Video 64

64. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 5 Verses 10-12 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] [Music] foreign so we are studying the fifth chapter of the bhagavad-gita and the question at the beginning of the fifth chapter which arjuna asks that sannyasam karmanam krishna giving up the actions renunciation of you know your duties and activities in the world that's one way and the other way is to do those duties as karma yoga and you have praised both of them so why don't you tell me one which i should follow and we saw krishna started krishna started the instruction pointing out that there are actually two aspects to this one is the way of life whether you want to be a householder or a monk actually physically giving up involvement with the world karma literally here means involvement with the world are you going to have a job earn money hold property have a husband wife children you know all of that or not or are you going to become a monk and give it all up that's another way of life drastically different ways of life so that's a genuine question really another thing could be that the with the householder is associated karma yoga and with monk is associated gyana yoga so he may be asking the question about which kind of spiritual practice is he to perform is it to do all activities in the spirit of service of unselfish activity karma yoga or is he to engage himself in gyana yoga that means come to vedanta study vedanta until teacher think about it think it truth really gets conviction and then meditate upon it and get enlightenment which which spiritual path is he supposed to follow and krishna's answer is twofold first of all as far as spiritual practices are concerned all the practices have to be done regardless whether you are a monk or a householder karma yoga bhakti yoga dhyana yoga and yani yoga they all have to be gone through everybody has to go through that as the last time i think somebody asked the question that the select few may be ready um the example somebody put it nicely somebody who lives near the airport need not take a cab to the airport so yeah that's true but those are very few few in number and we will ourselves easily understand the moment we sit down to meditate within one minute if you're perceptive we'll understand how controlled our mind is the mind is not controlled then all these spiritual practices are necessary one must go through karma yoga bhakti yoga dhani and then come to ghana ghana yoga is a must because that will lead to the knowledge which gives rise to enlightenment that's one answer the other one is as far as being a monk or a householder is concerned it is up to you but sri krishna uh he shows a preference for the path of the householder spiritual seeker in both but you have preference for the path of the household in the sense that it requires special preparation to be a monk um you can become a monk but you can't come back one can always go from householder life to a monastic life but the other way around is not possible there are unique difficulties with the life of a of a monk there are many advantages but those advantages require special preparation so he says it's better to start spiritual practice in in your householder stage itself so that's the position so far then he said ultimately all these spiritual practices all activities are ultimately appearances they are like activities in a dream uh we did those verses eight and nine the the gyani the person of knowledge feels that naivety yes i do not do anything why the person who realizes i am the witness consciousness that person sees that uh while uh you know pashwan or passion srinivans prishan jigran touching and hearing and seeing and smelling uh and tasting eating walking or sleeping um just breathing all activities are going on and yet the enlightened one can can honestly say i do not do anything because i am the witness consciousness i am the screen on which the movie is playing um so what is going on the body and the mind are interacting with the world and both body mind and world are appearances so that is at the level of the gyani that is what is taught by vedanta and the gyani the enlightened one realizes this so that's the ultimate conclusion of all activities they all activities will continue but they are part of the world appearance they are not ultimately real ultimately what is real is the the foundation the ground of it all existence consciousness place which you are but until we come to that what do you do verse number 10 brahmana [Music] the tenth verse i think we touched upon it last time so he who performs actions dedicating them to the lord and giving up attachment is not touched by sin as a lotus leaf by water so until one comes to the level of a gyani until one at least even understands what is meant by being the witness consciousness in which appears the world and all activities to come to that stage itself is difficult before that if i honestly i i firmly feel i am this person this body mind person this jiva um yeah i know i am consciousness but i'm clearly i'm associated with the body and mind and i i must be honest that i feel only that i am this one and not the other things and i have a sense of ego and i have a sense of doership i am doing these actions i am speaking sitting walking talking this is it comes instinctively to me in that case which is the case with most of us there are very few are so elevated as to clearly see that i am the witness of all actions and i actually am not doing anything but until that stage comes then what should you do brahman do all activities dedicating them to the lord so karma yoga is to be gone through what is karma yoga continue to do all activities which come to you the duties at home your work in the community in your career and in your personal life including from from your morning exercise to your you know to your spiritual practices all of it is karma even spiritual practice studying vedanta meditating that's also activity as long as we have the sense of agency everything is activity for us everything is karma for us so continue to do all that as karma as the worship of the lord brahman here brahman means not pure consciousness it means consciousness plus maya you'll see why the vedanta sarah class is so useful now so when it when it is a brahman here it means saguna brahman or ishwara brahman plus maya god when i am the jiva it is not easy for me to say i am brahman ambram ask me that has not yet come i have not come to that level then i am clearly this individual being then what is brahman that ultimate reality it is god now all my activities let me do it as a worship of god brahman and how do i do it we have heard this again and again in karma yoga you're doing it as a worship of god sangam tattwa without attachment the one who does this god in whichever form what do you mean by god brahman that ultimate reality limited by or associated with maya maya is the upadhi so then that brahman becomes the god of the universe with endless powers all auspicious qualities benevolent omnipotent omniscient the creator preserved and destroyed the universe the lord of all beings like us and the giver of all the results of karma most adorable so we worship that lord and again here in hinduism we have this whole variety of traditions multiple traditions so if the god or