillment, joy, happiness by conforming to dharma.
If you go by dharma personal desires are nourished less and become less.
Whole creation is sustained by harmony (dharma) and sacrifice (yajna). See 3rd chapter of Gita.
KSHATRIYA - performs activities for society. Doing things for others always gives happiness.
BRAHMANA - the only guna qualified for jnanam.
Jati brahmana has to become qualified for knowledge. Birth in a brahmana family doesn’t make you qualified for knowledge.
Likes and dislikes will never go. One can only become free from the pressure of them. You are not going to become a stone. For the sake of gaining what he likes he will not compromise universal structure. Shama and dama is only possible for a person free from the pressure of likes and dislikes.
Any situation might not give you a material gain but it will always give you wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 Verse 12 - 13

Once you go away from Isvara tedious efforts, toiling, drag … all will be there. It will give rise to disgust.
People resort to karma rather than to knowledge because in this world results are quicker. Bhagavan says the result of jnanam might need bahunam janmanam.
When both the means and the end is known Veda has no role to play. If either or both are unknown Veda plays a big role.
Growing into emotional maturity: your likes and dislikes should not come into picture. Ishvara’s likes and dislikes (i.e. dharma) should.
Likes dislikes - personal. Dharma - universal. All is one -> moksha.
Dharma = punyam = universal currency.
Preya: artha, kama, dharma. Shreya: moksha.

Gunas

Sattva stands for any type of thinking (mode of mind). Rajoguna stands for activity. Tamoguna for dullness.
Guna brahmana - he’s having silence - shanti (relative peace of the mind). Contemplative, moderate, emotionally mature person.
Guna kshatriya - activity fired by ambitions and directed towards welfare of the others (there is a lot of thinking is involved). Active, ambitions, lot of enthusiasm. A “go getter”.
Guna vaishya - ambitions, enthusiastic, goes for the pursuit of money and power. Yet without thinking, without considerations of others. Doing it for himself. Likely to take help of adharma.
Guna shudra - simple employment. Not much interest in anything.
One functions throughout the day/life as any of the gunas. A classification shows only the predominant mode.
The goal of a human being should be guna brahmana (not karma brahmana). So one can gain the ultimative goal.
Devatas do not have gunas. There is no brahmana, kshatriya etc. for them.

Karmas

brahmana karma - in the field of any activity related to knowledge. Worshippers of Saraswati.
kshatriya karma - worshippers of Durga. Governance and protection.
vaishya karma - worshippers of Lakshmi. Wealth generation.
guna brahmana - having, or being bothered, pressured the least likes and dislikes. Such a person is eligible for jnanam.
It need not be that to bring sattva in the mind we need to eat sattvic food only. Most important is conforming to dharma, i.e. keeping aside your likes and dislikes. And taking somebodies else’s (Ishvara’s) likes and dislikes. Just like in married life.
Duty, not “activity”. This brings the concept of karma yoga. Sattva guna is cultivated by (performing your) duties. Example: symphony. No matter how small the role, it is required for a symphony.
karma yoga: at given time at given place I have a certain role to play. sva karmana - offering to the lord. No matter what I’m doing I’m not doing for a person, I’m doing for Ishvara (who is also in the form of that person). Ishvara, who’s is not only the maker but also the material. He’s the form, he’s in all the forms.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4

