Karma Sanyasa Yoga
Chapter 5, Verse 19
ihaiva tair-jitaḥ sargo
yeṣāṁ sāmye sthitaṁ manaḥ
nir-doṣaṁ hi samaṁ brahma
tasmād brahmaṇi te sthitāḥ
Those whose minds are established in equality have conquered birth and death even here on Earth. They dwell in Brahman. The equal Brahman is faultless.
Once one has gotten rid of all evils such as like and dislike, infatuation, sense of possession, egoism, greed and pride, then one gets established in unity; one perceives that everything is in accordance with the Will of God and everything is in perfect unity. Those whose minds rest in this unity are established in the Absolute, in Brahman. They may appear to be normal human beings, living and doing everything normal, like eating, drinking and going to the toilet, but they are not normal.
For the one “whose mind is established in” equanimity, “the equal Brahman is faultless”: one realises that there is no fault in the creation of God. But the one who is ignorant, finds fault everywhere and proclaims, “I am better than you. What I believe is best! My God is better than your God. Why do you have so many gods?” Then due to ignorance people fight over all these things. But the truly wise ones who have realised themselves, whose knowledge is not based on mere study of scriptures or on books, who have perceived the truth within themselves, who have perceived the Divine, God within their true Self, don’t find fault anywhere.
People may come to you and say, “You should change, your religion is bad! What you believe is completely wrong! You should not believe in that. What you are doing is very sinful. How can you do that? This is against our religion!” What they are really saying is, “Our religion is better than yours.” But these people don’t realise that they are saying that God has made a mistake as to where He has placed each person. They don’t have the knowledge that everything is perfect and they live in constant criticism and judgement of others. This kind of criticism and judgement always ends up in fights and war and people start to kill each other. Then there is no peace.
However, the one who perceives and lives in the Absolute knows that all is a perfect unity in diversity. They are constantly immersed in the Absolute, even while living here on Earth. They don’t need to die to receive their spiritual bodies in order to go to Heaven, to enjoy the Love of God there, to enjoy the service of God there. No. This can happen here, while they are incarnated on Earth! Due to perceiving God’s omnipresence, firstly within themselves, then in others, and then in every place, they will perceive only that Reality everywhere. They become Jivan Muktas, who are ever-free! Some of these saints have attained their spiritual bodies while living here on Earth and their physical bodies started to shine with Divine Light.
Ramalinga Swamigal used to completely cover his body because the Divine Light was shining out of him so intensely. Father Fanous of Egypt appeared outwardly crazy. I remember when we met him, he was acting like he was mad, but nobody could see what he was hiding inside himself. Some saints appear crazy on the outside, but inside they have a divine connection with God. God is working through them, so that even their physical body transforms into light. It’s funny! Father Fanous was talking crazily, making fun of everyone, telling people, “Give me this! Do that!” and so on. Then he removed the socks from his hands and you could see rays of Light coming
out of his hands.
The story of Ramalinga Swamigal is also very interesting. He was illiterate and people used to make fun of him. He was from a low caste family, so the brahmins were treating him badly and ridiculing him. Once they offended him so much that he wanted to commit suicide. He went to a secluded place and said, “Lord, I will kill myself here.” At that moment, he had a vision of Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva blessed him saying, “From now on, the praises of the Lord will pour forth from your mouth.”
This story is similar to the story of Narsinh Mehta, the author of the bhajan that we sang earlier, entitled Vaishnava jana to. Narsinh Mehta was a great Vaishnava saint of the 15th century. During his life, he wrote 22,000 songs praising Radha and Krishna. He was from a poor Brahmin family and as a child he was very naughty. When he was just five years old, both of his parents died, so he was raised by his brother and sister-in-law. When he was eight, one day he went to school and bullied everybody. The schoolmaster went to his home to complain to his sister-in-law. She became very angry with the little boy and said, “You should have died. We regret that we took you into our care. You are useless.” Feeling very hurt by this, he left home when he was eight and went into the nearby forest with the intention to kill himself.
