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Our friend Kumuda (Sharon Janis) has done an excellent job of putting the Bhagavad Gita to music using the traditional Gita melody used daily in many ashrams in India. She sings the Gita in the English translation by Swami Nirmalananda, and her rendition is as inspiring as it is beautiful. We highly recommend this 2 CD set, which is available on iTunes for only $9.99. CLICK HERE to access the CD at iTunes, or use the iTunes search function and type in “Glorious Bhagavad Gita” or “Kumuda”

What is the Bhagavad Gita? Several thousand years ago in north-central India, two people sat in a chariot in the midpoint of a great battlefield. One of them, the yogi Arjuna, knew that it would be not be long before the conflict would begin. So he asked Krishna, the Master of Yoga, what should be his attitude and perspective in this moment. And above all: What should he do?

There was no time to spare in empty words. In a brief discourse, later turned into seven hundred Sanskrit verses by the sage Vyasa, Krishna outlined to Arjuna the way to live an entire life so as to gain perfect self-knowledge and self-mastery. Visit our Bhagavad Gita page to find out more about the Gita.

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Q: How can I know if I am progressing in meditation?

A: By your habitual state of mind outside of meditation. Read the Gita carefully and consider if what Krishna describes there is being attained–at least in some degree–by you.

Choose any of three versions of the Bhagavad Gita to download and study on our Bhagavad Gita page.

The attainment of liberation (moksha) is very simple in principle–and in practice, as well. Perhaps it is its simplicity that keeps people from managing it.
However it may be, Krishna explains the whole matter in a very simple manner:

“At the hour of death, he who dies remembering Me, having relinquished the body, goes to My state of being. In this matter there is no doubt.” –Bhagavad Gita 8:5

This is quite straightforward and easy to understand. The moment of death is perhaps the most important moment in our life, equalled only by the moment of birth. Dr. Morris Netherton, formulator of the Netherton Method of Past Life Recall, has found that the most significant factors in our life can be either birth or death trauma. The same would be true of positive experience during birth or death, which is why in India sacred mantras are recited during both times–at least by the spiritually intelligent. In this way the individual both comes into incarnation and leaves it accompanied by the remembrance of God. In a few verses we will see that the way to fix our consciousness in God will be the repetition of Om. (See our free eBook: Om Meditation–Its Theory and Practice.)

The principle

Sanatana Dharma is never a matter of “shut up and accept what I tell you.” So Krishna explains to us how it is that if we are intent on the remembrance of God at the time of death we will go to God.

“Moreover, whatever state of being [bhavam] he remembers when he gives up the body at the end, he invariably goes to that state of being, transformed into that state of being.” –Bhagavad Gita 8:6

All translators I know of have translated this verse to mean that whatever we think of at death, we will go to that thing, to whatever world in which it exists. The conclusion is then that if we remember God in life we will go to God at the time of death. Sounds, simple, easy, and certainly noble. But it is not true, as no simplistic formula is ever true. Winthrop Sargeant alone, as far as I know, translates this verse correctly.

It is not “who” or “what” we merely think of intellectually that determines our after-death state, but the state of mind and being, the bhava, that we are in at the time of death. A Brief Sanskrit Glossary defines bhava in this way: “Subjective state of being (existence); attitude of mind; mental attitude or feeling; state of realization in the heart or mind.” In short, it is our state of consciousness, and that is a matter of evolution, of buddhi yoga. Religiosity and holy thinking fail utterly; it is the level of consciousness that alone means anything.

When we die, we gather up all the subtle energies that comprise our astral and causal bodies–energies that ultimately are seen to be intelligent thought-force. Then we leave the body through the gate (chakra) that corresponds to the dominant vibration of our life and thought. If our awareness has been on lower things we will depart through a lower gate and go to a low astral world. If we have been spiritually mediocre (the ignorant call it being “balanced” or “following the middle way”) we will go to a middling world. But those who have made their minds and bodies vibrate to Divinity through authentic spiritual practice, tapasya, will leave through the higher centers. Those who have been united with God even in life will go forth to merge into Brahman forever.

Some people pay attention to the first part of this verse only, and think that they will cheat the law of karma which operates mentally as well as physically. They think that if at the moment of their death they will say a few mantras, then off they go to liberation (or at least heaven) no matter how they have lived their lives. Others, not quite so crass, decide that after having lived in a materialistic and spiritually heedless manner they will “get religious” during the last few years of their life and then be sure to be in the right state of mind and being as they die. But there is no cheating or cutting corners. What we sow that we reap–nothing else.

