The Yoga of Love

Namaste, everyone. So before speaking, I will offer an auspicious invocation to my spiritual teachers, to our lineage, and to the Supreme Soul.

aum ajnana timirandhasya jnananjana salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri gurave namah

bhaja sri krishna caitanya prabhu nityananda
sri advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura bhakta vrnda

he krishna karuna sindhu dina bandhu jagat pate
gopesa gopika kanta radha kanta namo ‘stu te

aum namo bhagavate vasudevaya

Haribol.

So, tonight is the final talk that we’ll do in this series, Wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. We’ve done 15 talks, or this is the 15th, and we’d touched on lots of different subjects and then explored how they were dealt with in the Bhagavad-gita and what sort of direction we were encouraged to go in, in our understanding and in the journey of life.

Tonight, the topic is The Yoga of Love.

So for those who were here last week –and if you weren’t here, and you wanted to visit it, when I post this in YouTube and also on Facebook, I’ll put a link to the previous talk that we did, where we really looked at the word “yoga” and its significance in the Bhagavad-gita. We talked about how there were over a hundred verses—the total Bhagavad-gita is 700 verses, and there’s over 100 verses that use the word or a variation of it, “yoga,” showing that yoga is very central to the teachings of the Bhagavad-gita and the Bhagavad-gita itself.

We also just laid out a very straightforward definition of the term “yoga,” which references the union of the individual soul, the atma, the jiva atma, with the Supreme Soul, the Paramatma. But we did touch on how there were three forms of God-realization and, of course, of self-realization.

One was the realization of the Absolute Truth as a vast, limitless ocean of spiritual light and energy, the Brahamjyoti, and with that, one would have a realization of their own essence as being spiritual, aham brahmasmi.

The second feature that is presented in the Bhagavat Purana, the second feature of the Absolute Truth is called Paramatma. This is a feature of that highest truth, or God, as that feature manifests within the material creation, within each atom, as well as a feature of the Supreme standing upon a lotus within the region of the heart of all living beings, not just human beings, but all living beings, who is accompanying the individual soul on its sojourn through the material world, lifetime after lifetime. In that realization, there is an appreciation and a realization that I am not supreme. It’s not all about me.

And this is considered the grave and unfortunate foundation for material existence, this idea that it’s all about me, where I see everything in relation to me. Everything in life I see in relation to myself, which means I am saying that I am at the centre of everything, which is not true. That is so false, it’s unbelievable, and yet everybody embraces that idea so intently, which shows you—along with the false notion that the body is the self, where I identify, my body is female, if it is male, I identify as female, as male, as young, old, tall, short, thin, fat, this ethnicity or that ethnicity, with whatever desires I have, I identify with those. And this collective ignorance is the foundation of suffering for all living beings.

The realization, the Paramatma realization, means I realize that I am actually very small. I am almost insignificant compared to everything else. I’m very tiny, yet I am much loved. And I have an eternal connection to my source, to my eternal soulmate, this Lord of my heart, the Lord Paramatma.

The third form of God-realization is the realization of the most Supremely Lovable and Divine Personality who engages eternally in loving exchanges with those who are deeply devoted to Him.

So, in the Bhagavad-gita, it mentions many different yoga processes, and we listed probably about eight or ten different forms of yoga. And I just want to reiterate that people that adopt a certain practice of yoga often see that as the be-all and end-all: “I am a hatha yogi,” “I am a jnana yogi,” “I am a karma yogi,” whatever, “I’m a kriya yogi,” and they see things in isolation. But the greater spiritual understanding is that these different practices of yoga were part of a continuum that leads one gradually to the highest form of spiritual realization and experience, and that highest form of yoga is called bhakti.

So, of all the varieties of yoga and the different processes that were laid out, and the different forms of what’s called yajna, or sacrifice, the different forms of tapas, or austerity, that were adopted by different practitioners, all these practices and all these forms or practices of yoga fall primarily into just four main groups:

One group is known as karma yoga, which is broadly, could be described as the yoga of action, the attempt to make an offering of one’s life to something higher, to God, to some higher spiritual truth, but to be still very much involved in the world and filled with material desire.