In the forest, he noticed that there was a small Shiva temple and inside the temple he found a Shiva lingam. He started praying to Lord Shiva saying, “Listen, I’m here and I want to kill myself. I will finish myself at your Feet.” Day and night he kept praying. Lord Shiva was very pleased with his prayers and seven days later, He appeared to him saying, “Tell me, what do you want?” He asked the Lord for only one thing, “I would love to see the Maha Raas dance of Radha and Lord Krishna.”
This request put Shiva in a big dilemma. He thought, “How can I possibly take him there?” But the devotion of Narsinh Mehta was so great that Shiva couldn’t say ‘no’ and finally He said, “Okay, it will be fine.” Shiva gave him a burning torch and said, “Come, let’s go!” Shiva lifted Narsinh Mehta from where he was standing, and all of a sudden they appeared in Vrindavan! When Narsinh Mehta arrived there, it was a moonlit night and Radha and Krishna and all the gopis were dancing the Maha Raas. He watched the Maha Raas and was in deep bliss, deep ecstasy. Meanwhile, Shiva disappeared, thinking, “I’ll let him deal with Krishna.”
At one point in the dance, Radha noticed Narsinh Mehta watching them and said to Krishna, “How is this possible? There’s a human being standing here and watching us! It’s not possible!” (Here it is important to note that the Maha Raas, even if it happened five thousand years ago, is still happening every day.) Krishna looked at Radha and said, “Don’t worry, Radha. Everything is fine. Just trust me.”
Later on, Radha and Krishna came to Narsinh Mehta and asked him, “What are you doing here?” At that moment, the torch that Shiva had given to Narsinh Mehta was overflowing and burning his hand. However, due to his state of ecstasy, due to the love that he had for Radha and Krishna, he didn’t feel anything. Radha and Krishna were so pleased with the devotion of Narsinh Mehta that Krishna blessed him saying, “I want you to sing My glory! Wherever you go, just sing My glory!” Narsinh Mehta said, “But, I don’t know how to sing!” Krishna took one Tulsi leaf from the Vaijayanti mala He was wearing and put it on the tongue of Narsinh Mehta. From that moment on, he could always sing beautiful praises to Lord Krishna.
By his complete surrender to Lord Shiva in the form of a Shiva lingam, he had received the Darshan of Lord Shiva, and afterwards Lord Krishna Himself had blessed him with Bhakti to sing His praises.
This blessed state is similar to the state Ramalinga Swamigal attained through the Grace of Lord Shiva: whenever Ramalinga Swamigal opened his mouth, praises to Shiva spontaneously flowed from his lips. He was always absorbed in the Divine Self, constantly perceiving God’s Light within. He identified himself so much with this inner Divine Light, that his body started to transform into Light. But he didn’t want people to see or know about it. So what did he do? He completely wrapped his body
in cotton cloth.
One day, many years later, Ramalinga Swamigal went into a small room and said to his disciples, “I am going to stay in this room. Lock the door from the outside. Don’t open the door until I give you a sign. When I give you a sign to open the door, then you can come in.” All the devotees, thousands of people, were sitting outside the little room, waiting for Ramalinga Swamigal to come out.
India was governed at that time by the British and the governor of the area was very aggressive and nosy. He was afraid that these people were planning something terrible, possibly a rebellion. He went there with his soldiers and started pushing people around and shouting, “This is ridiculous! This is stupid!” Then he broke through the crowd, not respecting the disciple who was trying to stop him saying, “Do not enter! Our Master has commanded us to not enter this room!” The governor pushed open the door, went inside and there was nobody in the room! But on the table was a note written in English that said, “I ordered that no one should enter this room! But you have entered. Because of that, I will not remanifest myself. I will remain always in my ‘Light body’.” This paper is still there today. This is how saints identify themselves with the Divine, when they are completely surrendered.
Bhagavad Gita