The outspoken Ajaan Chah, a meditation master of the Thai Buddhist forest tradition, said that many people pester their grandmother at the moment of death, calling out: “Say ‘Buddho [Buddha],’ grandma, say ‘Buddho’!” “Let grandma alone and let her die in peace!” said Ajahn Chah. “She did not say ‘Buddho’ during life, so she will not say ‘Buddho’ during death.” Sri Ramakrishna said that even at the moment of death a miser will say: “O! look how much oil you are wasting in the lamp! Turn it down.” he also said that you can teach a parrot to constantly say “Radha-Krishna!,” but if you pull its tail feathers it will only squawk. In the same way, when death pulls our “tail feathers” we revert to our swabhava, our real state of mind and consciousness.

The lesson we must learn

There is a lesson here for all of us. As Jesus said: “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,” in the realms of higher consciousness, “for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” (Matthew 6:20, 21) even at the time of death.

“Therefore at all times remember Me and fight with your mind and intellect fixed on Me. Without doubt you shall come to Me. With a mind disciplined by the practice of yoga, which does not turn to anything else, to the divine supreme Spirit he goes, meditating on Him.” –Bhagavad Gita 8:7,8

This is the necessary bhava we must cultivate at all times, fighting the battle of life in the conditions and situations dictated by our karma.

The Lord

We are not going to heaven–we are going to God! And we do not just believe in God, we intend to unite with God. So Krishna further says: “He who meditates on the ancient seer, the ruler, smaller than the atom, Who is the supporter of all, Whose form is unthinkable, and who is effulgent like the sun, beyond darkness; at the hour of death, with unmoving mind, endowed with devotion and with the power of yoga, having made the vital breath [prana] enter between the two eyebrows, he reaches this divine supreme Spirit.” (8:9,10)

One of the gates to higher worlds is the “third eye” between the eyebrows. During meditation the yogi sometimes finds his awareness drawn spontaneously to that point. It is the same at the time of death. The purified and divinely-oriented life force (prana) automatically exits through that gate and goes to God, bearing us upward, even as the Egyptians pictured the freed soul flying in a spirit-boat to the sun.

There is more:

“That which those who know the Vedas call the Imperishable, which the ascetics, free from passion [raga], enter, desiring which they practice brahmacharya, that path I shall explain to you briefly.” –Bhagavad Gita 8:11

To die right takes a lifetime of purification and preparation. Only those can enter into God whose bonds of desire are broken. To this end they constantly practice brahmacharya–control of the senses and mind, which includes chastity/celibacy.

Going forth

“Closing all the gates of the body, and confining the mind in the heart, having placed his vital breath [prana] in the head, established in yoga concentration, uttering Om, the single-syllable Brahman, meditating on Me, he who goes forth, renouncing the body, goes to the supreme goal.” –Bhagavad Gita 8:12, 13

It is important to remember here that “heart” means the core of our consciousness, and not the physical heart–or “heart chakra.” Even more important, Krishna is not referring to some kind of strenuous breathing exercise, but rather, the natural and automatic rising of the life-fore into the higher centers of the brain that occurs when we inwardly repeat Om with attention.

If we do this throughout our life it will be done by us in death. As the upanishads say: “Om is Brahman. Om is all this. He who utters Om with the intention ‘I shall attain Brahman’ does verily attain Brahman.” (Taittiriya Upanishad 1.8.1) “What world does he who meditates on Om until the end of his life, win by That? If he meditates on the Supreme Being with the Syllable Om, he becomes one with the Light, he is led to the world of Brahman Who is higher than the highest life, That Which is tranquil, unaging, immortal, fearless, and supreme.” (Prashna Upanishad 5:1, 5, 7) “This is the bridge to immortality. May you be successful in crossing over to the farther shore of darkness.” (Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.6)

A resume

Krishna then recaps all he has said in this section with these words:

“He who thinks of Me constantly, whose mind does not ever go elsewhere, for him, the yogi who is constantly devoted [nityayuktasya–constantly disciplined or yoked], I am easy to reach. Approaching Me, those whose souls are great, who have gone to the supreme perfection, do not incur rebirth, that impermanent abode of suffering. Up to Brahma’s [the Creator–not Brahman] realm of being, the worlds are subject to successive rebirths, but he who reaches Me is not reborn.” –Bhagavad Gita 8:14-16

Further Reading:

• Introduction to Om Yoga
• The Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Life

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How Emily Bronte found her Divine Self

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven’s glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.

O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life, that in me has rest,
As I, undying Life, have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thy infinity,
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou–thou art Being and Breath,
And what thou art may never be destroyed.