Then the second category is known as jnana, jnana yoga, which is the yoga of knowledge, and there are different groups of practitioners who seek to cultivate understanding, whether it is of Brahman, of Paramatma, or of Bhagavan, these three features of the Absolute.

And then the third category is dhyana yoga, or the yoga of meditation. And there are different types of meditation that different yogis engaged in to try and have the realization of this highest truth in one of these three features.

And then the fourth category is bhakti yoga, which we are broadly terming the yoga of love.

I’ll just reiterate once more, bhakti was not, or should not, be thought of as a supplementary yoga, meaning something that you add to something else. It is actually properly understood as the culmination of all yoga practice. And we’ll support that a little later.

So, when we use this term, and I’m not a big fan of using it, “the yoga of love,” it immediately causes a little bit of a problem. It’s kind of like, if we are to have a common understanding of what we’re talking about, it’s sort of, okay, well, what exactly is love? How would you define it? And if we went around the room, we may come up with four, five, eight, ten different types or definitions of what love is.

As a culture, particularly in the Western world, we’re not very thoughtful. We don’t think very deeply. If somebody talks about love, it’s just like, the same thing. “Oh, I love my dog,” “I love my partner in life,” “I love my children,” “Wow, I love the car,” “I love what I just ate the other night. Wow, that was amazing. It was the best pizza ever.” We just throw the word around and use it in so many different ways.

In the ancient Greek culture, they had eight, there were actually more, but eight primary words for love, and each of them described something different. So, for example, we have eros, which was passionate, romantic, or sexual love. We had philia, which means affectionate friendship or brotherly love. They had storge, which was natural, familial love, like a bond between parents and children. So they really looked at these different expressions of love as being different manifestations. And the fourth one, I’ll just mention, is called agape, which was selfless, it was universal, and it was unconditional love. It was very deep and profound and would be categorized as being actually spiritual.

Within the ancient Vedic culture, they also have quite a few different words to speak of love, and their understanding of it was so extraordinary. It’s so profound and really beautiful, very, very wonderful. So, hopefully we can share a little bit of that. So, what I’m hoping is that at least when we hear these different things, then it will help us to think a little bit more deeply about what this word is, and what does it mean?

When we look at a dictionary, the definition that many dictionaries give for love, they describe it as “an intense feeling of attraction and deep affection.” A lot of people will go, “Yeah, I kind of agree with that.” There is one problem with it, though. It’s self-centred. It’s about what I’m feeling. There’s no consideration for what anybody else is experiencing or going through. I’m describing it in terms of an intense feeling of attraction and deep affection. And so, as I mentioned, this is really quite a lot about me.

And I’ll give you a little example. I always use this one because it was quite mind-blowing for me. There was a very famous Filipino director, movie director. He got all sorts of international awards. And my wife mentioned him to me and thought it might be interesting if I go along and watch one of his movies. So I thought, “Okay, I’ll check it out. Let’s see the guy’s—how good he is and everything,” and it was a really well-directed movie. But in the story, there was like this really rich guy, he was from this very wealthy family, and the woman was a very beautiful young woman, but from a very poor family. And they met and they developed a bond of affection. They fell in love, and the guy wanted to marry her.

When his mother found out that he was interested in getting married to somebody of such low stature in society, it was just shocking for her. You  know, in these societies that are very tiered classes, it was just like—And she was so overwhelmed, and she threatened her son and told him that she would kick him out of the house, cut him off from all the money, and he would lose all his high-paying jobs, and he’s going to have to fend for himself if he continued this. And that kind of really freaked him out, so he decided he was not going to do it.

And so the girl comes along one night, standing in front of the house, throwing pebbles up at his window. It was one of these old Spanish houses with big sliding windows, you know, in the tropics. And he opens it and looks out, and she’s there. And she’s declaring her undying love, “I love you. I love you. And I know you love me. Please, please…” begging him.

Then all of a sudden it started raining, which of course really fits everything that’s going on. And so she’s standing there in the pouring rain, declaring her undying love, and he’s saying, “No.” He’s not doing this. “I don’t love you.” And he closes the window. And then she just erupts in anger, “What the!” these Spanish swear words that they use, and saying, “How could you do this? I hate you. I’ll kill you,” she was saying in this fit of anger.