saguna brahman can worship as shiva you can worship as vishnu you can worship as devi durga kali whatever like krishna worshiped kali who is kali for saddam krishna sagan abraham from a vedantic standpoint can worship as ganesha in whatever form and you can easily see how the christian jewish or islamic idea of god easily fits into this this paradigm and you're worshiping god when you worship god like this you have a particular tradition you hold on to that is called ishta devatha that is a an important concept in hinduism so if all these forms all these traditions all these names and mythologies associated with it and rituals associated with it and holy places pilgrimages associated with it all of this this is each of them is like a religion in itself and if all of them are true then which one do i do what do i do do i do all of them no of course not that srinami krishna said rishta nishta that means it's like digging a well in one place instead of digging a well in six different places one foot well i dig for some time i don't find water here go and dig elsewhere and don't find water there at the end of the day if i have dug six one foot wells no water anywhere it would have been much better to dig one six foot well so that is ishtarishta you hold on to one form one way i worship krishna my tradition is vaishnavism or i worship the divine mother kali but i know vedanta the advantage of vedanta is that it gives me the idea i know what i am doing so i because i i still have a strong sense of individuality of this person then devotion come devotion is recommended strongly so bhakti towards the ishta and all my actions now become worship puja so karma yoga is performed in that way then what will be the result an example is given just like a lotus leaf is not you know doesn't get wet the water rolls off the leaf similarly you are in the midst of activities but you don't get caught in the world uh attachment to the activity and its result we get caught in the machinery of the world you can't run away from it either so vivekananda said you can't run away from it from the machine you must learn we must learn how to work the machine till the machine sets us free machine means maya and this world so work the machine how you must learn how to work the machine don't work with with desire that i uh i am doing these things so that i will get these particular results which most people do no instead of that if we convert our activities into worship of god lipyate is not not stained by sin is not touched by sin not touched by sin not only by sin by anything good or bad good karma bad karma you will not be trapped because everything is puja for you um the job that you're doing at in their career that's a puja that's a worship of god the taking care of the family of your near and dear ones that's puja doing work for the community for the ashram everywhere that you work it is a puja you're doing karma yoga you don't you need not even make a division that the work that i do at home and and the work that i do in the office this is part of my secular life and the work i do in the ashram or temple that is part of my religious life it may be good to begin that way but you can very soon you will see it is the same everywhere whether i'm doing work in at home or in the ashram or in the office it's the same basically same kind of work and all of it can be offered to god so lipyate is not stained by sin neither obviously that person will try not to do anything wrong sinful activities that this spiritual seeker will try the best to avoid what it means here will not be caught by the results of karma will not be caught by the results of karma um then this steam is he further expands on that and the 11th verse [Music] so what does it mean men of selfless action giving up attachment perform action through the body mind intellect as also the mere senses for the purification of the mind so this karma yoga it is done at multiple levels kayena which means with the body physical actions that is that also can be karma yoga it's worship of god um that means by speech it's not it's not mentioned here in this list but speech also that we can do karma yoga through speech by thoughts what we imagine in the mind by our faculty of understanding buddhi and the senses hearing smelling tasting touching all of these can be engaged in the worship of the lord so there's physical puja at every level we can do karma yoga just like we do physical puja we sit down and we perform a ritualistic worship uh similarly if you're sitting down and writing a report for your you know office or something why cannot that be a worship also there can also be a worship i was reading uh conversations with swami bhutashan and here monk is asking so while doing the work suppose we are doing work in the office is a monk in an ashram so while we're doing the work in the ashram but it's an office you know so do how do i convert it into karma yoga do i do japa mentally while doing the work so buddhism smiles and he says no how is that possible if you're doing accounts and you keep doing japan you'll make mistakes in your accounts so one way of doing it is at the beginning of the work dedicated to god that here is my worship today oh lord maybe in the middle you remember the lord again and at the end dedicate it again to the to the lord you can do it multiple times throughout the day so that is physically you can do something um watch out by speech you can do something this is all when he says indriya repeat by all the senses and include speech of the motor organs and send solvents by speech also one can do i have seen pujari swami who is the worshipper in the temple old swami even when he is not worshiping in the temple even when he's not doing ritualistic worship he's just walking around he's continuously chanting it's become natural for him this hymn that him this totra that's tuthi this is the sanskrit hymns are coming out it's he's just mumbling it or reciting it as he walks along it's like a continual worship through the speech using the speech for worship but you can expand it in its larger sense also all the speech that i do when i'm speaking to people which may be a very secular activity and the family or a job can i think of that as a worship i'm using the words the all these senses are given to me by the lord so the faculty of speech is also given to me by the lord and i'm using it to worship the lord in this way so i will speak what is true i will speak it gently i will speak sweetly so all of these ways this is a worship of the lord remembering that i am worshiping the lord in that way swami ranganath he is in his reminiscence even he was the 13th president of the order in his reminiscences he says when he was a little boy one day he came home from school and used an abusive word which he had learnt at school from some of his friends and his mother immediately said if you utter such words then saraswati will never dwell the goddess of learning will never dwell on your tongue and he said that made such an impression on me immediately that corrected all tendencies of using any kind of curse words or abusive words forever in my life um watch out converting walk that means the ability the power of speech into an instrument of worship manasseh by mind so one can worship in the mind also see i'm i'm giving i'm interpreting this at two levels