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DHARMA PROFILE - 1 Till now we have learnt what Dharma is.Now we'll explore more about it...
Dharma has three faces. :
1. Concept of Dharma
2. Indicators of Dharma …dharma is like a Dow or Sensex index….there is no fixed right number…..it goes up or it goes down.
3. There are measures and processes to achieve a uptrend in Dharma
Here are some bullet points that we shall discuss in detail individually.
DHARMA is not just a concept which is abstract and good for philosophical discussions. Dharma is relevant in our lives. Many people ask this question as to how Dharma is relevant in our lives. What can we do about Dharma? When we do not really understand what Dharma means?
We have talked about it before and tried to understand how Dharma is value system of the infrastructure that is here to support our lives. Today we will explore Dharma from a much more practical aspect so that we can try to live a life consistent with upholding of this essence. We will look at what you and me can do to make this concept come alive.
We need to bring understanding of Dharma in modern times. There is no other word or concept that describes what Dharma really means. Right and wrong do not address our social needs. Justice also does not get close. Democracy is just utilitarian. The world today has a limitation of words without use of this word Dharma. Therefore, I am bringing this topic again for further elaboration and discussion.
D
DEVELOPMENT
DIVINE
H
HAPPINESS
HARMONY
A
ASPIRATION
ADMIRATION
R
RELATIVITY
RIGHT AND WRONG
M
MIDDLE PATH
MEDITATION
A
ACCEPTANCE
AWARENESS
let us go in to details :
D :
DEVELOPMENT :
A child is born in a family. Family is part of a society. This society forms a nation. Nations form our world.
How does this world support this newborn child? Is the infrastructure nourishing for a sound development of this child. That is what Krishna is concerned about. If the child develops properly and is well supported, he will contribute to the structure of the society and thereby to the world to enhance this infrastructure so that it becomes better for the next child that comes to this world. He is also going to support his elders who become part of the outgoing generation when he is young and alive.
It is not only important for a human child to be able to grow in a healthy fashion. A proper development of the animal world and the nature as a whole around is important. A rose flower should get a nice bed to thrive. A river should get proper bed to flow. The land should get enough water and nourishment to thrive. The world has to develop as a whole.
Krishna is concerned not only to what we can see but also about what we can not see. The part of journey that we can see is from birth to death. We do not see what happens between death and birth. Much happens there as well. How do the souls find a proper family to take birth into? Buddha said that he will come back as Maitreya. The story is that Maitreya cannot find a proper family and the surrounding. There is no derth of Saddam Hussain and Bin Laden. They have no problem finding a place for birth. But, a Buddha has trouble finding appropriate surrounding. Krishna wants to change the whole infrastructure of his times. Everything had become supportive at the time for growth of people like Duryodhana and Kansa. That had to change.
All this change is not easy. Sometimes we have to pay a great price for all this. We can make small contributions on our parts. J Krishnamurthy has a neat concept, “consciousness pool.” Every time you are angry and shout at somebody, you are throwing your garbage in this Consciousness Pool. You are in fact throwing your garbage in the house you live in. Krishnamurthy will say that there is no need to create this garbage. He would say that garbage production is in your control and therefore you can close this factory completely.
We can all contribute to a healthy development atmosphere. There is no need to give lectures or start a club. It all has to start from you and me. You can start becoming a nucleus of such change. You love your child, provide it the freedom it needs, give the discipline that helps its growth. You respect your fellow beings and the elders. You nourish the plants in your garden and respect the waterways in your area. You become source for inspiration for others. And you will start noticing a change in and around you. You are now contributing to DHARMA.
Divine :
The divine factor has to be accounted for. We are important and we can make a lot of changes. I do not want to undermine the effect of an individual. An individual can achieve a lot. Arjun had great achievements. Karna also had tremendous achievements. Bil Gates has also got to a point of peak achievements. Once you achieve you can contribute as well. You can contribute better from a point of achievement. A President or a Prime minister can make changes happen faster than a person on the street. There is no question about that. Yet remembrance and working with divine gives a different aura around such a person. The divine is always important and gives that extra which is not available without the divine grace. Then you are not working just for yourself or just for your society.
Your contributions go out to the whole existence and the whole existence supports you. The relationship is reciprocal.
Development can happen without a healthy surrounding. Children born in today’s Iraq and Afghanistan also are going to grow up. Children born in a dysfunctional in India and USA also grow up. But, they do not grow up in a healthy atmosphere. We can to try to make every home a healthy home. The development may happen without remembering the unseen. The benevolent unseen forces are what I call divine. These forces are important as well. Let us all pay attention to this for our generation is the one that needs to work on it so that we form a solid ground for future generations to come and thrive.
We'll continue from here in our next article.
DHARMA PROFILE - 2 Let us continue with the Dharma Profile. Today we will discuss "H" which explains HAPPINESS and HARMONY.
H
HAPPINESS :
We discussed in the last column about how health of infrastructure is important for development of an individual. Today we will explore on what the indicators of this well being are. We all understand what indicators mean. Dow as an index only comprises of 30 stock prices. Yet this is considered to be an indicator of the economy of entire USA. Dow has become an indicator of well being of the economy of this country. We all can relate to this. Dharma is an indicator of general well being of a society in a similar fashion. We may need to develop a Dharma index to denote this well being in a numerical form. We know the contents of the Dow. We will today explore further what the contents of Dharma indicator could be. How do we know if the infrastructure of a society is healthy? What are those indicators? Happiness and harmony is one such indicator. Is there happiness around? Are we living in harmony with each other?
Basic Needs :
Happiness needs to be understood at several levels. There is a happiness involved with our basic needs. A child is born in a family. Does the family have a house and can it provide clothes for the baby? Is there enough food for the baby that is born in that family? These are basic physical needs. Only a poor person in an unhealthy society understands the pains of not having these basic needs. The society or a nation needs to take care of these situations. It is our moral obligation to make sure that these basic needs are met. There is no point talking about Dharma or spirituality in a society that is irresponsible enough not to take care of these basic needs especially so in our modern times. The world has enough wealth to be able to take care of this basic need for a basic happiness.
Fear :
Let us say that the basic needs are taken care of. The family has enough to take care of basic needs and they have more as well. The family has enough to be able to contribute to the society and the country as well. His child grows up and is going to school. A child has been abducted while he is going to school. This has been happening in Bihar, India in recent past. One child has been abducted for a ransom. There are hundreds and thousands of children going to school every day. One child has been abducted. What effect has this on the whole society in Bihar? The effect is stunning. The fear has gone deep in every parent’s heart. This can happen to my child as well.