And I just kind of like, oh my God, look at that change in such a short period of time where somebody is declaring undying love, and just because now I’m rejected and I’m not getting anything out of this, all of a sudden, “I’ll kill you. I’ll teach you. You’ve broken my heart. I’ll kill you.”

It’s kind of like that was, in higher yogic understanding, that was never love. That is categorized as what’s called kama, which means lust. It’s not actually love, it’s lust. For those who might be interested, I’ll post a link also to a talk I did about a year ago, Is It Lust or Is It Love? because it’s a very important consideration.

We develop patterns of thinking and behaving, and we put labels on stuff, and we don’t think about it very deeply, and that perpetuates our ignorance and our suffering. So, not only are we often equating a highly emotionally intense experience with love, but in the modern world, there is this hyper-sentimentalization of love. “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” and dumb stuff like that. Well, it may be true that if someone is truly in love, then—because they’ll be so deeply thoughtful, but not having to say sorry doesn’t mean that somebody is in love. So, you find in greeting cards, movies, in music, and—this hyper-sentimentalization of this term love, and unfortunately, it often fails to capture the deeper, actual spiritual nature of true love, that thing that we are all desiring.

True love, spiritual love, is actually characterized by what I would call a generosity of spirit, this mood of giving rather than of taking. And in many of the ancient spiritual and religious traditions, love was understood to be the willing of good for others, when somebody wills the good of others, so it—which fundamentally means caring so much for someone that you only want them to experience the highest experience of good, that’s what you want for them. That would be a symptom that a person is actually genuinely feeling love for the other.

This—we have this innate desire for love, and we have this innate desire because it is actually part of our spiritual nature. It’s part of the spirit soul itself. It is the natural function of the spirit soul itself in a pure and spiritual state. We are moved by this desire for love because it stems from an eternal spiritual connection that we all have, even though we may have forgotten it, we may feel disconnected. We have an eternal spiritual connection with the Supreme Soul. But we transfer that desire for actual spiritual love to personalities, to objects and situations within this world. And it doesn’t matter how nice those things may be, they do not completely fulfill our need, because our need is a deep and spiritual need.

So, this raises a point: when we talk of the personality of Godhead, the Supreme Soul, people often, and particularly in religions of this world and things, they have a—there is a connection, but at the same time, a disconnect. People think about God in a very fundamental sort of way that’s often quite materialistic. And the idea that’s often presented within a lot of conventional religion is that God is this like really mean guy. And He’s going to kind of give me one shot to get it right, and if I screw up, that’s it. I’m absolutely, can I say it, stuffed. That’s it. I’m—forever! That type of mentality that’s very prevalent in the Western world, but it’s also found in some of the other Abrahamic traditions, apart from Christianity.

And what’s missed there is this understanding and appreciation that there is an intimate bond between you and your source, just as a child has an intimate bond with a parent. Have you seen any of these things? They have these series on TV, I’ve watched a couple, where somebody was given up as a baby for adoption, and they didn’t know who their parents were, and then they approach this show to try and find their parents, and they finally track them down, and maybe the kid’s already 40, 50, 60 years old, and the parents quite old, or maybe sometimes the parent has died and there’s a brother or sister, and they connect them together.

And when they come to meet for the first time, the hosts of the show aren’t around, they do it in private, but it’s on video; and when they meet for the first time, there is this unbelievable outpouring of affection where the parent cries and apologizes for giving up. There was some terrible condition or situation. “I couldn’t keep you because of whatever reason. And it broke my heart. And I thought about you every day.” And the child thinks, “I knew that somewhere you were out there, and I knew that you loved me, and you cared for me.” And there’s just this deep bond, even though they haven’t met, sometimes for 50 or 60 years, they haven’t met, like sometimes the baby was only a couple of days old when it was given up. And yet when they meet now, there is this unbelievable emotional attachment and deep bond. It is a bond of kinship. It is natural, and there is a spiritual equivalent, that we have a bond with the Supreme Soul, a bond of profound kinship, and we are all hankering, whether we recognize it or not, we are hankering to reconnect with the actual Lord of my heart.

