Question: Swamiji, you mentioned the soul as being the witness to the thoughts, and the thoughts coming from nature. So when we are chanting or doing pranayam and we get a thought and we observe that we thought the thought, is that the soul witnessing?

Yes that is the soul witnessing, and so far as we can discriminate between I am the thinker having this thought and this thought is about me and my relationship to the world. If we can divorce ourselves from that process and just witness it, it loses its energy. The energy of that thought dissipates and has no further capacity to drag us into the labyrinth of day dreams.

And if we go with the thoughts and say oh yes, that is my thought and that is me and that is good and that is bad and I like this and I want more of it and I don’t like that and I want to avoid it, then we forget about divinity and we navigate that treacherous path of daydream while we are supposed to be meditating.

Question: So the soul is the witness?

Yes. This is Sankhya philosophy. Remember we have Purush and Prakriti. And now, the Purush is the witness of the Prakriti.

Question: Are there some thoughts or situations where the soul becomes happy.

No, happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain, dukh sukh, all are products of the mind, they are products of nature. The soul is neither happy nor is it sad, he is merely the witness.

The soul is blissful and Satchidananda is the intrinsic nature of the soul, but happiness and sadness are not the nature of the soul. Those are the transitory states of the mind according to its nature. The soul is always eternally of the nature of Satchidananda, he is blissful.

Happiness and blissfulness are different. Happiness is caused by a stimulus and therefore happiness is a response. Blissfulness is the intrinsic nature of the soul and if we peel away all the layers, all the thoughts, we will find that soul dwells in bliss. Now if you put back all the layers on you say I am happy and I am sad and we forgot about the soul. We can’t see the soul. Because all we see are the affectations of the mind. Now our objective is to leave all of these encumbrances of the mind and dwell particularly strictly within the soul.

Question:What is the effect of being in the presence of or serving Guru? Does this presence or service help to purify the mind’s unwelcome tendencies, actions or nature?

Yes, it is so important for us to have a pure example, somebody who has done something about this, at least who can expose us to this philosophy. Otherwise we have so many influences in our lives. Look at your employers who will influence you: “do a little more” “I want more productivity.” Your friends will say "come and enjoy with us, let us go out and have a good time." You have so many influences in our lives all the time.

If we include the influence of the Guru who is presumably a pure soul or a purer soul, who is going to teach us the wisdom of the Gita and make us sit down in an asan by the fire and offer up our impurities and teach us various ways by which we can come into a greater harmony with God, then yes we need this relationship, it is important for us to have these influences in our lives.

We need the information and we need the example, and we need the inspiration to start inculcating that example on our own. This is so important for us. Otherwise it remains a philosophical theory: “I heard about sadhana and I heard about tapasya. But I’ve got stuff to do. I’ve got a lot of living to do.” It is important for us to have the influence of the Guru and the Gurukul in our lives. The family of the Guru also will also help us to inspire each other to come a little closer to Godliness.

Question: How do we maintain the attitude of sacrifice all the time?

First step is – get the inspiration, the second step is to study, the third step is to practice, and the fourth step is to refine the practice to virtuous efficiency, the fifth step is to nurture divinity, the sixth step is to become completely pure, the seventh step is to overcome the darkness of our egotistical attachments and the eighth step is become one with the Great Radiant Light. “Navamam siddhidatri ca”, the ninth step is the granter of perfection.

And these are the nine forms of Durga proclaimed as the path to attainment in anything we choose from the dawn of creation and that would be the way I suggest.

In verse 26 it says “While others offer sound and other objects of perception into the fire of senses.” Does this mean singing and chanting and satsang?

Yes it does. And it also means hearing. You are going to control your hearing, discriminate, put some guards; Jaya and Vijaya will stand at the entrance to the city of God and discriminate as to what you want to come in. And then what you want to come out. The sounds and other objects of perception should be an offering and chanting and singing as a word of God. And that is our objective.

Question: What is meant by the yagna of wisdom referred to in verse 33?

What we are doing right now is called the Jnan yagna. The very study of the scriptures and the study of the application of the scriptures, how to apply this knowledge in our lives is called the Jnan yagna – the union with knowledge. It is as much a yagna to unite with wisdom as it is a yajna to unite with fire. It is just a different kind of yajna.

Question: How is it that even although Arjuna is before God Himself all the time and is also recognizing him as such, still Sri Krishna tells him to reach him by following the Yoga of Action?

All of us have to act all of the time. I think Sri Krishna is telling him, “remember me in every action and you will be free. Don’t try to guess the outcome of that action; try to be motivated by pure intention. Give up your selfishness. Even though you are with me right now, I am your Guru, you have asked me to be a Guru, you can come to me, dwell with me, live with me, be with me all the time through every action that you perform.” That’s why he is encouraging his disciple.