Emily Bronte wrote the foregoing only a matter of weeks before her death, revealing a profundity of spiritual realization that belied her confined nineteenth-century rural Yorkshire background. Upanishadic as the above stanzas may be, the insights expressed therein seem to have arisen totally from within her own divine spirit. Years before she penned these lines, she wrote a poem in which the experience of samadhi is described as well as it can be. (There is a very slight chance that during her brief period of education in Brussels she might have come across a French translation of the Upanishads. This would not, however, account for the Advaitic content of her poetry written before that time.

Emily Bronte has something in common with Arjuna: she was facing death. She was facing her own imminent death, and Arjuna was facing the surety of death for many he beheld on both sides assembled on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, as well as the likelihood of his own death. From the depths of her own immortal self (atma) the assurance of immortality arose in the mind and heart of Emily. From the front of his chariot, the voice of Krishna entered into the ears of Arjuna, awakening his innate understanding, enabling him to see, as did Emily Bronte, the truth of his own immortal being.

One thing that marks out the various world religions from the vision of the Vedic rishis is the fact that they all claim to have a “new” message for a “new” age, a heretofore unheard-of annunciation of truth. The rishis, quite to the contrary, knew–and said–that they were speaking eternal facts that were no more geared to the times or contemporary than are the principles of mathematics. Consequently, as Sri Ramakrishna stated: “The Hindu religion alone is the Sanatana Dharma. The various creeds you hear of nowadays have come into existence through the will of God and will disappear again through His will. They will not last forever.…The Hindu religion has always existed and will always exist.” (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 642) The religion of the Vedas, Upanishads, and Bhagavad Gita alone are the Eternal Religion (Sanatana Dharma), for it is oriented toward eternity, not toward time, and takes into consideration only the Unchanging in the midst of the ever-changing.

Just as it was the spirit, the true self, of Emily Bronte that was speaking in this poem, so it is our own true self that is speaking to us through the mouth of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. When I first read the Gita, I did not have a sense of reading some ancient document or primeval wisdom spoken through the lips of a long-departed sage or avatar. Rather I felt that my own soul was speaking to me directly, that I was being taught by my own self guiding me toward realization of my ultimate Self: God. I did not “accept” or “adopt” a religion–I awoke to the truth of myself and God. The Vedic sages did not have a religion in the commonly accepted sense: they had a Vision. And the Gita called me to that same vision, and pointed me toward meditation (yoga as the only means of gaining it. The Gita gave me a pretty good idea of yoga, and Patanjali filled in the rest. Although she had no such books to guide and inspire her, the Yogi of Haworth, Emily Bronte, nonetheless attained the Vision by turning within and letting her inmost consciousness lead her to the Divine Center.

• Read more about the Bhagavad Gita.
• Coming soon: A full commentary on the Bhagavad Gita as a free PDF download.

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A Continuation of “What Is the Mind?: A Meditator’s Guide“

“Mind precedes its objects. They are mind-governed and mind-made.”

First there is the mind. Let us go deeper than we have so far. It is possible to view “mind” as both the perception machinery we have been talking about and the consciousness which perceives the perception, the consciousness that is unconditioned and permanent-in other words, the spirit, the eternal self. (”The Self is ear of the ear, mind of the mind, speech of speech. He is also breath of the breath, and eye of the eye” –Kena Upanishad 2) From this higher aspect of Mind all things proceed-in both the macrocosmic and the microcosmic sense. From the Mind of God all things are projected that are found in the cosmos; and from the mind of the individual are projected all that are distinctive to his life.

We are all co-creators with God, even though we have long ago forgotten that and attributed everything that goes on in our life as acts of God. From this delusion erroneous religion has arisen-religion that thinks it necessary to pray to and propitiate God in order for the “good” to come to us and the “bad” to be eliminated from our life. It is this religion and its false God that Buddha adamantly rejected and from which we must be freed if we are to gain any true understanding of what is really happening to us from life to life. On the other hand, we need true religion-the conviction and aspiration for the uniting of the finite consciousness with the Infinite Consciousness in eternal Being. The call of the self to the Self is the essence of true religion, and in that sense those who would turn from death to life must be thoroughly religious. Any god that is separate from us is a false god; the true God is the very Self of our self. Though distinct from us, He is not separate. We are eternally one with Him. But we have to realize that-not intellectually only, but through direct experience. And that experience is only possible in meditation.

Seven profound implications

All right: mind precedes its objects, which are themselves governed and made by the mind. This has profound implications.