In one verse from the Brahma Samhita, which is a very incredible ancient text, there is a verse that states—they’re speaking about the individual soul, the individual spirit soul, calling them, referencing them as jiva or jiva atma.

“The same jīva is eternal and is for eternity and without a beginning joined to the Supreme Lord by the tie of an eternal kinship.” [Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā 5.21]

And this is like a pretty extraordinary revelation that we are not talking about approaching some stranger, powerful stranger who’s highly judgmental. It’s like a long-lost child finding and connecting again with a lost parent, and how deep that bond is. This is infinitely deeper and infinitely more profound and wonderful.

The process by which this awakening of love and of very deep devotion, the process by which it is revived or awakened is called bhakti yoga. And the actual process, when we engage in a process that awakens our natural tendency for spiritual love, this is referred to as sadhana, sadhana bhakti. The word “sadhana” means the process to take one from where you are to a certain goal, to bring about an actual outcome. And so, the process for awakening this natural condition of love, the spiritual activities that one engages in, this is called the process of bhakti yoga or sadhana, sadhana bhakti.

What becomes really amazing though, and this will take some time to actually fully grasp, what in the beginning is a practice, or something that someone does to achieve something, when they arrive at that goal, they find the goal is the full awakening of this experience of loving devotion. So bhakti is both the process and it is the end goal. It is the end attainment. They do have another technical term, the highest form of spiritual love, that experiencing that, it is referred to as prema. And when one attains that experience, that full awakening of spiritual love, it is known as prema-bhakti. It is great transcendental and loving devotion and spiritual loving exchanges with the Supreme.

So, this awakening of spiritual love is the highest form of spiritual realization and spiritual experience. Compared to all the other things that can be delivered by different yoga processes, this one is actually what is categorically understood to be the highest and most complete spiritual experience.

So, in the Bhagavad-gita, there’s a couple of verses. In one, Lord Krishna states,

“And of all yogīs, he who always abides in Me with great faith, worshiping Me in transcendental loving service [or bhakti-yoga], is most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all.” [Bhagavad-gītā 6.47]

Then in another verse from the 11th chapter:

“My dear Arjuna, only by undivided devotional service can I be understood as I am, standing before you, and can thus be seen directly. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding.” [Bhagavad-gītā 11.54]

So this is like, my gods, we could talk for hours simply about this verse. It has a very profound message and meaning. When we talk about undivided, it means there is not even a drop of self-centredness, of selfish or self-centred desire, where one is absolutely only concerned, “How can I please You?” My every breath, every heartbeat in my body, all of the energy, my speech, my thoughts is, “How can I be pleasing to You?”

There are many gurus or so-called gurus who are very focused only on this first aspect of realizing the absolute truth, this impersonal spiritual energy, this ocean of spiritual energy and light, and they often will claim this is the only reality. Everything else is a partial truth or is false. They will state that actually this highest truth or God cannot have a personality, cannot have a spiritual form because all form is limiting. But this is a very naive understanding.

People are not actually educated in what rupa or spiritual form, swarupa, what it actually means and what it is like. People that have adopted this philosophy that—which often leads to a proclamation, “We’re all God, we’ve forgotten it. I just need to go through a process of meditation. I will overcome all the ignorance and covering and I will become God again.”

And as part of trying to get to that experience, they may prescribe that someone take up what they will call bhakti. But for one who truly understands the message of the Gita, what they are talking about is not actually bhakti, which is a spiritual expression of the soul itself, but they are talking about some sentimental and emotional thing, that, okay, you tend to be sentimental, so you do the bhakti thing, you worship God in a personal form, you do all of these practices, and later, when you grow up spiritually, you’ll be able to cast all of that aside and just launch yourself into the ocean of impersonal existence.

What they promote as being bhakti, we completely reject. This is not bhakti. It doesn’t have anything to do with bhakti. It is a form of sentimentalism, and is a very cheap imitation which they think will help someone come to eventually realize that they are God and to merge into this ocean of light of Brahman.