one is at the level of ritualistic worship puja so physically one does ritualistic worship you sit in the asana and you're doing a puja of irish there are mudras to be done and asana to be you know sitting in there by speech you are uttering mantras and hymns by the mind you keep your mind on the lord you're worshiping i mean one can actually physically go on worshiping and chanting mantras if you're an expert pujari and the mind may be thinking of something else quite possible so the mind has to be kept on the lord so this is the ritualistic worship you can have mana puja that means externally the puja may not go on but in meditation you can imagine the easter devata in luminous lotus in your heart imagine the form of the ishta devata and then you are actually worshiping the ishta devata with with with imaginary with the mind the faculty of imagination flower and incense and food offerings all of that you are worshiping mentally mana puja now the same thing can be extended to our external activities physically instead of doing the puja and sitting in the you know the posture and using the hand gestures you're doing other kinds so you're sitting in another posture when you're driving or writing a report on your computer you're using other other hand gestures all of those can be thought of as physical worship of the lord instead of uttering sanskrit hymns or mantras for the ritualistic worship we are saying other things when we are talking with people and thinking instead of thinking mentally worshipping the lord there we are thinking about the work of people outside but all of those can also be imagined as the attitude can be changed that's also my worship of the lord so kaina manasa you can add vacha by speech buddhia so by our understanding even this vedanta practice which we are doing right now for example we have all come to class and we are studying vedanta yet we do not have the breakthrough that i am the atman and when i'm in reading that i am the witness consciousness the person who has the breakthrough for that person it will just be a report of a fact that yes it's just telling me as it is but if i if i'm not at that level it'll be just something that i have to attain in the future that i have to realize that i have to make the breakthrough but in that case all my study of vedanta will be a karma yoga even the vedantic studied what i consider to be ghana yoga you know the study coming to the gita class and reading the book and thinking about it all of it is still karma yoga until i get the breakthrough in one way of putting it i mean if you say that no that is ghana yoga the gita the gita class upanishad class is because it is even if i have not made the breakthrough even if i think of myself as an individual being isn't that gamma yoga you can think that way also kevlar indirectly so this word cable it means with with the humility with the understanding that all the factors of work which i am using the body the speech the sense organs my mind these are all given by the lord they are powered by prakriti by nature and none of them they belong to me really so i am using the the instruments the powers and energies and capacities given by god to worship god this with this kind of humility with this kind of worshipful attitude we engage in action which action all actions include including ritualistic religious actions and our day-to-day actions yogi naha the yogi which yogi here karma yogi karma kurwanti they again giving up detachment because all of these actions can be performed for giving up attachment so all of these actions can be performed for selfish gain that must be given up otherwise it does not become karma yoga see this is one simple fact it may sound a little harsh but sometimes people say i have done my duty in the world isn't that enough for god realization no it is not one must actually consciously deliberately seek god even the duties in the world which we do one must connect it to god in some way it must become the worship of god that i am doing the duties of the world honorably struggling to do it good that that counts in your um favor that counts in my favor that i'm struggling in the world to live an honorable moral ethical life and putting up with so many troubles i've met many people like that i've done the best i could throughout the life isn't this enough for god realization actually it is not it's good that one has led a you know struggled in life to do the best one can and that's much better than not doing it but also one must consciously seek enlightenment must must consciously seek god realization um also similarly i isn't it enough if i do karma yoga according to krishna according to vedanta not enough because he says here at all these yogi's doing these activities for what atma means mind so atma can mean body it can mean mind it or it can mean the real lot mother you know pure consciousness here atma means mind for the purification of the mind chittas of the mind remember the three levels of sadhana are three levels of spiritual practice impurity of the mind it has to be corrected we need purity of the mind and how will you do that karma yoga and this is what he's saying here distraction of the mind we need concentration of the mind how will you do that upasana yoga meditation and that will be said in sixth chapter he'll talk about it next chapter finally ignorance in the mind we need knowledge how will you do that gyana yoga so three levels again this is classical advaita vedanta so atma these karma yogis they perform all these actions with this attitude for the purification of the mind not for enlightenment for enlightenment you must come to you know the vedantic teaching that you are brahmana and there must be shravana mana and there so classical vedante is inflexible on this point i have devotion to god isn't it enough advaita vedanta will say no it is not enough purification of the mind through karma yoga concentration of the mind through raja yoga and bhakti yoga but enlightenment through gyani yoga but you can take it in a little more you know more liberal form in the sense that yes it could be enough if you have devotion to god and ultimately by the grace of god you get knowledge this much advaita vedanta will stick to that ultimately you need knowledge knowledge will overcome ignorance if you say god will give me knowledge suramar krishna said that my mother has told me everything what has shown me everything what is there in your veda and vedanta then that's also all right because ultimately it is god who does give knowledge um yes that's a more liberal interpretation the strict interpretation would be no karma yoga first then bhakti yoga and raja yoga next and then gyani yoga to give you enlightenment and of course you can keep doing all four together but the results will be separate the results have each of them have specific results and specific purposes all right then 12 continuing the same topic [Music] [Music] the harmonized one giving up the fruit of action attains the highest peace the non-harmonized one working under this way of desire is attached to the fruit and gets bound basically what it means yukta means the karma yogi here let's make it more clear the karma yogi giving up attachment to the results of actions that means has no selfish desires and performs all the actions as a worship of god shanti mapnothi attains