Dharma

Dharma is the first of purusharthas to be fulfilled so the other desires won’t bind. Puja Swami: intelligent living - enjoying yet not being bound / dependant. Responsible factor for b(l)inding is raga dvesha.
Without dharma desires of pleasure and security are binding desires.
Strength - not to succumb to the pressure of artha or kama.
Kama is a glory of Lord, but one needs to follow dharma.
Unless you have a desire you’ll never know if you have dharma. Only in the heat of the battle you can know if you follow dharma.
If dharma is not given to humans, it would be a defect in the creation. We would not know what to do. Freedom and dharma are two sides of one coin.
Absolute freedom means highest responsibility because I may abuse the freedom therefore there should be some structure for me to chose what is right and (what is wrong). There is right or wrong choice / action. Never a person.
In a program there is no choice -> no need of dharma. Dharma is only for human beings. What is right and what is wrong action. Right and wrong are universal for all human beings.
Ramayana was created by abuse of freedom (not to talk). Dasharatha should have not talked, but out of emotion he just gave boons. Same for Mahabharata. Draupadi should have not laughed and talked at Duryodhana.
Developing a lifestyle according to dharma might be painful initially, but it leads to inner growth, harmony. It avoids conflict.
My choice should not be based on likes and dislikes but on universal structure (dharma). Your raga dvesha are your enemies. Your agitated mind is the result of it. Behind every conflict in the mind the only responsible factor is raga dvesha. Main cause is ajnanam. Raga dvesha from rajoguna -> tamoguna.
To enjoy artha kama you should have a mind that is not split. A split in personality is doing something else than I know that is right. Therefore you’d live according to dharma.
Not gossiping (apayshunam) is daivi sampat. Generally what I don’t like is to be done and vice versa. Same for what to eat, for when to get up. E.g. eating and doing something else.
Fear: major component is imagination.

Self-esteem

Self-esteem is the ability to follow your values. Low self-esteem -> we don’t love ourselves -> we reject others.
If you have a value for something and you are not able to follow you fall in your own eyes.
Dharma is something which creates harmony. Dharma is one preceding step before moksha. One has accepted himself. One has self-esteem. Self-esteem arises when you go through certain experiences - when you go through artha and kama and see their limitations (experience, battle hardiness).
One has to have self-esteem to believe/realize a mahavakya. Dharma lifestyle gives a lot of self-esteem, self-acceptance.

My nature

I LOVE EXISTENCE. Because of the self-consciousness which is totally unlimited I have a self-judgement. One of it is that I’m a mortal being. This self-judgement is an error. I cannot accept it. Therefore I choose means (of security) which keep my existence going.
One knows that the form goes first. Therefore one seeks to continue his existence (name) through progeny.
I LOVE HAPPINESS. Suicides don’t seek only to live. I want to live happily. Ray of hope - happiness.
I LOVE KNOWING. I want to live happiness without being ignorant. I don’t want other people think that I’m a fool. First let me read the newspaper in the morning. No event in the world should pass without my knowledge.
I don’t know Hindi i.e. ignorance is also witnesses by conciousness. You need not seek knowledge as a pursuit. It is your nature.
If under all circumstances, at all times, in all places I want to something it indicates it is my nature. Existence, happiness, knowledge … knowingly or unknowingly everybody pursues these desires.
Nature - there is no cause. Fire is hot. I love existence because it’s my nature. Same for happiness and knowledge. => artha, kama, dharma lead only to moksha anyway. Self-judgement is just opposite to your nature.
Sad sugar crystal parable. Sadness is peculiarity of human beings. Unless you are sweetness you cannot be sweet in all circumstances, in all times. Oh, sugar crystal, what is your essence? Sweetness! The thing is you but because of ignorance you are seeking yourself outside.

Desire and Freedom

Freedom = the one desire everybody pursues, knowingly or not = to live happily without being ignorant.
Natural desire no one can drop. Love for existence, happiness, knowledge nobody can drop. They have to be fulfilled. The solution is sastra.
Cultivated desires one can drop. There is no solution to them.
Nobody wants anything in the world. People just love freedom. You buy a e.g. vehicle for freedom.
What you want through all the pursuits it is not there. It is here.
To be independent is natural desire. Binding desires go against that.
Anything you pursue you always think this is the last thing. If you know it is going to give for few minutes perhaps your enthusiasm to pursue it drops.
Knowledge is one sentence. Getting ready for it (sadhana chatustaya) requires several lifes.
Unhappy persons seek pleasures.