I grew up in a village in Bihar. We used to travel from Ara to my village Balbandh on a regular basis. We did not care if it was night or day. I went to Patna medical college in Bihar. We used to go to cinema in the late night show from 9p.m. to 12 p.m. we did not think twice about it. It was a regular affair to go out late night for a tea during our examination times. This was in 1960s. I go back to same town now. My relatives try to stop me from going out after dusk. My friends have security guards. What has happened?
Fear, insecurity and suspicion do not go well with happiness. They denote a downturn in the level of dharma. Dharma index in these situations is on the down turn. Possibilities of healthy growth are restricted in these circumstances. Basic needs are needed for any physical growth. A healthy social environment is needed for further growth of an individual. Drastic measures are sometimes needed to be able to reverse such trends in society. This is what was happening in Krishna’s times. There was nexus of bad rulers and the growth of any individual was suffocated. Krishna had no choice other that that Mahabharata war left to him for any healthy changes in those times. Let us hope that we do not have to go to that extent in our times.
Desire Complex :
Let us say that we have the basic needs and there are no such fears in our society. Are we happy in these situations? I now live in Skowhegan, Maine, USA. It is a small town. There is hardly any crime here. Law and order runs smoothly most of the times. I practice medicine in a hospital. I have competition. Some people do not like me. There is politics in the town and there is politics in the hospital. I can’t take vacation when I like and I can’t go places that I like. I am miserable. My wife wants to go to Mexico but I want to go to spain. We can not come to agreement.
These are psychological and political issues. Happiness now has come to individual level. “I do not want to be happy” syndrome might be taking place here. This desire complex which includes greed, jealousy, anger and what not is the most difficult one on path of happiness. That is why volumes have been written on this topic and yet it continues to elude happiness to most of us. We have discussed desire pathway in detail elsewhere and will not discuss it in detail here.
Harmony:
Interrelationship :
We will however discuss how to travel towards happiness in some detail in this section in next column. Before I do that I would like you all to as just two questions.
1. Do you want to be happy?
2. Do you want people around you to be happy?
We are all interrelated and interdependent and cannot be happy in isolation. If I want to be happy but feel uneasy if my neighbor is happy, then it is not going to work. Being happy in a miserable surrounding is not going to happen. We will continue on this topic in next column.
Harmony :
Interrelationship :
I requested you to ask the following two questions to yourself in my last column.
1. Do you want to be happy?
2. Do you want people around you to be happy?
These questions are important and have something do with harmony around us. Many of us want to be happy at the cost of some one else. Some of us want to be happy but want to see some one unhappy in the process. How can that be? How can I be happy in an unhappy surrounding? This is what we do not only with our fellow human beings but also to the environment around us. We want to cut trees so that we can have chop sticks. We want to kill elephants so that we can decorate our houses with their tusks.
We are all interrelated and interdependent and cannot be happy in isolation. If I want to be happy but feel uneasy if my neighbor is happy, then it is not going to work. Being happy in a miserable surrounding is not going to happen.
Harmony is another indicator of well being of our existence. If we overuse the natural resources around us today, we are bound to run into problems tomorrow. A balance is needed between what we take out from the resources and how fast it can replenish itself. A great example is our rivers in India. We call Ganga our mother. How do we feel about polluting our mother Ganga? We just have to go to Patna or Varanasi to find this out. How clean we keep our air in the cities. We know this by how many children fall sick each day in these cities.
It is a serious matter if you answered no to any of the questions given above. A “no’ answer is the root cause of creation of a terrorist. The existence of a terrorist depends on making others unhappy. We have to seriously think about creating a system which supports a yes answer to both the questions given above. This system is only possible when we give consideration to upholding of Dharma. Harmony is an integral part of Dharma. An individual lives in harmony in his family, a family lives in harmony with the society it belongs to and a society lives in harmony with the environment it lives in. We all have to realize that interdependence is inevitable existence. We cannot and should not run away from this truth.
We can see that in our family. Cold war or acute war between family members happens if there is no harmony in a family. Every individual in the family wants to make their mark. They each want to feel important and want to show the other that they are important. In a harmonious family environment the opposite happens. Each individual credits the other for who they are. They realize and make the other person feel their importance in the family. The end result is end of arguments and any kind of war; there is no cold war and there is no acute war. That does not mean that individuality is lost. Each person respects the other person’s individuality. There is no reason to or effort to change the other. In a non-harmonious situation the reasoning is different. If I do not argue with my brother or my mother, I am classified as weak personality. If I listen to my mother, I become a chicken. If I make a tea for my wife, I become hen-pecked. These words exist in non-harmonious family. In a non harmonious family the logics are completely different. There is respect and yet there exists individual strong personalities.
Pandavas are great examples of such an existence. All brothers are strong personalities. Yet they live in harmony and respect each other to the hilt. They are all different personalities, yet they are able to co-exist without many arguments. Kauravas are totally different. Every one has to live Duryodhana’s way. There is no other way of life there. Harmony is no where to see; Bhishma fought for duryodhana, but his heart yearned for Pandava’s victory. What else can be an example of disharmony?
Harmony and happiness go hand in hand and is an indicator of Dharma. Dharma has some concepts, some processes to get to the concept and some indicators of whether Dharma is on uptrend or on downtrend. A healthy system for proper development of individuals is a concept that we discussed in our first column on Dharma. We are discussing certain indicators for Dharma in our current column and we also discussed this in the last column. We will discuss some processes of Dharma in the columns to come.
DHARMA PROFILE - 3
We'll go through "A" which includes ASPIRATION and ADMIRATION.
A :
Aspiration :
Normally aspiration or ambition is not consistent with our thinking of Dharma. We are taught that ambition or competition is unhealthy for spiritual growth. However, I see it differently. Aspiration to me is an indicator of health of a society. What does an individual in the society want to become? What are his aspirations? This applies to a society and a nation as well. The bigger the country’s problems, the bigger it is bound to grow.
This needs to be understood deeply. What do you want your son to be depends on the society you live in. a young man growing in Pakistan may want to be a suicide bomber. That may be his life time goal. A young girl Sania in Hyderabad may want to dream of becoming a Tennis champion. She may even come close to it.
It is ok to dream. A society which has dharma in abundance may provide different dreams to its citizens compared to those where Dharma is not respected at all. The dreams differ vastly between the two situations.