peace of mind nashti came by this discipline by dedication to karma yoga whereas the opposite ayukta the one who does not perform actions as karma yoga is doing actions or not doing actions doing actions either out of desire or not doing actions out of lazy laziness what will happen about that they become attached to the results and they are trapped by karba so in samsara will trap them and they will be bound by worry and anxiety and suffering so here's an interesting point karma yoga gives peace of mind actually you know this topic of peace of mind many people come most people come to spirituality for peace of mind all the yogas give peace of mind all the yogas give peace of mind how let me start from the most outward and go to the core the most obvious thing to a more subtler and subtler things so most obviously we must first of all if the what is the goal peace of mind how do you get peace first of all one must give up things activities which we ourselves know actions which ourselves know to be unethical if there is something that in my life i know others may not know that i am ashamed of that i find unethical i will not have peace of mind whatever happens in the world i will not get peace of mind so americans have a nice phrase for it clean up your act you clean up your act then only there's peace of mind possible this is called dharma first of all in spiritual life one must move from adharma to dharma it's something one must keep track of for a very very long time in spiritual life it's quite possible to have be very philosophical very intellectual and have all kinds of subtle spiritual practices and yet lose track of the foundation that is dharma and slip into a dharma then the whole thing is destroyed again so one must move from a dharma to dharma make up one's mind but yes i may have done things which are wrong i may have done things which are sinful i will not do them again i repent for that and i will move into a dharmic way of life what is at least to my own conscience and it's good to check with society the society i live in the times that i live in so just check with that this is moral and decent so that is that gives peace of mind one story i like is one man wanted to learn meditation and he went to a sadhu to learn yoga patanjali yoga meditation and the sadhu said well first of all yama and niyama do's and don'ts in spiritual life to tell the truth you have to be non-violent you have to be self-controlled this man did not like all that kind of advice and he said yeah we learned all that in school you know go ahead i i want to learn how to sit and the breathing and the meditation the focus the asana and pranayama teach me how to sit properly you know the postures now this um monk you'll understand it nicely in hindi and translate later he said you want to learn the eight limbed yoga or the you know wikileaks literally means the handicapped yoga with some yoga with some limb missing the two limbs the first two limbs are the moral limbs going to remove that and then he said in again in hindi black money parasan so you have hidden undeclared income black money means it's in india it's a term for undeclared income you haven't paid taxes you're hiding that money and then you hide it under your bed and on top of the bed you put a nice meditation mat and you sit for meditation then the monk said do you think your mind will be we will be calm in meditation will it be focused so um dharma one must move from adharma to dharma that is the non-glamorous hard part of spiritual life that's why swami vivekananda gave so much stress on character development character making a good character and then that's why ethics is the beginning foundation of all religions every religion whatever it is dualistic non-dualistic theistic non-theistic ethics is a big big part it's the beginning and for a long time it is all about ethics then one goes to the next level remember the topic is peace of mind the next level is karma yoga i may be doing ethical actions and yet i have no peace of mind notice everybody here whoever is here um householders you know we you are working you earn money you take care of families none of it is unethical doing your duty in life and yet you might say that but we don't have peace of mind the reason is that the i am doing it ethically i am not violating laws i am leading a normal decent life and yet i fret i am anxious because i have certain very specific desires i want these things and i don't want those things ragadvaisha is there i want money and more money and more money all in a moral way i want gadgets i want houses i want this experience that experience i want my kids to go to first i want kids then i want kids in the best public schools then i want kids to go to ivy league colleges what the kids want that's not a question at all so uh all of this is my my program and often life is uncertain it goes many ways many things happen in life which are beyond my control and therefore i am unhappy i have specific needs specific demands from life all moral all ethical nowhere am i violating the law but still there will be no peace of mind it is because of karma desire so the next stage for peace of mind is what krishna is saying nishkama karma yoga why would you do karma yoga shakaracharya in his commentary makes it clear again and again nishkama doesn't mean aimless it doesn't mean without any purpose at all that's madness i will do so much karma yoga so many spirit so many things i'm doing a spiritual practice there must be a aim yes there is a name but the only aim is purification of mind only aim is god realization let's keep the ultimate aim in view aim is enlightenment god realization that is clearly an aim so someone may ask them that's a desire to how is it an action without desire no the desire for god is not to be counted among desires suramar krishna makes this very clear mystery he says mishti madhya noises this rock candy is not to be counted as a candy because the candy produces acidity as it reflects the rock candy actually destroys acid reflux similarly if you the work done with desire it produces reaction unhappiness work done for god realization removes those desires and gives me peace of mind it is not to be seen as a desire desire for god is not a desire not among desires karma yoga work done the same work done as worship of god gives peace of mind immediately you will see a huge difference instead of doing that i want my children to perform very well good if children perform very well i am happy if they don't perform very well i'm definitely i'll be unhappy but my whole point was i am worshiping the lord in the form of my child after that it's the lord's will what will happen not happen that everybody we are all children of the lord there's some i like this saying that god does not have any grandkids so you your children your parents all of you are children of god one generation we are all children of god god will take care of us god will take care of your children also so you need not worry so much you are doing your duty and if it sounds very harsh and dry doing my duty you are worshiping you are adoring you are loving but whom are you worshiping adoring and loving not your son or daughter you're you're worshiping or adoring loving god god in which which way the ishta devata which was spoken of earlier your krishna your kali sri