Karma Yoga
Chapter 3, Verse 10
saha yajñāiḥ prajāḥ sṛṣṭvā
purovāca prajāpatiḥ
anena prasaviṣyadhvam
eṣa vo’stviṣṭa kāmadhuk
In the beginning, the Lord of all beings, created humans along with the sacrifice, saying: ‘By this shall you prosper; this shall be the cow of plenty granting all your desires.’
In the beginning, when God created the human being, He placed inside of him this quality to help others, this quality of offering to God. He put the qualities of charity, austerity, and service inside of each human being. He said, “By this shall you prosper; this shall be the cow of plenty granting all your desires.” If people have this attitude, it will be a blessing to themselves. They will become like the wish-fulfilling cow, Kamadhenu – so they don’t even need to ask for anything. Everything will be provided! Everything will be given! The Lord looks after the ones who are surrendered, and takes care of their every need. You don’t need to worry, if you are doing your duty in a state of sacrifice, charity, and austerity.
When one is doing one’s sadhana through pranayama, when one is doing Atma Kriya Yoga, when one is trying one’s best to control the senses, when what one receives as knowledge is given to help other people, and not just for oneself; when one uses the body to serve others – this is called sacrifice. God also said, “It is through this – through you – that I am acting in this world.” Realise that! And do your dharma, do what you have to do, by first accepting that this is your swadharma, your ultimate duty. You shall prosper! And you will be the most joyful. You will have bliss!
“In the beginning, the Lord of all beings, created humans along with the sacrifice.” This also means, “I created you in My own image for My own pleasure and I give you the state of serving.” The Bible also says that God created the human being in His
own image. Here the image of God means the state of sacrifice, the state of serving. And if one awakens this state of complete surrender and serving, one should not worry, because everything will be given! And if one does every action with the state of mind of surrender, one will suffer no more. One will rise to the superior level of consciousness, of existence: one will attain the divine state, the spiritual body will be revealed. Even if you carry on doing your earthly duty within this body, these divine qualities will awaken and the Divine will manifest through you.
Once Lord Shiva said to Parvati, “The glory of the Chapter of Karma Yoga, which Lord Krishna has given, dissolves all one’s sins and one realises the essence of sacrifice.” Sacrifice doesn’t only mean the rituals like the yagna ceremony. Sacrifice also means doing one’s work with the attitude of surrendering, the attitude of serving. Then, Lord Shankara said to Goddess Parvati, “Listen to the story I am going to tell you!”
In a certain village lived a man by the name of Jara. Due to his past karma, Jara was born in a very wealthy family. But he was wicked and very selfish. Even though he had gotten a good education, his mind was greedy and he always wanted more and more. He would pray to get more material things. Whatever he would do would be for his own personal and he amassed lots of money.
There were some thieves who were observing him so they could steal all his wealth. So, one fine night, they came in his house and killed him, stabbed him to death. Jara died but his soul had terrible pain, his soul was not free.
Jara had a son called Mada. Mada was not in the village when his father died. When he came back, he saw his dead father. He was so sad, he started crying, and lamenting. With a heavy heart, he performed all the religious rites for the peace of his deceased father. But his father’s soul didn’t have peace. He would come in Mada’s dreams. Mada would always dream that his father was crying, and in a terrible state, dark! He was always asking for help. So Mada wondered, “I did all the ceremonies for you, to save you, to free you. Why are you not free. What is your problem ?”
Mada had a friend who was very dedicated to this chapter of the Gita. One day they were talking and Mada said, “You know, I dream of my father and he is always in a very pitiful state, in a state you can’t imagine! His soul is suffering so much! What can I do?” The friend said, “Listen, let’s meditate and read the Shreemad Bhagavad Gita. Let’s read what Lord Krishna says about how one has to live life in surrender.” So they read and meditated on this chapter every day for 21 days.
After the twenty-first day, there was a bright light in the house. The son saw his father’s soul beaming with light, radiating light and he was shocked and said, “Father, what has happened to you? I saw you in my dream, you were always terrible and now you are shining with light!” The soul of the father said, “Yes, my child. Reading and meditating on this chapter which Lord Krishna has given, has freed me from all the sins which I did in this life. But I request one thing. In this life, I did not do anything good, so I want you to do one thing for me: carry on reading this chapter to free all your ancestors from Hell!” Mada had this vision of his father and was overtaken with so much love, he felt free inside of himself and said, “Yes, father! I will fulfil your request, I promise you!”
So from that day on, Mada completely changed his life. He let go of his father’s business of gaining a lot of money and meditated on this chapter of the Gita. Every day he would pray and would read the Gita, especially this chapter where the Lord said how one has to surrender to the Lord; how one has to perform one’s duty with an attitude of surrendering, as sacrifice. At the end of the chapter, at the end of each day, when Mada finished, he said, “I offer the good punya, the good merit of this to my ancestors who are in Hell.” He did this every day with this attitude.