Abhimanyu was brought up in a happy and harmonious situation. Pandavas were not rich at the time. They did not have the kingdom on their side. They were spending their time in jungles at the time. But, there was general happiness and harmony in his growing up. Arjun was a great father and uncle Yudhisthir was called Dharmaraj. Contrast that with the Kaurava camp. Things were always in doldrums. Suspicion and distrust abounded in that camp.
I live in USA and every one dreams of a house, car and a happy family. Bill Gates started his computer business from his garage and became one of the richest men in the world. A dream to become big has made the whole country a superpower in the world. I was once driving in the countryside of the state of Michigan. I saw a small restaurant. There was a sign on the restaurant which said, “The best chicken dish served in the world.” The owner has not compared all the chicken dishes in the world, yet he is brave enough to dream and show his dream on the sign board.
Arjun wanted to be the best. It was not easy to be the best in his times. Bishma and Drona were his teachers. Karna was one of the best of his times. The war of Mahabharata was real. The war was a matter of life and death. The question was survival of the fittest. Arjun had a dream. He represented the dream of all the Pandavas. He lived his dreams. He worked for his dreams and made many of them come true.
Now is the time when he has to learn to transcend his dreams. The ultimate that can be reached with aspiration, ambition and dreams has come to a head. Arjun did not know it. Krishna could see it through Arjun. Arjun is in the battlefield and he gets caught in emotions. He goes numb because of his attachments. Krishna does not tell him to forget his relations or friendship. Krishna takes Arjun on a different path, a path where Arjun has to drop all his desires, aspirations and ambitions. Then and then only can he be free of his emotional attachments; these have become a bondage for him in his progress further. It is not actually a rogress for Arjun but a cause for the entire existence. Arjun’s presence in the war was needed by the existence, the infrastructure and the system of existence needed an overhaul at the time and Arjun was to be the chief instrument in the process. Arjun had to work for the system; he had to work for Parmatma; he had to work for Dharma; Arjun did not need to work for Arjunany more.
Ask two questions to yourself again :
1.What do you aspire for yourself?
2.What do you want your society to become?
These questions and the associated answer will be your guide in life.
Follow your aspirations to the hilt
And do not worry about when and what to drop
Krishna will find you when the time comes
And he will be there to guide you
As he did for Arjun when he was in need
Admiration :
Aspirations bring you up to a point. In the process we sometimes forget to admire. I heard someone say that all great men and women have one thing in common. They all admit that they have been lucky sometimes in their lives. This L-factor is what I call a D-factor or divine factor. We should never forget to admire. It does not matter what we admire. That is not the question. The question is that do you have that corner in your heart that becomes full of appreciation when you see something worth admiring. That rpoerty in your heart is needed. Surprisingly, this is lacking in a good number of people. Admiration to me is also an indicator of dharma. The more Dharmic a society is, more admirations become obvious in that society.
A Dharmic society produces people who aspire to greatness and who are full of admiration in their hearts. They come out of a happy and harmonious surrounding. These are indicators of a Dharmic society. Infrastructure is in good health and individuals can develop and grow to their maximum potentials. These are fertile lands for a Buddha, Mahavir or Krishna to come. Let us work towards this kind of society by following a lead from Krishna. Let us start with admiring the Bhagavad-Gita and Krishna again and again.
DHARMA PROFILE - 4 We'll go through "R" which includes RELATIVITY and RELATIVITY of RIGHT and WRONG.
R
Relativity :
We had a Urology conference recently in Sugarloaf in Maine. Sugarloaf is a ski place. We were all sad the next day because one of the doctors Dr. Soleman was found dead on the slope. He was in his fifties and known to many of us. What happened? Death has been a mystery to most of us and continues to be like that. Whether you believe in re-birth or not, one thing is sure and that is the dead person is not in our company.
We were sad because Dr. Soleman is no more with us. We were able to relate to him before, but we can’t relate to him now. The world still exists, but Dr. Soleman has traveled beyond this world. We had a moment of silence at the meeting for his departure from our world. The meeting then went as usual.
Prakriti and Purursha :
The world exists relative to us. I am living today and the world around me can relate to me and I can relate to this world. When I die I do not exist relative to this world. My relationship to this world is because of my physical body. We all kind of know that there are two parts of this body. One is the physical part which our medical world knows very well. The body is alive when the heart is pumping, lungs keep breathing and the brain keeps working. The other part is the life energy. The life energy is what we are not able to grasp. We know that the physical body dies and we take care of the body in different ways after death. We do not know what happens to the life energy. We can call it soul or we can call it the essence. When we say that ‘death is the only certainty in life,’ we talk about this physical body. We actually very rarely talk about the essence or the life energy when we are alive.
Kapila Muni gave us the concept of Prakriti and Purusha. In essence the world according to Kapila Muni is made up of two components. The physical body comes from the Prakriti and the life energy comes from the Pusrusha. Purusha can be conceived as a life energy pool. The form is coming from what we can see, the Prakriti (loosely translated as Nature). What was before Purusha and Prakriti? The answer is difficult to grasp. Krishna mentions that manifest comes from the unmanifest (avyakta). We shall continue this discussion in detail later when we come to that shloka.
Relative to whom: Our Limits or Krishna’s Limitlessness
We know about the physical aspect because we can grasp it with our senses. Dr. Solomen is dead and that is our inference because we cannot see his body any more. The life energy (Purusha) aspect of his existence is not in our grasp. In fact we are not even aware of our own Purusha aspect during our life time.
Our sense organs have limitations. We can see only to some extent. Normal person has a 20/20 vision. We can use microscope to see smaller objects such as bacteria or even viruses. Telescopes can help us see black holes in the universe. Before we had these extenders our visibility had been restricted. We are learning all the time.
As we know now, we cannot grasp what happens to life energy after death. Most of us believe that there is another world. The life energy goes to this other world. We live in this world and as long as we live this world is real to us. When I die, this world dies for me. The trees and the houses still are there. But, I am not able to relate to them and therefore they do not exist for me when I am gone.
The bigger question is which is the bigger world, this world or the other one. We live on planet earth. Earth is not the largest planet in the universe. Earth in fact is a very small planet and forms a very small portion of the entire universe. We as individuals may think that this world is the only world; the truth may be totally different. Our scriptures talk of several lokas (worlds); this being one of the worlds.
There are some people who can relate to both worlds at the same time and all the times. Krishna is one of them. Death to him is not real. Death to Krishna is a transplant surgery. Prana or life energy is removed from one body and then transplanted into another. It is like taking a car engine from one car and placing into another. The engine may be in a holding place for some time before it is place in the other car. There may be limitations as to what engine can and cannot fit another car.