ramakrishna says he makes a pun on the word dayan maya he says my niece my son or daughter that is maya delusion but everyone is my gopala all are my god my child krishna is in everybody he says that is daya they are here does not mean compassion that since you don't have compassion to god it's it's worship of god it's spiritual that attitude is spiritual so peace of mind one interesting result is immediately peace of mind comes that's a benefit people may not think about immediately you don't have to wait for enlightenment he says shanti map gets peace of mind right away the moment you give up specific worldly desires and continue to perform the actions as worship of god just as you perform a puja with devotion simple devotion and focus after that you have an elevation of mind a feeling of purity and a calmness and a wholesome feeling after the puja for some time similarly after every action you will have that feeling you'll be elevated by all these actions not degraded by it so i saw in the ashram the monks are someone is running a kitchen someone is running a school somebody is looking after money monks you're not supposed to touch money all day long accounting money one old monk said look like look at my condition all day long i'm counting money um and being an old man you know so he he was always worried he would lock the cash box and then go back and check with this locked it again and then come out and then go back and check again maybe this is locked it or not and you used to pull his leg about you look look you have become a monk and you're worried about your cash box but you see why does he have peace of mind because he does not own even one rupee of that it is all the lord's property all of it so somebody i was joking with somebody that see even the millionaires and billionaires in manhattan they have one two three five ten houses in different continents i'm a monk i have at last count more than 200 houses in just about all the continents of the world all the ashrams of the ramakrishna order are my houses but the difference is i don't own a brick of even one of those places and that's good it all belongs to the lord you get peace of mind no attachment these are mine no sangam tattwa he says here yukta giving up all a hankering for specific results from the work or even the work itself i like this work and i don't like that work why all of it is puja so why would you like this work or not that work monks they literally give up i mean physically they give up but when you're in the world you have to mentally give up the mentally give up means convert it into worship into karma yoga i may have told you this is reminded of this monk i think i hope he's still alive is to live under a tree uh in uttarakhand literally live under a tree and he had only a loin cloth maybe in winter he lived somewhere else but his philosophy is zero zero zero zero means he begins the day sunrise with nothing with no possession and throughout the day people keep coming to him because he a lot of the villagers revere him a lot so they bring food and clothes and things like that and quite a big bundle grows up throughout the day but his policy is that as it grows up there are devotees around whose work is to take and distribute all the stuff that comes to poor people in neighboring villages so by the time sun sets the monk is left alone with under his tree he understood and nothing else is there zero again at the end of the day so his philosophy is like zero zero nothing should remain but that's physical it's actually more difficult to be in the midst of your possessions your money your gadgets your clothes your books your car and people around you and maybe your dog and cat all of that and yet it all belongs to the lord belongs to me maya belongs to the lord or the lord himself is in all these forms then that is spiritual and that will give peace of mind this is just a second level the third level is internal this is external internally instead of thinking about the world i will think only about god so all my thoughts are about easter devata and the mantra no thought of the world is more valuable more peaceful more elevated than the mantra of god than the thought of the form of maishtra devata i think about krishna all the time i'll repeat the mantra of krishna all the time internally the mind is flowing in love towards god even greater deeper peace of mind you see the difference between karma yoga and this this is this the second this practice is bhakti yoga even deeper peace of mind it will be filled with joy and love throughout the day never have we ever thought of god and been hurt or disappointed by it if you if you i think who said it that tears shed when you miss the presence of krishna those tears are they give a thousand times more happiness than all the smiles of worldly pleasure the spiles of worldly pleasure they gave much less happiness than the tears you shed for the sake of god crying for the sake of the sake of god gives you great joy so keeping the mind on god you know love of god you can repeat the mantra you can you know like chant the internally it flows towards god that gives great peace of mind even deeper peace of mind there's a third level then the fourth level is even deeper peace of mind is why even thought of god why even emotion towards god shut the whole thing down at least twice a day in deep meditation when you drop the mind itself it shut down completely absolute peace serenity quietness of the mind witness of the absence of the mind that is yoga samadhi deep meditation where intense thought of god and then finally that stops too um that is that is even deeper peace where the mind also stops and then finally the fifth level fifth level of what peace of mind and if you are like what were the first four levels so first is dharma from immoral to moral from dharma to dharma gives you peace of mind and then karma yoga even the dharma has to be performed without any worldly desire it is performed as a worship of god gives you more peace of mind second level third level internally apart from my activities my heart my mind flows towards god it's love of god repeating the mantra thinking about the lord even deeper peace of mind fourth level is patanjali yoga in samadhi in meditation let the mind itself stop at least once or twice a day that is even deeper level of of peace and and relaxation and freedom from anxiety completely but the final level is uh in in ghana in realization that it is brahman inside outside with eyes closed and eyes open it is the same reality the problem with the with the um yogic approach or even the bhakti approach is that this is spiritual thought of god is spiritual all other thought is not spiritual or this is spiritual no thought is spiritual the moment the mind starts thinking no no it's not spiritual spirituality is available only when the mind has stopped one sadhu put it very nicely only in samadhi you find god then the problem will be so if you put say the only in samadhi god is available then then see you have taken your beloved and put put your beloved in the jail of samadhi it's a jail it's a prison cell only when you enter that you'll meet your beloved lord outside it there's no lord when you come out into the world god is not there sriram krishna put it even more simply he said what and when i close my eyes there's god and when i open