Bhakti is actually the eternal and natural function of the spirit soul. Every spiritual being, you have an essence, fundamentally what are you made of; you have a position where you fit in relation to other living beings, and if there is a Supreme Being, and this world, where do I fit? That is my position; and we have a natural function, the natural expression of the soul in a pure state where all inebriety, where all material conditioning is removed, and that natural expression is to seek to love and out of that love to serve.

If somebody really gets deeply into studying the texts, particularly the Sanskrit texts of the Bhagavad-gita, you will discover what is quite amazing, the enormous affection that Krishna expresses for His devotee, and His devotee, it is defined, is one who lovingly serves the Lord with great devotion.

But it is important to understand that love is not a one-way thing, you know, like the example I gave, the girl and the guy in that movie, so-called loved each other. The guy changed his mind, even though he was sort of drawn still. He decided that’s the end of it. The girl was still loving him, but he’s already turned away. He’s heading off in another direction.

Love always means a two-way exchange. This connection between the individual soul and the Supreme Soul is a connection of infinite affection, infinite love, infinite care. And this fact that it is two ways is really amazingly captured in a verse from a very ancient text called the Bhagavat Purana, which I’ll read. And I’m reading it because it really perfectly describes this condition of love, where it states,

“The pure devotee is always within the core of My heart, and I am always in the heart of the pure devotee. My devotees do not know anything else but Me, and I do not know anyone else but them.” [Bhāgavata Purāṇa 9.4.68]

This phrase, “I am yours and you are mine,” actually captures on the spiritual level, it captures the nature of that relationship, the nature of that connection. It captures the essence of what is called bhakti yoga.

So, in the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna also states,

“I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever renders service unto Me in devotion is a friend, is in Me, and I am also a friend to him.” [Bhagavad-gītā 9.29]

And so, we understand, the point that I just wanted to get across in these couple of verses is the nature of this love and exchange, it is two-way. It is not a one-way thing where the individual soul is attempting to love God, Who is so foreign and so far away and so distant, and maybe so powerful, and can be really cruel and cold. That is completely wrong understanding. It is a misunderstanding. The actual understanding is, the nature of the connection is incredibly intimate and profoundly and ecstatically sweet.

And so, we talked about bhakti yoga as being a process also, a way in which a person learns to live and to engage in activity that awakens the natural tendency to love. So, in the Bhagavad-gita, we have some references to this process. It’s kind of like the word “sadhana,” it can mean like a practice, in this case a spiritual practice, and just as in English you have the term “practice makes perfect,” (right?) so spiritually it is the same. To engage in spiritual activity even though we may be very fallen, we may be very impure, we may have unlimited defects, the process is so powerful, it transforms the individual. It awakens the natural tendency to love.

And so, there are many instructions related to how to engage in the process, but I will just read a couple of verses, three verses, that give you an insight into what it means. So here Krishna is addressing the great warrior prince, who, his name is Arjuna. His mother’s name was Kunti, so he is addressed here as the son of Kunti.

“O son of Kuntī, all that you do, [not most, or some], all that you do, all that you eat, all that you offer and give away, as well as all austerities that you may perform, should be done as an offering unto Me.” [Bhagavad-gītā 9.27]

So now we’re—this revelation, oh my God, this is the actual process. It is a process of learning to integrate every aspect of your life as a form of spiritual service, as a way to try and become pleasing to God. And He simplifies everything, like don’t complicate it. It’s really, really, really simple. So we have this verse, very famous one.

“If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it.”  [Bhagavad-gītā 9.26]

 And they’re just like, what? You can offer some water, you can offer a flower, you can pick a leaf and use it as an offering? It is through the act of offering that one begins to now more deeply connect with our eternal nature to be eternal loving servants of the Lord.

And then another description, “Always chanting My glories…” And I’ll just say this includes the chanting of these transcendental sounds.

“Always chanting My glories, endeavoring with great determination, bowing down before Me, these great souls perpetually worship Me with devotion.”  [Bhagavad-gītā 9.14]

So, this is the process in a nutshell of what is bhakti yoga. We understand that it awakens the highest realization and experience for the spirit-soul. And it’s a very simple and straightforward process.