There are systems for travel of the life energy (the essence or the soul) as well. The entire system is known to Krishna. We and our world form a small part of the whole system. Dharma for Krishna applies to the health of the entire system. Krishna is concerned about the value system of this entire system because he is aware of the whole system. We sometimes are concerned about the value system only of our family because we are limited to that.
This relativity needs to be understood. We relate to only one world at a time. When we are in this world, the other world is absent for us. When we leave this world this world does not exist for us. If we are able to wake up and see both worlds, then we can also say that this world is a Maya (illusion) and we can also see that this world is important but forms only a small part of the entire Maya Loka (Mayaspace). We can then also see that a decent value system (Dharma) is needed for a healthy regulation of the entire system. This is where Krishna is coming from. Until then let us continue with our limited relativity and rely for the rest on Bhagavad-Gita and Krishna.
Relativity of Right and Wrong :
As Arjun is concerned about death of his loved ones. He becomes emotional about this. He is about to fight a war of his life, but is overcome with his emotions. He starts talking about what is right and what is wrong. Krishna’s arguments are flawless. It is hard to counter Arjun’s logic even in today’s times. Many in fact believe that Arjun had been right. Mahatma Gandhi came to a conclusion that Mahabharat did not happen because of this. How could Krishna advocate a war? This is hard to conceive and justify for many.
Morality survives on right and wrong. Dharma is not. Dharma needs to be upheld and Krishna would go to any extent to get that done because health of the value system is important for a healthy nation or a healthy society. No body has a problem in formatting a hard drive of a computer when it gets infested with viruses or spy ware. Krishna is similarly concerned about the hard disk of the entire existence.
Right and wrong is a good idea for a healthy society. It has a utilitarian value for Krishna. It is like driving a car on the right side in USA and driving on the left side in England. Krishna would not get disturbed if he has to drive on the wrong side in special situations. Right and wrong are relative to a Dharmic person. A moral person draws firm lines. Dharmic person does not believe in lines. Morality needs enforcements. You need rules of right and wrong because there is chance to become amoral. A Dharmic person cannot be amoral. This possibility does not exist in a Dharmic person. Krishna can dance with several Gopis at the same time. He can be intimate to several women at the same time. His interiority can still stay un-attached.
There is no possibility of getting involved. We do not understand such a person because we measure them with our standards. We look at them relative to how they behave compared to our behaviors in similar situations. We need to conform to morality and right and wrong because we can cross over to the other side. Krishna or Buddha do not need this because the other side does not exist for them. In other words, whatever they do is works out to be right for that moment. We can also understand this if we can get there. Krishna tells us the pathways. Buddha tells us the pathways; Buddha even calls his book Dhammapada (the feet of Dharma).
DHARMA PROFILE - 5 We'll go through "M" which includes MEDITATION and MIDDLE PATH
M
MEDIATION
Meditation
What does meditation have to do with Dharma? Before we get to that question we need to understand that Dharma does not exist in a vacuum or a void. It exists relative to our existence. We are the ones who raise or lower the index that Dharma is. Our level of existence directly affects the level of Dharma index. Meditation is a process that changes our level of existence. All other changes are like a make up which is washed off with pouring water.
I am an angry person. I can find reason to be angry in any situation. I want to change. I go to a course for anger management. My mind gets training of how to deal with anger. I am happy. I can control my anger now. I have the tools. I go back in the real world. Anger arises inside same as before. I have learned to moderate it now. One day I explode because all the suppressed anger now breaks out. The scenario in case of meditation is different. Mediation deals with the root cause. Anger stops at the initial level. Anger simply does not arise. There is no need to suppress anything now and there is no question of explosion of anger one day.
So why should I meditate? What are the benefits of meditation? I have resisted answering this question in the past writings on meditation. My reason has been based on the fact that if I describe benefits of meditation, this can lead to expectations. Mediation reduces stress. You start meditation because you want to reduce stress. This in true sense may become a barrier to meditation itself. I think that meditation should be done with an open mind. Then and then only true benefits of meditation appear. So, now with this proviso, I will try to describe benefits of meditation in our real lives.
Benefits of meditation in our life :
Our life is a journey, a journey from life to death. Much happens in this journey. We grow up, go to school, graduate and then work for our living. We retire and then we head toward our death. Much happens inside as well. Change is part of our life. Yet at some levels nothing seems to change. Stress also is part of our lives. Some of us get the benefit of trying out yoga and meditation. 15-20 million people in USA practice yoga and meditation. We all go through ups and downs of emotions. What is going to balance our lives? Meditation brings this harmony to our life. Meditation is not a technique for reducing stress or dealing with stress. Meditation allows us to live a stress-less life. Stress just does not arise. If stress does arise, it does not last long.
I will try to emphasize again that this is not a reason to start meditation. Meditation brings much more to our life than just killing out the stress. Stress does bring music to our lives. It is source of rejuvenated energy; an energy that we never thought existed for us.
Benefits of meditation at time of our death :
We center our focus on our life. We forget that there is much more to us than our journey from birth to death. We ought to understand that very well. This is the reason what makes meditation worth much more than what we can ever comprehend. If we understand this little point, we can then also understand it clearly that we ought to and we must make time for meditation in our lives. Our priorities will change completely oce we understand this point clearly.
How does meditation help us at the time of death? We need to understand what happens at the time death to us and then it will be easier to understand how meditation can help our being at the time. A vivid description of these events can be found in “Tibetan Book of the dead.” Bardo is the name. The life energy leaves the physical body. There is utter confusion. The mental body or say the astral body that leaves the physical body does not understand what is happening. It is still attached to the friends and relatives around. It sees that they are crying. The body is lying still or worse being burnt or buried. This non-physical body can hear others and see them as well. But, those others can’s see or hear this non-physical body. Some loose consciousness and death just happens at an unconscious level.
A meditative man is better equipped to deal with this situation. Krishna’s message becomes much more important at this juncture when compared to its value at the time of physical body. Non-attachment is real at this parting time. You can see your son or your daughter crying around your physical body. You feel attached, yet you cannot communicate with them. Non attachment is the only reality here. You feel attached. Yet you cannot be attached. You have to move on. The move is painful to those who have not had meditative experience. The move is much easier for people who have had meditative experience.