Meanwhile, one fine day, the guards of Narayana appeared in front of the gate to Hell. Yamraj did not understand why the Lord’s servants had come there. Because he had great respect for the Lord, he asked them, “Dear servants of Narayana, tell me why you are here? The people who are here deserve to burn! Why are you here?” Then the servants of Narayana said, “Listen, we have come to free all the people from Hell. We have come to take them to Heaven, to Vaikunta, to Vishnu Loka, because they have received the Grace of the Lord. The Lord has forgiven them all the sins that they have committed in their lives.” Yamraj was wondering, “How is this possible?” They explained to him, “The punya which Mada offered to the Lord, has erased all the sins, has washed away all the sins of these people; their souls are free from sin.” This confused Yamraj and he could not understand it. So he asked Chitragupta, the bookkeeper of Hell, what was happening. Chitragupta opened his book. He was shocked and his mouth fell open, “Ahh!” He looked at Yamraj. Yamraj looked at him and said, “There is something wrong here! Chitragupta, why don’t you talk? Talk! Talk! Why are you looking so shocked and pale?” Chitragupta said, “Lord, there is no sin! All the sins have been forgiven by the Lord! The merciful Maha Vishnu has forgiven all the sins due to the good merit which Mada has offered, and they will all go to Heaven.” Yamraj, of course, could not say, ‘no’ to that. So he went there and completely emptied Hell.
As confused as he was, he knew that this had happened due to the mercy, the compassion and the Love, that the Lord has in His Heart for all humans, for each soul. This punya had not only released Mada’s ancestors from Hell: when his ancestors were transformed and became sinless, it also helped all the other souls – the sins of all the other souls were erased. Here Krishna says to Arjuna, “When you do your action as a sacrifice, you become a blessing to everyone!” When you are completely surrendered to the Divine, you are a blessing to humanity! You are a blessing for everyone around you! Through that, you also become a salvation for other people. You become an instrument of God.
As a Vaishnava, you become an instrument to free and help others to liberate themselves. A Vaishnava is not just born all of a sudden. You cannot say, “Oh, I am following this Guru. Now I am a good Vaishnava!” That’s just a title! It is not like this! You have received the Grace to know His Grace, to know His Love, to hear His katha! You have been born to receive the Grace of being a Vaishnava because of the previous good deeds you have done. You are sitting here because of the good merit, the ‘good’ you did in your previous lives. To wear this mark on your forehead, which is the footprint of the Lord, is a blessing! Each one of you is an instrument of Lord Narayana for the salvation of the people, for the salvation of the world! Your duty is to help other people so that they can free themselves from the bondage of Maya! That’s the eternal duty of a Vaishnava: to help others to be free. Not by aggression, but by the love that you have inside of you, you show people how to love God, how to serve God, even while living in the outside world.
As for Mada’s experience – he had freed his ancestors and the ancestors had freed everyone else who was in Hell. So confused was Yamraj that he rushed to Vaikunta, to the Milky Ocean. As he approached, of course, Narayana was lying down with Maha Lakshmi. They welcomed him. Yama praised Lord Narayana, saying, “You, Bhakta Vatsala! You, who are the protector of Your devotees. You, who always puts Your devotees first. You, who does everything for the sake of the people. How wonderful are Your deeds! How wonderful and great is Your Love and compassion! I bow down to You, Lord of the universe! Even though you are the Lord, you chose to be their servant, to show humility to humanity!” This was the prayer that Yamraj, bowing down, offered to the Lord. Then, he returned back to Hell, to his duty. And he offered his work as a sacrifice to the Lord.
Somebody said to me, “I don’t agree that God created human beings for His own pleasure.” I would like to clarify why I said that God created humans for his own pleasure. It’s not how the mind usually understands pleasure. It is not for the pleasure of enjoyment; but it’s for the pleasure of manifestation. You see, God has two aspects: the Absolute unmanifest aspect, which is without any form, without any physical qualities, and is called nirgun Brahman, and the manifest aspect, which has many forms and qualities, and is called sagun Brahman. God has these two aspects: one is unmanifest and the other is the manifestation. That’s why I said, “He created human beings for His own pleasure.”
At the beginning of the Bible, it is said that God created human beings by taking earth to make man. This is the pleasure of manifesting Himself into His own creation. He said, “I have created everything, but I have yet to create something greater, which
is manifesting Myself into this world.” He said, “I created this and now I want to enjoy My creation.” What wrong is there in this? God is not masochist. He did not create humans to whip them or whatever. No! Here in verse 10, He said, “I created humans and gave them the instrument of sacrifice, the instrument to awaken and attain Realisation.” But how many fall back into illusion? God didn’t say, “I am creating you to trap yourselves in illusion!” That’s why I said at the beginning, “In the core of yourself is only God, who is not touched by anything.”
Bhagavad Gita
