Personal Excellence Through The Bhagavad Gita

by Sukhabodhananda

God can be a concept or an experience, Love can be a concept or an experience, Bliss can be either a concept or an experience and in knowing the distinction between a concept and an experience and in keeping the vision to transform a concept into an experience lies the acuity of living life dexterously... in the Gita way.

Every moment God is blessing us with an experience, every moment there is an experience but we see only the periphery, we see the outer layer, and treat it as if it is a wild fruit but we miss the message which is hidden

in the experience.

be very aware and also be silent.

If you are not aware and not silent you are not going to gain wisdom, you will only gain concepts. Lots of people think if they can rattle off the Gita, quote the mantra, they are wise, but the rattling off of the Gita and quoting of the mantra without being existentially

aware and without being inwardly silent, is going to be only words, words and words.

example, you get angry; when you get angry then you get angry that you are angry; then double-decker anger; then you feel guilty that you are angry, so you are angry. Then you get upset that you feel guilty, so

The essence of the Gita is increase your awareness, increase your inner silence, then you will create a harmony in conflict.

essence of the Gita, which is that in a conflicting situation called war, Krishna is talking about peace, and for what? Not to run away from the conflicting situation but to face the conflicting situation with inner harmony.

Justification is one of the biggest obstacles in bringing about personal excellence.

A surgeon has to be detached. Being detached does not mean being unconcerned. Please don't understand it wrongly. People say detached means that I should not bother. No, you be concerned. Being concerned and being worried and attached are different things altogether. If a surgeon identifies a child as his child, it is very difficult for him to do surgery. But for the neighbour's child he will do it. Not that he will be careless, but then he is not identified. When he is not identified, his effectiveness is enhanced. For your own child, you are capable of doing it, but because of the identity of "my child," "I" and "Mine," you suffer.

The message of the Gita is – don't get identified, don't get attached, not even to the result. You be focused – focus on the present right now, and when you get focused on the present without getting attached, a different order of intelligence happens.

"Karmanyevadhikaraste ma phalesu kadachana, ma karmaphalaheturbhuma te sangostvakarmani.

means your happiness should not be confined by failure, and your happiness should not be defined by success either. At present our happiness is defined by our success and confined by our failure, our happiness is entrapped by our success or failure.

Lord Krishna says – don't let your life depend on success or failure. Life is just a movement from moment to moment. Your mind with ignorance says, life is happy if I get this, and life is unhappy if I don't get this.

O Lord, by your blessings, the impossible is possible because there is an alchemy which can bless and transform.

chaos. Therefore, although the external reality has a unit of impact, the internal reality has a deeper unit of impact. You have to become alert towards this. Therefore Saint Kabir says, "manke har har hai manke jit jit." If mind says "har gaya," you have lost. If it says "jit," you've won. This is referring to internal reality.

Water boils at 100 degrees. If it stops at 99 degrees, the water is not going to boil. The water is hot, but it is not boiled. This is what exactly happens when your understanding has come to a level, but it has yet to reach 100 degrees, where the knowledge transforms into wisdom. Only then it is a blessing.

the process of purification of mind is called yoga of knowledge, Gnana yoga. To purify your emotions is Bhakti yoga. For purifying your being there is Dhyana yoga.

There is in us a body centre, an emotional centre, and an intellectual centre. These become prisons to us because of lack of understanding. We have to turn each into a presence. In this body centre, emotional centre, intellectual centre, purification happens through Karma yoga, Hatha yoga, Bhakti yoga, Gnana yoga.

for your personal excellence, your intellect has to go through what is called a Gnana yoga discipline.

The point I'm making is that you have to identify your core weakness, so that you move from the mechanical emotional centre to the magnetic emotional centre. Through Bhakti yoga your mechanical emotion should become a magnetic center.

Through Bhakti yoga your mechanical emotions transform into a magnetic centre. Through Gnana yoga your buddhi, your intellect transforms from a mechanical centre to a magnetic centre. Through the principle of Hatha yoga and Karma yoga mechanical body movements become magnetic. That is when transformation really happens. This body, which is mechanical, has become a prison, because we develop prison habits, and that which is mechanical has to become magnetic – this is the quintessence of Gita.

So the man realised that hitting the target is not all that is important, but the way you hit the target and how relaxed you are, how calm you are, how focused you are without worrying about the result, is important, and keeping the body in that state that is called the magnetic center is important.

That is why in tarka sastra – the book of logic – it is said that if a stupid person learns logic, the logic becomes stupid.

In quintessence, the verse says, create a harmony in change. Don't create a conflict in change, because life is constantly changing.

You see, in your mind, there is a prison habit, a deleting mechanism which comes and deletes the richness of who you are.

You have a dogma of what security is, therefore you cannot see the beauty of insecurity. Drop the preprogramming.

Therefore there is in the Gita the deep belief that if one door closes, the other door opens.

"Uddharet atmanaatmanam;" O Arjuna, lift yourself by your self to a state where you are nobody. The whole drama of being somebody is what you have to eliminate.

But we live life as though we are in the centre of the cosmos, as though everybody has to worship us. We are living in this illusion, and this illusion is creating a delusion and in this delusion, we are suffering in life.

It is this climate that is the inner state. Unless you remove this negative inner state, it is not going to be possible for you to see that a rose is a rose, is a rose, is a rose.

So, draw the distinction between events and inner states. It is your inner state which is going to determine the quality of your life. And if that inner state is negative,

is your enemy, your "ripuhu;" if it is positive and really encouraging, it is your friend, your "bandhuhu."

where there is "dharma" and "satya" all the other gods, the "devatas" also exist. But it takes its own period of time.

So, you have to decide whether you are willing to give away your life for the sake of truth. But what we do is we give away truth, goodness and "dharma" for the sake of protecting our egos and our lives. But when absence becomes presence, you lift yourself to that truth.*

The more ego you have, the more is the pressure, the tension in your being. When the ego is released there is a certain lightness of your being.

So live life with preferences rather than demands.

"We have to invite God, only then can we eliminate ignorance, you know"

The best things will happen, when you have belief. Something beyond logic and energy happens. So this is internal strength. So keep your sorrow in silence, draw your energy from your internal strength, and go with the flow.

The point is that if you cannot see beauty in what is, in imperfection, you unnecessarily get tense. And when you get tense, your personal excellence will not flow.

have always inspired myself that if I cannot be happy 'here and now,' I will never be happy anywhere. This book is an offering of my insights to create happiness in all walks of