On Bhagavad Gita: It takes a lot to know Krishna
By: Acharya Prashant
Tags: Spiritual Growth, Meditation, Spirituality, Wisdom, Mindfulness

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

यो मामजमनादिं च वेत्ति लोकमहेश्वरम् । असम्मूढ: स मर्त्येषु सर्वपापै: प्रमुच्यते ।। 10. 3 ।। yo māmajam anādiṁ cha vetti loka-maheśhvaram asammūḍhaḥ sa martyeṣhu sarva-pāpaiḥ pramuchyate He who knows Me, birth less and beginning less, the great Lord of worlds — he, among mortals, is un-deluded, he is freed from all sins. ~ Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 10, Verse 3 ✥ ✥ ✥

Questioner (Q): It is being said that the person who knows Him as birthless and beginningless is freed from all sins. I was under the impression that everyone is supposed to settle their bills in this human life.

Why this verse seems to be giving a clean chit to even a sinner?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Don’t be taken in by the simplicity of these words. Because we are used to complexity, simplicity can delude us, mislead us. The verse simply says, “The one who knows Me as birthless and beginningless is freed from all sins.” We say, “Wow, that’s so easy! Liberation in all of ten words.”

“The one who knows Me as birthless and beginningless is freed from all sins.”

“Done! Done!”

It is equivalent of saying, the one who jumps with a velocity of 20 km/s is freed from the gravitation of earth because the speed is higher than the escape velocity that is needed. So simple! The one who jumps up with a speed of 20 km/s is freed of all gravitation. Done! Simple!

How simple is it? How simple is it? But then, these words are disarmingly deceptive. Whenever something is said from a point of simplicity, addressed to complexity, it is usually misunderstood by complexity.

All that the verse says is, “The one who knows Me as birthless and beginningless is freed of all sins.” And we say, “Oh, it’s so easy, 2-minutes noodles! Just know Me as birthless, beginningless.”

How will you know Him as birthless, beginningless, sir? Is it a minute job? You snap your fingers and be done?

Because you do not understand the absolute requirement that this statement is posing to you, therefore you proceed to ask the next part of your question, which says, “I used to think that everybody is supposed to settle their bills in the human life, in the current life. Then why is this verse giving a clean chit to even to a sinner?”

Look at your assumption. Your assumption is, knowing is information gathering. The verse says, “You have to know Me as birthless and beginningless and deathless.” Because we do not know ‘knowing’, because we do not know what it means to really ‘know’, therefore we think that knowing is information gathering. So, the questioner here feels that — “Now I have read that Krishna is birthless and deathless, so I also know that He is birthless and deathless because I have received this information.” Nonsense.

To know that Krishna is birthless and deathless, you will have to invest your entire life. It is not as if somebody came and uttered a few things, whispered something into your ears, and you got to know the essence of Krishna. Knowing is not this kind of an easy affair. It’s simple, but difficult. Difficult for us, because we are complex people.

For twenty or forty years, you try, do your best, try your hardest, and then if you can come to the realization that there is the beginningless and the endless Truth, then you should call yourself lucky. It is not as if you read something in Gita and you’ve known it. These are revelations; these are realizations.

These are not data bits; it is not something that you can transfer from your mobile phone to your laptop. That’s called information, that’s data. This is realization; this is understanding. It requires sacrifice, it requires the investment of an entire lifetime, and then you come to the point where you start saying, “Yes, the Truth is indeed beginningless and endless.”

Why do I say that it requires great sacrifice to come to that point? Because you are mired in stuff that begins and ends. You live your entire life from the center of beginning and ending, right? Is there anything in your life that didn’t begin and won’t end? Right? Your entire life is about stuff that begins and ends.

Now, if you are to come to a point where you say, “The Truth doesn’t begin and doesn’t end,” that is the same as saying that your entire life is false. In your life, everything begins and everything ends, and then you come to the realization: Truth doesn’t begin and doesn’t end. What does that imply? Your life is false. And that’s why it requires tremendous sacrifice to come to this realization. And that sacrifice is not merely verbal or intellectual. That sacrifice, then, has to show up in your life and your actions.

If everything about your life is false, then you have to back your claim that you realize by giving false the treatment that falseness deserves. You cannot just say, “Oh, I have realized that everything about me is false, and yet I continue to patronize it.”

If you are honestly admitting that everything about you is false, then reject it. Reject everything about you, your life; stop giving value to stuff that you have valued so far. Don’t merely reject, despise it.

“Huh, how can I despise? You know, so many things there are that I love in this world?”

That means that your realization is a big sham. On one hand, you say, “The Truth is beginningless, endless,” on the other hand, you are totally charmed by stuff that begins and ends. Then, do you realize anything? That’s why this realization requires practice over decades. And, I said, even if you succeed after that, you should consider yourself lucky.

That’s the general problem that we face with the Truth.

You don’t come to the Truth; you actually come to see that you are false, and that’s why Truth is so very difficult. The Truth by itself is nothing. What you have to see is that you are false. Seeing the Truth and seeing your falseness will always go hand-in-hand, and that’s why seeing the Truth is so difficult. Truth could have been seen had it not demanded the price that you will have to concurrently admit: that you are false. That we do not want to admit.

So, no clean chit is being given to sinners. Sinners are being told to repent over decades. What is repentance? What else is repentance?

How do you stop being a sinner? What is sin in the first place?

Operating from the wrong center is sin. Forgetting your real nature is sin. Calling your limited personality and your limited world and your limited concepts as the Truth is the sin.

All these things that I am saying about sin are not different; they are one. Therefore, to stop being a sinner, you have to stop calling yourself as ‘real’; and that cannot just happen on your demand. You can’t wish yourself to be false. You will have to see yourself as false. That has implications on every aspect of your life.

This realization will require cleansing in every moment that you live. Therefore, it is not an easy task; therefore, no clean chit is being given; therefore, no shortcut is being suggested.

Liberation is difficult, arduous, time-taking, and will always remain so.

Yes, I understand there are several snake oil salesmen who promise instant liberation — but that’s snake oil. People are obsessed with snakes. What else will they sell you? Snake oil. And we buy that, right? Instant liberation! Do this, do that. And in the name of Sadhana (spiritual practice), you are told stuff like: “sit here, do this, utter these words strictly for thirty-two and a half minutes.”

You are saying, you are under the impression that everyone is supposed to settle their bills in this human life. Of course, and it’s tougher than that. You are not supposed to settle your bills in this human life. You may decide not to settle any bills. It is just that when you do not settle your bills, then the amount is extracted from you with interest and penalty. So, either you willingly settle, or you pay through your nose.

When you willingly settle it, it’s Sadhana. When double the amount is extracted from you, then it’s life. What else is life? Continuous, unrepentant payment for your unending follies.

Practice, practice, and practice. Continue questioning, continue seeing. You will not be able to see Krishna or Truth as timeless, formless, beginningless, endless, unless you willingly give up your obsession with forms, names, shapes, sizes, all products of time. You will have to work on yourself. Working on yourself, that is Krishna worship.

Attaining Krishna is just a fancy name given to basic self-inquiry and self-purification. Krishna is nowhere outside. The outside is just the projection of the inside, and the insides are quite dirty. Then how can Krishna be outside?

Getting rid of the dirt inside, that’s Krishna Sadhana. That’s what also is meant by settling your bills.