We have mentioned previously that all spiritual practices can be divided into one of two paths. One is called the ascending process, the aroha pantha, where one tries to earn their way into heaven or to try and become good enough, to try and reach by my excellence the highest experience in meditation. I’m going to bring my mind under control, I’m going to get it—this idea. This idea does not yield the highest fruit.

The descending path or the avaroha pantha is described as saranagati, this Sanskrit word, the path of surrender, the path of supplication, the path of humility, of humble service. And it bears specific fruit. In the process, the descending process, when one becomes pleasing to the Lord, one is granted spiritual realization. Not because I’m so great, I deserve it, or I’ve accomplished it, but as, in great joy and with a melted heart, the Lord blesses those who are following this path of surrender.

So I’ll just read three verses.

“But those who worship Me with devotion, meditating on My transcendental form-to them I carry what they lack and preserve what they have.” [Bhagavad-gītā 9.22]

And then in another verse,

“To those who are constantly devoted and worship Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.” [Bhagavad-gītā 10.10]

Yet another one,

“Out of compassion for them, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance.” [Bhagavad-gītā 10.11]

So, the message here is that the pathway of bhakti, it is a descending path, a path of great humility and surrender, where a person becomes so attractive to God, if I can use that term, that one becomes blessed with these spiritual fruit, spiritual understanding, spiritual vision, and eventually a direct connection with the personality of Godhead.

In the final instruction of the Bhagavad-gita (and I don’t know if you remember or not, we talked about it from the beginning), it was, you have this warrior prince who’s getting ready to engage in this unbelievable battle that is going to just be mayhem. It’s going to be catastrophic. And he is a great hero. He fears nothing. And he asked for his chariot to be drawn up and to pass between the two armies arrayed to fight each other, in which unimaginable numbers of people were going to die. And seeing who was who, he was overwhelmed, overwhelmed with—It was just tragic because they were cousins that were arrayed at the front of the armies, and this was a fratricidal war, and he could not believe that this was going to happen. And it was so devastating he wanted to leave, to run away from this battle.

And Krishna told him, “If you run to the mountains and try and become a monk, which is what you are saying you want to do, you will not be able to do it. Because you have a nature that comes with this body and a nature with the mind that you have, you will again be pulled away from your attempts to be a monk and live away on your own like a yogi, again into the world. And you will suffer disrepute. People will say you are a coward. Rather than trying to run away, even though it is so distasteful, you have a duty to try and engage in this horrific activity to try and protect the millions of innocent people that you should direct spiritually and provide spiritual protection for.

“And so rather than run away, engage in this activity because it is your duty, but do it without attachment, without anger, without desire for gain or being concerned about loss. Simply do it because I ask this of you and it is your duty. But to do it by giving up all forms of religiosity and yogic practice, this final verse, “sarva dharma prijatya,” just all forms of dharma, of righteousness, of spiritual living, give it all up and simply surrender to Me. And the way in which you will attain this state,” He describes,

“Always think of Me and become My devotee. Worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail, and I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.” [Bhagavad-gītā 18.65]

And so we—in Sanskrit, the words are just like, oh my, it’s like nectar, it’s so sweet, this really deep proclamation of someone who is the most dear friend. This is the nature of the relationship. There’s not one of fearfulness, or grandeur or, “Oh my God!” [said in fearful awe] It is simply seeing this person as the highest object of love, Krishna, and Arjuna seeking to love.

In another verse, He said,

“He who follows this imperishable path of devotional service [or bhakti yoga] and who completely engages himself with faith, making Me the supreme goal, is very, very dear to Me.” [Bhagavad-gītā 12.20]

 And again, it’s just like really stressing, it’s not just “very dear to Me,” it actually repeats the word “very, very dear to Me.” And so we see the nature of the exchange between Krishna and His devoted follower, that it is a relationship that is unbelievably and profoundly sweet.

I was—in the beginning of my spiritual practice, I had become very absorbed in the idea of the ultimate manifestation of God is this impersonal ocean of light. I was engaged in the astanga yoga process. I was having extraordinary experience and realization, and I was thinking that this was everything. And I had thought then that the idea of a personal feature of God was kind of like a low understanding. It’s for sentimentalists and children and people that really don’t know very much, which is actually really arrogant.