Planning for our next life: Benefits of meditation during the journey from death to re-birth
It is a vast unknown world for us. We know our world that we exist in. Are we prepared for the after death life. We all plan for future of our life and future life of our children. We educate them and then we want them to have a better job. We do not have any plan of what will happen to us in our next life. Our journey is not limited to this life. Our journey expands to multitudes of our lives. We have been there before and we shall be there in future as well. We shall continue to explore this in our next column including the impact of this part of our life on Dharma.
Meditation (contd):
We discussed benefits of meditation in the last column and are going to continue the discussion here today. Meditation is a concept. There are various techniques of meditation. Finally there are indicators that meditation is working. A change must be obvious after doing meditation. If there is no change, the meditation technique needs to be changed. Proof is in the pudding. It must taste sweet. Something inside must change. Otherwise the technique may be only a ritual and not a meditation.
Stillness must dawn upon the meditator. The vibrations around must be peaceful. I learned recently about three kinds of people similar to the colors of the traffic light. A red light means that you should stop. A person with red light personality is someone who you do not want to feel like interacting with. There is a stop sign written all over this person’s face. A yellow or amber light means that you may proceed with caution especially if it is flashing. Such people have caution written on their face. A green light means you can proceed. You feel comfortable with such people with green lights. Welcome is written all over their personality. A change from red light to green is an indicator of a meditative personality.
We have discussed already about how meditative processes help us in this life. We learn to become stress-less, peaceful and live in harmony with existence. This in turn makes us more successful compared to ourselves without the presence of this technology. I also believe that we become luckier; the L-factor favors a meditative person throughout his life. Let us explore this more in form of a real person.
Touchy Feely Das
Let us talk about two people one is Mr. TF Das Sr. and the other is TF Das Jr. They are both friends and young in age. Life is full of land mines for both of them. Every step of life is explosive. Life is so hard. It is full of obstacles. Touchy Feely Das Sr. is going with his family to a cinema. He is so excited to go to this movie. It is a new movie. It is getting late. The traffic is busy and congested because of an accident. TF Sr. is having problems. He is changing lanes all the time. The wife can’t take it any more. She had it. TF Sr. could have taken another road and avoided this traffic jam. The scene inside the car is getting ugly. The arguments are heating up. The traffic jam does not care about their arguments. TF Sr. is also getting road rage. The wife is not helping. The two kids in the back seat are also victims of the whole scene. They are fearful. They have seen this before. They do not know what will happen next. The traffic jam clears up. TF Sr. puts his feet on the gas and drives fast. Fortunately, he makes it without getting stopped. The atmosphere inside is charged still. The kids start crying. The parents are now angry with the kids. They reach the cinema in time, but the arguments continue. They all go to the movies in a very angry mood.
This is the life of many of us; life is full of traffic jams and unexpected obstacles. The landmines are all over the place. We are ready to explode. TF Jr. is no different. He has a similar life to the one describes above. Life continues and so does explosion of land mines every now and then.
Intelligent Das
TF Das Sr. one day meets a friend. This friend talks to him about meditation and a Guru who teaches meditation. TF Sr. is getting fed up with his life as it is and wants to check it out. He meets this Guru and starts meditation. He learns about Sanyas and wants to take this sanyas. The Guru gives him a new name. The name now is Mr. Intelligent Das. ID now realizes that the land mines were not all there. In fact most of them were placed by his own mind. The touchy feely mind is placing the land mines itself. Mind is playing games all the times. Traffic jams will happen. There is no need of road rage. One has to deal with traffic jams without getting disturbed. The disturbance is not coming from outside. It is coming from inside. Meditation helps him deal with this so effectively. Because he is now Mr. Intelligent Das, he takes time to study traffic jam patterns beforehand and is able to avoid them as well.
This is what Krishna talks about when he says that there are fewer obstacles on the path of nishkam karma. More than half of the obstacles disappear the day you transform to Mr. Intelligent Das. The rest get better because you now act intelligently. Touchy feely people still complain. They say that Intelligent Das has lost emotions (bhavana). There is a difference between emotions (bhavana) and being touchy feely.
Awareness Das
TF Sr. whose new name is Intelligent Das continues to meditate. There comes a subtle transformation in his personality. He becomes Awareness Das. He is getting to understand many things. His level and scope of awareness is getting broader and deeper. We will focus on three aspects of his awareness:
1. Non attachment
2. The soul is indestructible
3. Out of body experience.
Time is running out. Time is running out for all of us. Every day of our life is bringing us closer to our death. Both, TF Das Jr. who did not go on the path of meditation and Awareness Das (TF Sr. who followed path of meditation), are coming to meet the eventuality of death. We will explore the journey of these two further in our next column.
Mr. Toucy Feely Das Sr. has now become Awakened Das. TF Jr. continues to be the same. His life is always up and down. Emotions abound. It is not that TF Sr. has lost sensitivity; he has grown to be wise. Life continues. Time does not stay put. Both are getting older. TF Sr. would have liked to become Enlightened Das but time is running out for him. He is also not ready for it to happen. Both are coming close to the time of their eventual death.
We talked about certain experiences of meditation in our last column. TF Sr. has had a balanced life, a fulfilled life and has had a very content life especially since he became Awakened Das. He also had the three meditative experiences as given below:
1. He has had some experience of being out of his physical body. This way he is able to distinguish his physical body from his ethereal and astral body. Let us call it a non-physical body for simplicity purposes. He may have had only minor explosions of these experiences, yet these have been real entities for him.
2. He can truly understand the principles of non-attachment and this leads to understanding and living of nishkaam karma.
3. He also has been able to understand the true existence of his non-physical body. This cannot be burnt or cut or destroyed like a physical body.
4. This one is not an experience. Have trust (faith) in some people who you feel inside can guide you. This could be Krishna or Christ, a Guru or a friend. Learn to think about them while in this life. The pundit or priest asks you some questions in every puja that you take part in. What is your ancestry, who is your ishta (could be Ganesha, Hanuman or Shiva), what is your gotra and so on. All these start making sense while life ends and the unknown journey starts.
We are going to focus on these three properties that have helped TF Sr. live his life fully. Now the time has come when he appears to be better prepared to face the certainty of death.
Projections of mind: Before we get into further about what happens to either TF at the time of death, let us try to understand briefly why near death experiences differ from people to people. A Christian may see angels while a Buddhist may see Bodhisattvas. Hell and heaven also differ accordingly. Bardo principles talk about (and I seem to agree with them) these visions as being projections of our own mind. That can explain why the visuals descriptions differ so much. There is also a possibility to some extent that the structures are designed differently for different paths that a person follows with his physical body. I will leave this matter here and proceed further with our TF Sr. and Jr. Story.