Don’t just come to me on Saturday nights at 6:30 PM. Come Monday through Friday as well. Come and enjoy the entire program. Don’t just come a little bit. Come as much as you can. Because the closer you come to me the more you remember me the more intense is that remembrance, that longing, that feeling, that observation that you see me present everywhere. And then you dwell with me. Don’t make this a part-time hobby. Make it your full-time vocation. The other stuff is what you do in order to support your real life’s work.

Question: Can Swamiji comment on verse 24 as a meal prayer? Everything: eating, everything else in the universe, material or energy is the one great law of sacrifice. When we realize does this make a difference in our actions even if our minds fall a sleep?

Especially, when our minds fall asleep. The object is to convince our minds that they should go to sleep. But we are seeking virtuous efficiency. And here we see that the Supreme Divinity is making the offering, the Supreme Divinity is the offering, offered in the fire of Supreme Divinity, to the Supreme Divinity and now we are trying to see the Supreme Divinity in every action we perform.

And this is not only for our meals, but we use it as a prayer for our meal because God is offering Godliness to God so that this form of God can perform more Godly actions. It is like Shankaracharya’s prayer: “Jnana Vairagya Siddhyartham Bhiksham Dehi Namostute.” Give me the nourishment that I need so that I can achieve the highest state of wisdom and all of renunciation in every action I perform.

Question: Related to verse 34, what is the correct way or protocol to approach a Guru and ask a question?

We had that in Chapter 1 of the Chandi where Samadhi and Surath went to see Medhas Muni and they entered into the circular area of sacrifice and they observed the customs and congenialities conducive to learning. We know the law of gravity brings blessings down. So we humble ourselves. We humble ourselves with sincerity and with real questions and with study; and by absorbing the questions, not trying to debate, not trying to prove our position is better, but by absorbing the answers and looking for ways that we can apply this knowledge in our lives.

This is the humility of a student, a sincere longing for knowledge and a sincere humility in order to accept that knowledge. So these would be some ways. Bow to them, serve them, and ask them questions. That’s what Krishna suggests.

Question: Swamiji, how do you cultivate balance in praise and blame, success and failure?

Mostly through experience. Experience is a great teacher. That after every failure and after every round of blame there is going to come some praise. And after sometime we realize that both of them are useless.

We’ve got certain goals that we are trying to achieve. And I would like to place them in empirically measurable criteria. Like, “I want to expand my asan, I want to be able to chant from cover to cover in one asan, I want to maintain a rhythm of pranayam, I want to maintain a certain level of absorption in meditation.” These are goals which we can verify.

I wouldn’t say, “Oh, I would like to have my life controlled by God all the time.” That means I get to blow wherever the wind may blow me. I don’t want exactly that as an undefinable goal, because that isn’t definable. “I want to be a tool in the hands of God.” That’s an altruistic expression, it’s an affirmation. But I’ve got certain things that I have to empirically produce. There has to be some demonstrable evidence that I have reached the goal so that I know I’ve got it. Now when I define my goals very clearly then I can measure my progress along the way. Now I’m going to a specific goal.

And all this praise and blame along the way what does it really mean in the terms of where I’m going. In the terms of my ultimate goal the only one who really knows is my Guru and I would certainly listen to praise or blame from my Guru. And the rest is just chatter coming from people who have an opinion about what I should be doing with my life.

And if I followed everybody’s advice about what they think I should be doing about my life I would have never been able to make the first step. Because believe me, my family wasn’t in favor of my becoming a sadhu. They wanted me to become a somebody and not a nobody. So ultimately, I had to take the initiative to define my goal in a different way and not succumb to praise or blame from any other source other than my Guru.

Question: How can we reconcile being tool in the hands of God and children of circumstances on the one hand with taking responsibility for one’s self instead of letting other people tell them what to do?

Yes there seems to be a reconciliation that needs to be done. And it’s true, there is a reconciliation. To become an efficient tool in the hands of God I have to cultivate some skills. I have to sharpen the tool. I don’t want give God a dull tool and say, “OK, this tool all rusted and broken and dull and blunted so now You can use it. I want to sharpen that tool in a certain way according to my personal inclination.

Whether it be as a craftsman, whether it be as a computer expert, whether it be as an expert in finance, whether it be as the perfect servant, I want to sharpen the tool and cultivate the skills so that God can use it.

Both are true. My Mother is the Goddess of pre-determination. The law of karma is effective; my Father is the God of Free will. You will get the fruits of your karma and you have a free will to change them to sow new seeds so you get different fruits.