1. Karma is the creation of the mind-is simply the mind in extension. Karma need not be worked out or fulfilled; the mind need only be changed, or better yet brought into complete abeyance. Then karma is no more and its attendant compulsions-including birth and death-no longer exist.
2. Our entire life experience is but a mirroring of the mind. If something is not already within our mind it cannot be projected outward as a (seemingly) external factor or experience of our life. So our life is our mind in motion! By observing it we can come to know what is in our mind. If we do not like what is happening in our life, the solution is to alter our mind. People who like to tell of how cruel, selfish, dishonest, and disloyal others habitually are to them are merely telling us how cruel, selfish, dishonest, and disloyal they are. “Victims” are only victimizers in a down cycle. The moment the upswing comes in their life rhythms they will go back to victimizing others. Action and reaction are purely psychological matters, the film in the projector-the light and sound on the screen being only its projection. Change the film and you change the experience. Since objects come from the mind they can only be compatible with the mind and therefore express and reveal its character.
3. All the factors of “life” are really only thought, attitude, and outlook in manifestation.
4. Study your life and thereby know your mind.
5. You are always in control, even though that control may be on an unconscious level.
6. Change your mind and you change your life. (Do not forget that “mind” includes consciousness.)
7. Mary Baker Eddy was right: All is Mind and Mind is All.

Action and reaction

“To speak or act with a defiled mind is to draw pain after oneself, like a wheel behind the feet of the animal drawing it.” –Dhammapada 1

Suffering is inevitable for the person with a defiled mind, for it is impossible not to act or think (speak inwardly, even if not outwardly). “Good” or meritorious acts done by a person with a defiled mind will bring suffering-perhaps not as much as evil acts, but still the suffering will not be avoided. This is imperative for us to comprehend: Action is not the determining factor in our life-Mind is! And mind alone. This why in the Bhagavad Gita (See Chapter Seventeen: The Yoga of the Division of Threefold Faith) Krishna describes how bad people do good in a bad way and thus accrue more misery to themselves.

It is so important to understand this fact, since we tend to mistakenly assume that “good” acts produce “good” karma, etc., when in reality the actions mean nothing-it is the condition of the mind that determines their character and therefore their consequences. (Buddha was very insistent on this.) Selfish people do “unselfish” deeds to either cover up their selfishness or to get merit for themselves so they can enjoy this or a future life. Their intentions defile the actions and no good accrues to them whatsoever. Instead their selfishness and pettiness is compounded! This is the plain truth. False religion gets rich on such persons with false promises of merit and remission of sins. And even after death the deception goes on as their relatives and friends offer prayers and almsdeeds that supposedly will mitigate their negative karmas and alleviate-or even eliminate-the after-death consequences of their defiled thoughts and deeds. It is common to hear patently evil people excused on the grounds of “all the good” they do along with their evil actions. The truth is plain: evil minds can only produce evil actions that produce evil results.

How then can a negative person break the pattern of negativity and escape it? By thinking and acting with the intention to change from negative to positive. The admission of negativity and the resolution to turn from it can produce positive thoughts and deeds when the intention is to change the consciousness, not just the consequences. Without the desire for real change nothing worthwhile can take place in the life.

Unavoidable good

Buddha then repeats his statement about the nature of objects and then continues:

“To speak or act with a pure mind, is to draw happiness after oneself, like an inseparable shadow.” –Dhammapada 2

What is defiled and what is pure? Buddha is speaking of something much more than good and bad thoughts and deeds in the ordinary sense. Instead, he is speaking of defiled and pure minds. What is a defiled mind? One that is smudged and clogged with egotism and its demon attendants: selfishness, greed, jealousy, spite, hatred, and materiality. A pure mind is free from all these things, including the root of egotism. Further, a defiled mind is outward-turned and a pure mind is inward-turned. One roves through the jungle of illusion and delusion that is the world of man’s making, and the other rests in the truth and perfection of its immortal self. A person who is spirit-oriented cannot but produce peace and happiness for himself. It is as inevitable as the suffering of the matter-oriented person. It is a matter of polarity of consciousness.

Again we see that suffering and happiness are matters of the mind alone.

Further Reading:

• The text of the Dhammapada, translated by John Richards.
• More commentary on the Dhammapada.

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“Mind precedes its objects. They are mind-governed and mind-made.”
–Dhammapada 1

What is the mind? The language of Buddha, as well as Pali, in which his complete teachings are set down, was based on Sanskrit, so we can get some understanding by looking at the Sanskrit terms from which the Pali was derived. (In fact, we may get a better understanding than if we rely on the Pali commentaries and their explanations, considering that they were begun exactly five hundred years after the death of Buddha, who had stated that in five hundred years the dharma he was preaching would begin to be lost. Exactly five hundred years after his passing away the Theravada school began writing the commentaries that have become the cornerstone of Theravada orthodoxy, and the Mahayana sutras began to be written.)