Swargarohan: End of life as we know it.
Nonattachment :
Death is the only certainty in life. It happened to Pandava brothers as well. Yudhisthir and his brothers along with Draupadi undertake this journey at the end of Mahabharata story. Arjun was attached to his bow and arrow. It was called Gandiva. At the start of the journey, Agni personifies to him and asks Arjun to lay down his arms. Arjun is able to drop his last attachment and drop the Gandiva. This is inevitable. The last of all attachments also have to go. Whether you like or not, it will go.
Agni talks to Arjun as if he had a choice. But in reality Arjun did not have a choice. It is good if he can go on without attachment. If he has learned non-attachment in his life here on earth, he can continue his journey without the clinging on to his Gandiva further. Otherwise also, he has to carry on.
The story is told in an interesting way. They all continue their journey. Draupadi falls on the ground and dies first. Yudhisthir continues his journey without looking back. Sahadev, Nakur and Arjun fall and die in that order. Yudhirsthir continues without looking back. Bhim who has been asking questions so far also falls and dies. Yudhisthir and a dog is all that is left until the end.
The journey after death can be overwhelming if it comes as a total surprise. Meditation which has helped TF Sr. to become Awakened Das has also given him some experiences that are going to help him in the end of life scenario. He has had glimpses of out of body life while in meditation. This helps him in the final exit when the life energy is virtually removed from the physical body and kind of implanted in a non physical form. Osho has described this as ethereal body. This body lasts for 13 days according to Osho’s description. The next body which goes through rest of the journey is the Astral body.
The ethereal body can see others but others in physical body cannot see the non-physcical form. This is so painful for TF Jr. because he has never had any kind of preparation for this kind of situation. He is still fully attached to every body in the house. He did not have a will. What will happen to all the property he left behind? TF senior on the other hand is prepared. Meditation has prepared him to a great extent. He can go on without looking back like Yudhisthir. What is the point? He has to move on any way. He is willing to drop his last attachment like Arjun and move on.
In fact Yudhisthir met Duryodhana first and that also in heaven. Yudhisthir was shocked. He remembered the whole incidence of Mahabharata. The root cause of Mahabharata was Duryodhana and he is in heaven. The attachment in a subtle form is still there with Yudhisthir. Narada Muni explains to Yudhisthir again about non-attachment and then Yudhisthir was able to reconcile with the company of Duryodhana in the heaven. It is quite possible to carry our relations and attachments from our physical existence to the non-physical world. It appears quite natural. We may all need someone like Narada to remind us of the fact that it is all fresh start now. The attachments however subtle will have to go. Non-attachment is the reality of existence.
Middle Path
Life is not static. Life is flux. Life is a journey. We all have to follow a path. What is that right path? We are all looking for the right path to follow. We want to know the right path because we are not sure about the path we are on. We all want to change in our lives. How do you bring about a change in your life? Schools and colleges bring education to us but they do not show us the right path. They do make us book smart but they do not make us street smart. Even when we do become street smart, we can become Donald Trump but we do not become a Buddha. We do not become a tathagata or a sthitapragya.
Middle path is something that can make us a Donald Trump on one side and a Buddha on the other. It is possible to get to both the positions at the same time. Before we get to where we can get to through the middle path, let us first try to understand what middle path is. Many Buddhist thinkers believe that middle path is unique to Buddha. This word has been coined by Buddha but the concept is also present in Gita. Krishna and Buddha are very close on this topic.
The Tathagatha avoids the two extremes
and talks about the Middle Path.
What this is, that is; this arises, that arises.
Through ignorance volitional actions or karmic formations are conditioned.
Through birth, decay, death, lamentation, pain etc. are conditioned.
When this is not, that is not; this ceasing, that ceases.
Through the complete cessation of ignorance, volitional activities or karmic formations cease.
Through the cessation of birth, death, decay, sorrow, etc. cease."
(Samyuktagama, Chapter 12)
naty-asnatas 'tu yogo 'sti
na caikantam anasnatah
na cati-svapna-silasya
jagrato naiva carjuna
There is no possibility of one's becoming a yogi, O Arjuna, if one eats too much, or eats too little, sleeps too much or does not sleep enough. (Bhagavad-Gita 6:16).
Krishna’s Samatva Yoga and Buddha’s middle path come very close. The difference may be present more so on a different level. Samatva yoga may be a concept while middle path may be a process. The principles remain the same. There is need to understand this middle path in its earnest. Clarity (ek buddhi, right knowledge, nishal tattva) is a pre-requisite for both samatva yoga and for middle path as well. Abhyas yoga is something Krishna stresses on and so does Buddha. Middle path does not mean no path as some would like to believe. There is trouble in town. A house is burning. You do not sit on the side and talk about middle path. You do not panic and you do not jump in the fire and get burnt. You do find a way to extinguish the fire. You use your head and not act out of panic or haste. This is the simple part of middle path. Buddha goes a lot further. There are two parts of the middle way. He taught the two characteristics of the Middle Path: The Middle Path of Dependent Origination and the Noble Eightfold Path. The Law of Dependent Origination explains the process of human activity. The Noble Eightfold Path shows the way of practice that enables one to uplift oneself.
The following are some quotes on the middle path. It is not easy to make any improvement on these words.
"What this is, that is; this arising, that arises" is the principle of the Law of Dependent Origination; the Conditioned Genesis that says that, "Through ignorance volitional actions or karma-formations are conditioned" is the content of the Law of Dependent Origination.
"When one is born, one will die. One who admires high status will fall one day."
This is the natural Law of Cause and Effect. It is also an inner implication of the Law of Dependent Origination. It can be called the Cessation Process of the Law of Dependent Origination.
"When the eyes see, the scene comes from nowhere.
When they shut, it goes nowhere.
Thus the eyes see unreality.
All that arises will be destroyed....
except the truth of the Worldly Law.
The Worldly Law says that
what this is, that is; this arising, that arises."
"If we can see the truth
of the causes of worldly sufferings,
we will not be attached to the view of nothingness.
If we can see the truth of cessation in the world,
we will not be attached to worldly existence.