my eyes there's no god what kind of god is that so advaita ghana the path of knowledge that finally shows you there's only one reality and one reality only what appears as the world is an appearance appearance of what of god there's nothing else here except god itself so everywhere sarvam kalvidham brahma all this is verily brahman that is the highest peace that is permanent it's not dependent on anything then you realize your very nature is peace mandu upanishad seventh mantra shivam advaitam your very nature the atman the self is the name is peace it's not that you're peaceful as against less peace more peace lack of peace disturbance no you are peace itself so that's the final the deepest level five levels of peace of mind i've given you quite an independent vedanta talk little so five levels of peace of mind shah but but here's krsna's point is that every one of these yogas gives you peace of mind shantae map noti nishti kim this nishta this discipline gives you peace of mind which discipline is he talking about karma yoga gives you peace of mind immediately i mentioned that i saw in the ashram when i became a monk so somebody's running a school somebody's running a kitchen somebody is doing that cash looking after the cash day and night and worrying about whether the cash box has been locked and yet they're not really worried none of them they're all at peace one of them is taken from one work to another looking after the you know the kitchen and then is sent next day to worship in the temple very different kind of work maybe you're not so good at it but it doesn't matter it's all the worship of the same lord that attitude is very important i remember another time when i saw this monk i was in the himalayas in uttarkashi another monk was there one of our order and we used to go out begging for food every day in the afternoon interesting you know there are places where monks are fed so the monks would go with their um earlier they would go at a begging bowl but now the begging bowl has been replaced by like a tiffin carrier like a box you open it and you put uh rice and a or the chapati and the dal inside and the monks would come with that and then there's a specific time when the food would be distributed this was in uttar kashish there are many monks if you go higher up in gangotri in other places there are fewer monks so you there's enough space for all of them to sit together and eat together burutakashi there's so many monks there's no space to sit and eat they'll just give you the food you can take it in that box you have to come with a box and there's a specific time when it's they start giving the food if you have come before that there's a long queue and what the monks do is instead of standing in the queue they put their box the tiffin box and then they go for a walk on the bank of the ganga on the it's just next to the bank of the river so you will just see a long queue of tiffin boxes so when it's time for the food to be distributed you suddenly find all sorts of monks some with long shaggy hair and beard some clean shaven some wearing ochre robes i'm wearing white robes i'm wearing red robes some wearing and so it's a very different kinds of all different orders they'll all come and form up in a queue now why was it saying this okay so via i and this monk we used to go um then a few weeks later i had gone back to our our monastery and returned from the himalayas back to our monastery in india and i was posted in a big college a university at that time actually and this monk was also there and at that time a conference was organized to introduce certain software into the computer departments of different colleges across the city so the computer companies including microsoft bill gates and all they had given a big conference for all the computer science departments and all the teachers get to come to the fanciest hotel in calcutta um i think it's a taj or something like one of those i forgotten the name also so we all went there i went that monk went because we were part of that university and that monk was part of the computer science department so we went there and surrounding us were all the teachers and professors from different computer science departments and we're sitting there in this very posh hotel um the one of the most expensive hotels in the in the city now i asked this monk where we're sitting there 15 days ago swami 15 days ago you were in the streets of a little town in in the mountains begging for your food and now you're sitting here in the most expensive hotel in town in this indus this big city um what difference do you find he said something very interesting he said when i was doing that i felt that was not so bad at all it's all right and when i'm sitting here i see this is nothing particularly great about this either there's nothing particularly great about this and nothing particularly bad about that either about begging for your food in on a mountain village mountain town and i said see this is the difference because you are you are not part of the rat race you know everything is karma yoga for you everything is a worship of the lord even the computer science department or whatever you're doing or your sadhana and the himalayas all of it is worship of the lord that's why it's all the same to you really i mean it's not that you do not see that this is fancy and this is very comfortable and ultra luxurious and that's a hard life you do see the difference but it's not it doesn't really make a difference to you but imagine these people who are sitting around you who are who are teachers basically and on a teacher's salary they would never dream of entering this hotel so this is a story that they will go back home and tell the people back at home that we went to this big hotel and we saw such it's this way and that way i don't know maybe teachers earned a lot more nowadays but in those days teachers did not earn so much to go to five star hotels so they would it would be a story to tell people and something that they would remember for years that they went to this very fancy place once and if that teacher is suddenly you know dismissed from the job you can't teach in the college anymore and in fact you have to leave your family and in fact you are exiled to a little town in the mountains and in fact you don't get to have any money you don't get to have any food you have to beg for your food and all you get to do all day long is to repeat the mantra and take the name of god um the teacher would be devastated it would go probably go insane it would be like the end of life for that person everything is gone whereas because you are not attached to this or that you are attached only to god and you see the same god in book see what a huge difference it makes it's not that the swami is an enlightened jeevan mukhtar no it's just that the paradigm has shifted that's what krishna is saying this discipline of karma yoga is called nishta this this staying with this karma yoga attitude it gives peace immediately no matter it doesn't depend on what happens in the world anymore it gives you peace those who are working for things in the world they get trapped and they fall prey to anxiety and frustration and tension and elation when things go their way just for a while elation wow it's great i'm on top of the world next moment again there will be