Sanskrit and Pali have the same word for mind: mana. Mana comes from the root verb man, which means “to think.” However, mind takes in more territory than the intellect; it includes the senses and the emotions, because it is in response to feelings and sensory impressions that thoughts arise in the attempt to label and understand them. Evolved minds have the capacity to think abstractly and to determine what shall be experienced by the senses or the feelings. That is, in lesser evolved minds these impressions precede thought, but in higher evolved minds thought becomes dominant and not only precedes those impressions but also determines them.

Undoubtedly this is progress, but like everything in relative existence it has a down side, and that is the capacity of the mind to “create reality” rather than simply respond to it or classify it. Perception is not a matter of exact and undistorted experience. Perception itself is learned and is therefore extremely subjective. People born blind who have gained their sight in later childhood or even in adulthood have said that it took them weeks to tell the difference between circles, squares, triangles, and other geometric shapes-as well as the difference between many other kinds of visual impressions. This tells us that we do not just perceive spontaneously through the senses. We learn perception-it is not just a faculty. In other words, the senses do not perceive; it is the mind alone that perceives even though it uses the impressions of the senses as its “raw material” for those perceptions. Objectivity in human beings is virtually impossible. We might even hazard the speculation that objectivity is impossible outside of enlightenment.

All of the foregoing might worry us greatly-indeed, the insight into this truth about the nature of the mind may well be the seed of paranoia, for it is well-known that the Eastern description of the enlightened mind and personality is closely akin to what modern psychiatry calls paranoid schizophrenia. Some might say they are identical, but they would be wrong, for the enlightened respond to their vision with positive behavior, peacefulness of mind, and lovingkindness towards others. The mentally ill, on the other hand, respond with anxiety, fear, hostility, and mistrust of others. The sage has profound self-understanding, whereas the paranoid schizophrenic has almost no self-realization at all. (More than one psychiatric nurse has told me that they often took their problems to the paranoic schizophrenics in their charge, who gave them remarkably insightful and wise advice. But regarding themselves, those same patients were just plain crazy and without a clue. This is a terrible and cruel dichotomy.)

Life experience as a training film

The understanding to be gained from all this is that our life experiences are a training film, an exercise in the development of consciousness with the mind as its main instrument. We are to look and learn. The question of “Is it real?” is almost irrelevant, “Is it comprehensible?” being more vital. There is a sense in which the individual alone exists and all that he experiences is but the shifting patterns of the movies of the mind-but for a purpose: insight that leads to freedom from the need of any more movies. Then the liberated can rest in the truth of his own self.

The problem is that those who have only an intellectual idea about the relation of experience to reality-ourselves-will come to erroneous conclusions that may result in very self-destructive thought and behavior. And those observing them will rightly consider them either fools or lunatics. Only right experience garnered from right meditation and right thought (which is based on meditation) can clear away the clouds of non-perception and misperception and free us.

The demarcation between “out there” and “in here” must become clear to us in a practical sense. We must also come to understand that “real” and “unreal” have both correct and mistaken definitions, that all our perceptions are interpretations of the mind and never the objects themselves. Our perceptions may be more or less correct as to the nature of the outside object, but how can we know? The enlightened of all ages have told us that a stage of evolution can be reached in which the mind is no longer necessary, a state in which we can go beyond the mind and enter into direct contact and communication with “out there” and then perceive objects as they truly are-or at least as they momentarily “are.” The knowledge of temporality or eternality is inseparable from that state, so confusion cannot arise regarding them.

Our childish concepts

In our childish way we always think of perfection as consisting of all our good traits greatly increased and our bad traits eradicated. (If we are “good” enough children to admit we have bad traits, that is.) We think of God as being just like us, but with His goodness expanded to boundless dimension, and badness impossible to Him. In the same way we think of eternity as time without end rather than a state that transcends time. Our ideas of eternal life are pathetic since we have no idea what life is, much less eternity. It only follows, then, that our ideas of enlightenment and liberation are equally puerile and valueless. This is why the wise center their attention on spiritual practice rather than theology and philosophy. Experience-Right Experience-will make all things clear or else enable us to see that they do not exist.

At the moment we can say that we do not know just what the mind is, but we are working on knowing it. So let us again set forth the opening words of the Dhammapada in the next article: The Mind As Source of All: Profound Implications.

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