By avoiding the two extremes,
the Tathagatha teaches us
the Middle Path, which is,
what this is, that is; this arising, that arises…"
(Chapter 12, Samyuktagama)
We have discussed a lot of these points before in some form or the other. When we are born, this whole world is born with us. TF Sr. in our last example was born on a certain day and time. This world did not exist for him before that day. “This arising that arises” is what happened when he was born. The whole infrastructure is there to support him. Health of this infrastructure is what Dharma is. There comes a time when TF Sr. dies. That is the time when this world ceases for him. “This ceasing that ceases” happens to him relative to this world. Another world starts for him that did not exist for him while he was here with us….he can see what the meaning of ‘this arising that arises’ again. Buddha and Krishna can see both the sides…”nothing arises and nothing ceases” for them. This is the missing part…There is the law of “dependent origination” that exists for us. There is just existence at the level of a Buddha or Krishna. They can see the origin and they can see the destruction; this is suma-drishti, or the the middle path. This understanding will bring that understanding.
DHARMA PROFILE - 6 The last Dharma Profile is A which expresses AWARENESS and ACCEPTANCE.
A
AWARENESS :
Buddha calls it mindfulness. This is the process of all meditations. Awareness forms the basis of vipassana. Krishna is trying to raise the awareness of Arjun. What am I talking about?
I am alive and I am awake. I know what is going on. I am aware of my surroundings. How is this awareness or mindfulness different than this?
Krishna has this shloka :
ya nisa sarva-bhutanam
tasyam jagarti samyami
yasyam jagrati bhutani
sa nisa pasyato muneh
It is night; it is dark
We rest and we sleep
It is night and it is dark
He (the awakened one) is awake
He is alert; he is observing
It is daytime; we are busy in the market
We think we are awake; we are alert
He (the awakened one) is uninterested
Our daytime is night time for Him ||2:69||
Range of awareness :
The difference in my mind is in the range of awareness. We have a limited awareness that Krishna is talking in the shloka above. Arjun’s has a wider scope of awareness in some areas but has limitations in other. He is a great warrior. He is fully aware of moves that his enemies are or might be making. But, as we know already, he has limited awareness about what might be going on in the minds of his enemies. He is unaware of what might happen to him, his brothers or Dharma if Duryodhana continues to rule.
Let us examine this a little further. It is night and it is dark. You take a flash light and go out to find a coin that you had dropped. The torch may help and do the work, but has its limitations. Now you want to hold a match of cricket in the night time. You need to have flood lights. This may do the job but has its own limitations. None of these give you the clarity of sunlight. Sunlight dawns the absence of any darkness. You do not only se the coin easily, but you also see the surrounding area as well. There is no comparison.
Krishna’s range of awareness is much wider. He can see the plans in the mind of Shakuni as soon as it arises. His vision is totally different. A common example given is that f a cart coming on a road. You are standing in a lower plane. You can see the road to a point. The cart is not visible to you. Some one climbs a tree and now he can see far but he can not see the cart yet. The cart is too far. He then picks up a binocular. Now he can see the cart clearly.
Awareness can raise the vision of a person. He can also see through the person. Buddha is known to give different answers for the same question posed by different people. Anand used to get confused. Anand will ask Buddha about the reason. Budddha’s answered the person and not so much his question.
The interaction was between Krishna and Arjun. We happen to have it because of Sanjay. Sanjay’s awareness was on a different scale. He was able to see what was happening in the Mahabharata scene.
Who is aware?
Krishna and Arjun sitting in the chariot do not look much different. Both are drops on the outside. We can say that drop is a drop is a drop. This is not true in the case of Arjuna and it is definitely not true in case of Krishna. In fact it is not true of any two individuals. No true drops are different. Kabir describes people like Krishna in his doha:
It is easy to understand that a drop entering into the ocean
But how do you understand the entering of ocean into a drop
(Samoond samaana boon me)
How can this happen. It is not possible physically for an ocean to enter a drop. It is not possible. What is then Kabir talking about? Is it a metaphor? In my mind it is not a metaphor. Kabir is talking about the ocean of consciousness. Ishavasya Upanishad is also talking about this ocean of consciousness in the Purnamidam shloka. The mathematics will then work. The more the awareness rises, the more amount of consciousness enters the person. Now his scope is wider. His vision also gets to a point where he can see further in time.
We shall talk about how to raise awareness in our next column.
Awareness (contd.) :
We normally confuse wakefulness to awareness. There is a difference between the two terminologies. Just because I am not sleeping does not mean that I am awake. Many of us act like robots even when we are awake. I go to hospital every morning except some weekends. I am off this weekend. I get into the car and I plan to go to the grocery shop to get some banana and milk. I start the car. My mind is somewhere else. I have taken the turn going towards the hospital. My mind wakes up as and I wonder if I was awake.
Awareness that Krishna is talking about or the one Buddha talkes about is much more than just being awake. There are great depths and there is great scope of this awareness.
Buddha calls it “Sama Sati” and it has been translated as ‘Right Mindfullness.’ What do we mean by this awareness? What is Buddha implying by it? We have a zone of awareness. Our zone of awareness has limitations. We need to widen it.
Yudhisthir is invited to a game of gambling. He likes to gamble. He is Dharmaraj. He knows all the rules of righteousness. This is his strength but it is also his weakness. Yudhisthir is not able to think about possibility of any foul play in this invitation. He is not thinking of what Shakuni might be planning behind the scenes. Yudhisthir is a good man. He is good to the point that he cannot understand whay some one will plan anything foul in such a trivial game. This is why he gets trapped. Shakuni was a smart strategist. Shakuni admitted himself that but for Krishna, he would make the Kauravas win. What is that factor which makes Krishna so special. It is his scope of awareness.
Krishnafield is much greater that Shakunifield. How can we increase our fields of awareness. Buddha has given us the formula in a very precise manner. Just imagine that it is a dark night. You have to go outside. What do you do? You get a flash light. Flash light is able to show you an area but it is still limited. Darkness still stays around you. You may get special vision by wearing an infrared glass. The vision is distorted but you have an advantage over some one who does not have those. You can put a flood light to increase the field of vision. Darkness still stays around. A sun coming out dispels darkness completely. There is no darkness to find.
Our wakefullness state is like a flashlight. Buddha or Krishna are like sunrise compared to a flash light.
Acceptance :
It has been a few days since I wrote my last column. Much has happened since then in my life and I think I owe an explanation to the readers of this column and to the IndiaPost team that has been so patient for as many days.
Everything was going smoothly. Life at home was marvelous. Life at work was great. Practice was doing well. My son and daughter were also doing very well. Life was as good as it could have been. There was nothing more I could have asked from God. I was about to write my column on Acceptance. This was the last column to be in the Dharma Profile series.