unhappiness you are on that rat race i like that saying that even if you win the rat race you're still a rat so uh one must run the rattles for a while and not even call it a righteous it's it's a good school for learning so once in a while i'm called to nowadays you know online called to address students i don't tell them these things i tell them how to study and how to develop a developed character and a personality and and also tell them that there is spiritual life and this ultimate goal in life is that that this is possible one must develop first the gentleman told me it's good that you don't talk about giving up the ego from the very beginning one must have an ego to give up first one must have possessions and some kind of you know place in life to go forward from without having any of it theoretically it doesn't work one crusty old swami when young men would come to become monks in an ashram menu in india first question he would ask is um what is it that you have got to give up the buddha was a prince he gave up a kingdom tell me what are you giving up the poor the poor young you know mostly they were students or college college kids and they really didn't they were not rich or they didn't have families or jobs or anything so they would sort of be at a loss for words really what is it that i might am i giving up all right let me stop here let's look at the activity in the chats um can you all hear me yes why is this but your video video yeah something is wrong with the video audio is good wait wait yeah something is going wrong here i i can see both i can see the video and i'll see here now now is it better now is it better now no no wait just wait for a um it just might be something to do with the software here uh it was okay for me up until a second ago when you tried to adjust something but now i can't see it right uh now also yeah your video is not i cannot see you anymore i can hear your voice we need to get the computer science people here you were talking about computer science yeah we see the black box where your picture should be but we don't see a picture now i i know i'm trying to adjust it because this thing keeps on um adjusting and readjusting anyway but you can hear me yeah yeah something wrong with this thing but i was able to see you also till just before you started adjusting something adjusting yeah i mean what's happening is i can't do anything with the zoom uh panel because there's just like circle keeps going round and round you can try try quitting from zoom and then logging back in it should only take 30 seconds and what i'm worried about is if i quit will the yeah giant will let you back in but if if the host quits giant is co-host so giant will you if anybody wants to ask a question because i can't see the chat it's it's frozen for me now yeah so if anybody has uh a question to ask jack can you read out the chat oh okay now okay now you're back it's working back now i'm back to okay good yes the computer has made up its mind to cooperate he became invisible for a while yes so girish is asking hold on to one form but does that form have to be an anthropomorphic form can it be something bigger i won't like use the word vegar more abstract yes why does it have to be an anthropomorphic form it can be so it can be formless god with qualities so like you have in christianity or islam or judaism god is without form but with qualities that's what the brahmos also worshiped nirakara sagun nirakar with qualities and without him vishwanathan says swami tagan in this book walking the walk a karma yoga manual extremely helpful to put verse 10 into practice yes so this is book he is referring to is walking the wok a karma yoga manual it's a commentary on swami vivekananda's karma yoga if you like it if you are interested you should pick up the book um sujay says namaste swamiji for knowingly or unknowingly involved in bad karma during this life will did not negatively affect our effects of um our efforts towards god realization even when we think that bad karma is to worship offered his worship it will still impact us negatively yes it will but bad karma is not to be offered as worship in that sense it is that i repent doing um something wrong and i will not do it again that's good enough if one cannot come out of it one has one feel guilt about something sharply then there's something called price chitta which is a ritualistic repentant repentance that also can be gone through many religions have methods for that but come out of it quickly and don't repeat it that's all will it obstruct our spiritual practice to some extent it will but it doesn't matter you will just have to [Music] surrender to the lord and with the help of god overcome that ultimately all of this will be overcome um chatterjee is asking how important is the pronunciation of mantras and stotras the right intent can compensate for incorrect pronunciation yes the pronunciation as far as we can make it correct let's make it correct but if it is incorrect see one one advantage of karma yoga of nishkama karma of spiritual practices in general is that uh small defects are not uh important sakama karma this diff this difference is made in rituals in hinduism sakamakara but rituals performed with desires it has to be perfect otherwise it will not give results or sometimes negative results may come harm may ensure from that this is a sort of general feeling that general idea that people have all over india one knows this clearly one does it properly or not at all but if you are doing a puja ritual out of love for god or the purpose is god realization then the small things do not matter at all srirama krishna says the child the different children call out to the father some says father some says papa and the youngest child just says ba but does that mean the father will not love the youngest child just because he cannot pronounce it not at all not at all um says peace of mind also comes from separation of seer and seen correct this was the fifth state i was talking about drinkdrisha vivekan leading to ultimate realization that uh that attitude is let the mind think what it will what is it to you there are 6 billion 7 billion minds thinking all sorts of insane thoughts all over the planet nothing to you because they are not your mind you won't say that but i don't have access to those insane thoughts in their mind so i am at peace but in my mind is obvious to me no the problem with the thoughts of my mind is that it is my mind if i were a telepath and i could watch the thoughts of other people god forbid but i could watch the thoughts of other people just be like a movie it would be of no consequence to me similarly my mind also should be of no consequence to me that's the gyani's approach the yogi's approach is to shut down the mind quieten the mind calm the mind the bhaktas approach is to be fill the mind with devotional thoughts you will think but devotional thoughts and the karma yogi's approach is to fill the mind with the thoughts of welfare of others of worship of converting activities for the worship of lord and so on gloria is asking his emphasis on worship devotion a method for negating the fear of god one may start with the fear of god but bhakti must proceed beyond the fear of god many people say oh fear of god is bad no it's not really bad it's the beginning of devotion see devotion