When I met my spiritual teacher, it completely blew my mind, that this was the first time in my life that I had met someone that was not just proclaimed to be, but demonstrably, you could see, that he was truly a lover of God. He had utterly—he had had two heart attacks one day apart on a cargo ship coming out from India, coming to America with two trunks full of books and some rice and dahl and nothing. He had 60 rupees, which was like less than $10. He didn’t even know if anybody was going to meet him. Somebody, some man in India had said his son would arrange the visa, which he did. He didn’t know if they were going to show up or not. And when he got off the boat, there was no one there, but there was a message for him where they asked him to take a bus to Pennsylvania, which was not very far away from Boston Harbor and they would meet him. And so he asked guidance, he took the—and he went and he travelled, and he stayed with this couple for a little while and then went out on his own.

Because when he first met his spiritual teacher at age 26, his spiritual teacher talked to him for two hours, and begged from him, he said, “You are highly intelligent. Why don’t you take this message of the Bhagavad-gita, the teachings of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, to the Western world? You translate these works. You deliver this.” He had dedicated his life to prepare for this.

And then finally, at the age of almost 70, he’s on a cargo ship going to America with no money, not knowing if anybody’s going to be there, what it’s going to be like. And having had two heart attacks on the boat, he knew time was short. He barely slept two hours a day, often less, engaged his whole life for the next 10 years, deeply engaged in translation and speaking and sharing, traveling the world 10 times, this humble, surrendered person, until finally his heart was giving out. He would not be able to remain any longer in that body.

And he called his disciples and students. And he said, “I want you to be with me in this last lesson I will teach you, and that is how to die, what it means to voluntarily give up this body and return to Krishna.” And it was just like his whole life was just absolutely dedicated to the loving service of Krishna.

And that’s why I mentioned last week his translation of the Bhagavad-gita, Bhagavad-gita As It Is, is extraordinarily profound. And he does not give interpretation or change the meaning. He delivers it as Krishna delivered it to Arjuna.

So, the key themes of the Bhagavad-gita, even though it contains so much information—and we’ve talked about so many different subjects, and still we have not covered everything—so the key themes are that devotion or bhakti is both a method and it is the final goal as well, that bhakti is not a supplementary form of yoga to be added to something else. It is the culmination of the path of yoga to arrive at the condition of bhakti, and that deep spiritual devotion alone reveals the highest spiritual truth. This is how one gains self-realization and God-realization through this process.

And a big part of it is surrender, this movement away from me as being the centre of my life and of everything and it’s all about me, to me being a completely dedicated and surrendered loving service to God, servant of God, and that means also to all of his children.

The process of bhakti, it is described as accessible. Children, those who are not very smart, those who are lacking all good qualities, it doesn’t matter, all of that is irrelevant. It is completely accessible. It is relational. It’s a two-way street. It’s not just you on your own. It is utterly transformative and bhakti is central. It is the central message of Bhagavad-gita, which is a profound work on the path of devotion.

So, we end up having a little bit of a chant, kirtan. The process of meditation upon spiritual sound, it can be utilized in all of the yogic practices, even for those who are seeking to merge into the ocean of light, this Brahman realization, people can engage with this activity. But when we view the process of meditation upon these spiritual sounds as part of the cultivation of bhakti, or of devotion, then we understand that it is an absorption, an absorption in and taking shelter of these spiritual names of the Lord, who is recognized as one’s, in this process, one’s beloved.

So that’s the end of the Bhagavad-gita series. I’m not sure, did you like that? Was that kind of far out? We probably don’t do enough on this subject. And partly it’s because we want people to actually cultivate an understanding that you’re an eternal spiritual being, you’re not the body, come to appreciate that we have lost the plot and become overwhelmed by the material existence, and by engaging in the process of meditation using spiritual sound, everything will change for you. But on top of this, we do have a source. We do have an eternal spiritual relationship that we’ve become disconnected from. The disconnection is one way, it’s our way. We’ve turned our back. But when we again turn and reconnect, then the engagement in this process of chanting can be an experience of something that is profoundly devotional.

So I will chant the Mahamantra.