And right at this moment something happened at work. A complaint was lodged against me. It had nothing to do with patient care and it had nothing to do with sexual harassment. I am making it clear here because these are the two bad ones in the profession of medicine. The complaint had no real basis. Yet it lead to a lot of upheavals. I needed a lawyer. My friends outside the hospital were extremely supportive. My practice did not suffer because I could continue my practice in office and still perform surgery at one of the neighboring hospitals. I cannot give the details of the whole event because of confidentiality reasons. It so happened that I now have privilege to work at a bigger and better hospital. In the process I resigned from the hospital in question. But I have still to deal with the aftershocks of the initial quake that shook my life. My practice is better than before, yet I feel there is a scar in my life.
So, why should I stop writing the columns in the Gita series in the paper? Here was my dilemma. I planned to write an article on Acceptance and I was unable to accept what had happened to me. It would have been easier for me to write an article on this subject when I could accept most things in my life prior to this event. Things were going great. Why would I not be able to accept whatever comes my way?
I realized that it is easy to accept results when they come good and they come easy. It is easy to give lectures to others and tell them that they need to accept results as they come. This event shook me up. I was full of denials inside. I could not accept it for a while. Every cell in my body and existence rejected the whole idea of accepting what had just happened. There was no time to getting used to the event. It all happened so suddenly. The complaint was investigated into by an adhoc committee. They unanimously found that the whole event was a misunderstanding and that the complaint was almost completely dismissed. As you might imagine nothing gets completely dismissed. My whole existence was asking this question all the time. How could this happen to me? Why did this happen to me?
I have always been writing in my columns to take these as situations and then it is easier to deal with the crisis. I wrote the column on Vishad yoga: an art of crisis management. A major crisis happened in my life and I was shaken. I looked inside me constantly to see how the process was affecting my interiority.
This is the reality. My relations with Gita came to help me in my life. I was frozen in the beginning like Arjun was in the first chapter. I soon realized that I have to wake up, accept and then deal with the situation as best as I could. What has happened is not going to change. I soon realized that help could come from unlimited sources. It started from the family which included my wife, my son, my daughter, my son-in-law and my daughter-in-law. I got total support of my office staff. By and by things have started to look up and so far I am better of than when I started. The game is still going on. But, now I am at peace with myself and have in the process understood the meaning and significance of Acceptance in life. We shall continue these columns and hopefully will not have a break in future.
Acceptance (contd.) :
What are we accepting when we talk about acceptance? Is it accepting a gift or is it accepting pain? Is it accepting the fate or is it accepting defeat? Is acceptance as a principle negative or is it positive? There are many questions and there are many answers.
Krishna’s acceptance is total, a total acceptance of life as it comes. It appears on surface that Krishna is talking about karma (actions) and karmaphala (result of those actions). Let us analyze a little deeper in what Krishna talks about these principles. Let us look at Krishna’s statements.
Krishna says that action is part of our lives. We exist, we work. Even if you become a couch potato, you are doing something. You are sitting. You may be lazy but sitting is an act. Sleeping is an act. You may not get very far in your life but you cannot escape karma. Result will also happen. That is life. Then Krishna goes on to say that results are not in your hand. Your or I have no control over the result. We can decide to be lazy or active, but we do not determine the result. We play a part in what happens but we do not have the whole say. There are other factors that ultimately determine the results. Nevertheless results happen every day.
Life is a series of karma and results. This needs to be understood. If there was no karma and if there were no results, life will have nothing to show for. We know Rama or we know Krishna because of what they did and what results happened because of what they did. Rama killed Ravana. Arjun drove chariot for Krishna. Gandhi got independence of India by non-violence (Ahimsa).
When Krishna says that results are not in your hand, he really is saying that life is not in your control. Many of us then conclude that we should not worry about the result. Although I do not necessarily agree with that conclusion, they really should conclude that we should not worry about life. We should let life take its own course.
Krishna then goes on to say that results should be accepted. Acceptance is the key word.
yadriccha labha santushto dvandvateeto vimatsaraha
samaha siddhav asiddhau ca kritvapi na nibadhyate
Content with whatever gain comes naturally by His will, unaffected by pairs of opposites, free from envy, undisturbed by success and failure, although engaged in work; such a Karma-yogi is not bound by Karma. (4.22)
He is always content
Content with whatever comes to him
He is ready to accept
Any event that happens around him
He is beyond the dualities of life
Such a person
Centered in his successes and failures
Is not bound by whatever
His karma may be
He always remains a non-doer. ||4:22||
Acceptance here is total. It is a way of life. There are no exceptions. There are no questions. “Why this happening to me?” is not even a thought. This is the key. This is the final answer.
Acceptance is not negative. Krishna is not a fatalist. Krishna is not asking us to accept and do nothing. What has happened has happened. We need to move forward. If we do not accept the result, we will be spending energy in the outcome itself.
We will be fighting with the past and are likely to miss the present. We also do not move forward in any significant process.
That is why I think that Acceptance forms one of the key principles of Dharma. As and when we center in ourselves through meditative process, this principle of acceptance becomes clearer and clearer. Acceptance is not just a mind game. It is not a thought process. It is not going to happen really by just thinking about it. A deeper insight and process is involved in its understanding. It is a quality that we slowly acquire as we proceed on the path of meditation. This is one of the qualities of a sthitapragya. Krishna wants us all to get there and then we can find out the meaning of life. I realized myself how just thinking about acceptance is not really getting to that place. A simple event in my life shook my whole being. Jesus also for a moment thought of what was going on when he was placed on the cross. But, then he could soon say, “thy will be done.”
Krishna goes on further about what to do after acceptance. He talks about karmaphaltyag and yagya. We have discussed these principles elsewhere and will not explore that further. The point I am trying to make here is that acceptance is a quality of life and our being. A deep trust or tryst with existence is needed to get to this point. Then and then only is it possible to get to the point that Krishna is addressing in 4:22.
Our life as I mentioned above is a series of karma (actions) and phala (results). We stay attached to these as long as we do not really understand the acceptance part. Until then karma and results run our life. We want to be a good boy. We choose to do good work. If we go astray, we feel guilty. The society wants us to behave and we behave. Krishna wants us to become a rebel. He is readying us to break the cycle of karma and results. Morality is needed but morality has its own constraints. Acceptance of the kind Krishna is talking about takes us to the point beyond karma and results. Karma still continues. Results still happen. But they do not run life any more. Krishna is not teaching us to become amoral or break the rules of society. He simply wants us to transcend morality. The beyond is beautiful. The beyond is plentiful. The beyond has no bondage. Life is then a true freedom. That is Acceptance.
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