all that one may speak about devotion and love of god it's often because we have no conception of what god is as we begin to have a conception of god as it becomes deeper and more serious the first feeling will be awe and it's like when you go to meet like the most important most powerful the richest and the greatest person in the world you will feel you don't feel immediately that hey he's my pal or my or my buddy no you feel awe and imagine multiply that a million times so religion often begins with fear of god with awe of god when arjuna he asked for a vision of the vishwa rupa so what was his reaction he wanted to see that and krishna said yes you can see it but his first reaction was he's completely scared he's terrified his first reaction is actually it is every hair on his body stood on the end when he began to see what god really is there's a reason why the devotees of god are always shown like this in front of the lord i know one monk who was a staunch non-dualist staunch then you know aham brahmasmi that kind of so he went to the jagannath temple in puri so as he went inside he he said later every thought of i am brahman and you know there's one existence consciousness where everything fled away is suddenly in the in the front of this extraordinary magnificent huge spiritual power so you know that's one place sriram krishna never went to the holy mother went and showed the picture of krishna to lord jagannath because suramam krishna said i cannot go there if i go i will not be able to come out offset and i will leave the body there so um so this is non-dualist me totally gone he said there's no question of that you are just this like the thousands of people there all raising their hands like this this non-dualist monk also just like this and with with hands it will be overcome all these little things of our intellect when you're actually face to face with god and forget face to face with god with with a manifestation of god as you find in very powerful places like puri jagarnath and some of the other ancient temples in india it will be overcome there is no doubt about it all right we i will not take up the other questions rick says regular experiences samadhi integrates infuses and stabilizes it such that eventually it abides in it absolutely regular practice of meditation deep meditation it will have its effect immediately on the rest of the day the serenity not just serenity centeredness and not even that holiness serenity yes centeredness yes but holiness it will be like a perfume which spreads around your others will also notice it i've seen it in the lives of senior monks it is there is no doubt about you can you clearly sense the difference you're entering the presence of something holy when you come to the present just there may be sitting down walking around or talking or just alone sitting quietly i've had so many such experiences once i went up to meet a very senior monk of the order in bellew mud so some work just some very sick almost secular kind of work you know karma yoga and the swami had not come down to his office he lived on a room up upstairs in the building so i thought i'll go to the room and catch him before he gets busy so i went up to the room it was time for all the swamis to come down to work and most had come he had not yet come so i caught him at that moment when he was just getting ready to come out from his room and go down to the office for his daily work i saw him from the window he didn't see me he was bowing down to the little picture of sudama krishna mashaara swami vivekananda on his table he was bowing down on the floor and this is like a 75 year old swami on the floor is bowing down and it's so simple something that i've seen a thousand times and i've done it thousands of times the swamp is bowing down and yet it was a scene that i'll never forget in my life as simple as that it's almost as if it was literally like nature stood still there was a very holy silence in the entire room and a vibrant feeling of the presence of god and i'm just standing outside the room and watching this swami and it's something that i will never forget in my life i've seen it again and again i didn't of course speak to the swami just quietly backed out and went away from there there are so many such instances another swami i know a disciple i mentioned him a few times this irish man who became a monk who met em i meant mentioned in the qatar with the class so i used to serve him to towards the end of his life uh in the evening rp in dogha ram krishna mission so after the rt is over all the children leave the monks leave and he was old nearly 90 so i used to take walk with him hold his hand and walk around he would go and bow down to sriram krishna maharaja vivekananda then he would go on each of the direct disciples pictures swami brahman and shivan and and he had seen number of them that was amazing to walk with him i still remember one day he's borrowing down through a picture of swami abhidhan and then saying i consider him to be my second guru because he's a disciple of swami shivananda and so on now one day he so we have finished all the pranams and he's going to leave the temple and goes to the door of the temple and it got me by surprise he's walking down suddenly turned around and he bowed down like this now i don't know if how i can convey it when i turn around and i see a picture then i bow down to the picture it's a formal thing but when he's bowing down to look in his eyes actually seeing a living form because i almost jumped out of my skin i whirled around like this to look what what who he was was he looking at they just saw the picture of sri ramakrishna this kind of thing and he actually got a vision at least twice he told me that he got visions of his guru swami shivananda i've seen him standing in front of the picture of his guru swami shivananda with tears flowing down his eyes and when he saw him saw me i that i saw him that he was crying he looked at me and he said you know vishwaroop that is my primonestic name bishwaroop where i was what i was and what i have become by the grace of the guru what i was and what i have become with the tears flowing down is so yes the living presence you can feel anuradha says i find the hardest thing is likes and dislikes i know the answer is karma yoga but that is really words for me yes even mechanically if we start offering our likes and dislikes to the we don't have to force it start doing things which we like and offering that to the lord and situations we do not like work we do not like people or food or things you know whatever we do not like now mentally also we associate it with the lord and all of this is coming to me as prasad so in the prasad also i may like the mango piece and i may not like the the pair or something but both are prasad i mean that that holiness is attached to me i can't reject it suppose the prayer comes to me i can't throw it away because it's the prasad offered to the lord i will take it with reverence similarly nobody's forcing you to like an unpleasant person nobody's forcing you to like illness obviously it's unpleasant but it is the prasad of the lord it's the lord's universe it's the lord's body lord's prana life senses even the mind and thoughts they all belong to the lord what business is it of mine and i will happily receive all of it okay omg foreign