Commentary on Paramahansa Nityananda's Chidakasha Gita–Number 13
by Swami Nirmalananda Giri

Chidakasha Gita:
Verses 42-51

42. When a man is born, he is perfect; when he goes away then also, he is perfect. In the middle, he is subject to Maya. That which pervades in all directions is one, indivisible; that which is limited, is divisible.

• When a man is born, he is perfect; when he goes away then also, he is perfect. In the middle, he is subject to Maya.

Not knowing what word Nityananda actually used, since he was not speaking English, I really cannot claim to know what this means. Certainly he did not believe that an individual coming into birth was perfect in the sense the “one lifers” mean it in their theology. I can only guess that he means the incoming and outgoing person is not subject to the Maya of material existence, but in the middle is tossed around and drowned over and over. However, the astral and causal worlds are also Maya, and can be equally deluding.

• That which pervades in all directions is one, indivisible; that which is limited, is divisible.

Once more we must not think that the all-pervading Reality is “big” or “small.” Pervading something does not make the pervader take on the characteristics of the pervaded. This is not double-talk. Consciousness pervades all, but is untouched and unconditioned by it. Therefore It is neither vast nor tiny–space simply does not exist for It. For example, materially-minded people think a vary tall and large person is “a big person” and regard him as such. Conversely, they think a very small person is “a shrimp” and of little consequence. Perhaps this comes from too many lives–animal and human–living in social orders where the biggest are the leaders and the smallest are considered nothing and even left behind. Personhood is simply not taken into consideration by these people.

That which has bounds, though, is inherently limited and “small” both spatially and morally. Thus anything that has boundaries or limited (and limiting) qualities is ultimately of little consequence in the realms of the spirit.

43. At the place where there is running water, there can be no mud; the place is quite clean. Ignorance (ajnana) is mud; the current of water is bhakti and jnana.

Bhakti and jnana purify the heart. But bhakti is not emotion, and jnana is not intellectuality. Instead, they are dispositions of mind and heart–a psychological frame of reference within which the entire life is lived. Volumes upon volumes have been written, and none have said the final word on bhakti and jnana. But Sri Ramakrishna did, going to their ultimate essence. He said that bhakti was the attitude (bhava): “God is the Master and I am His/Her servant.” Jnana, he said, was the attitude: “God alone is real; all else is unreal.” However, what begins as an attitude, a kind of intuitive conviction, ripens into direct realization–the person no longer “feel” or “thinks” those principles, but knows them and embodies them. That is why Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the President of India and a great exponent of Sanatana Dharma in his own right, once introduced Jagadguru Brahmananda Saraswati of Joshi Matt as “Vedanta Incarnate.”

44. It is not bhakti to give a man some money or to give him a meal as charity. Bhakti is universal love. Seeing God, in all beings, without the least idea of duality, is bhakti.

Why spoil the beautiful clarity of this with needless commentary?

45. Without the control of breath (pranayama), a man cannot be a yogi; nor is he a sannyasi. Without a rudder, it is impossible to steer a boat or ship.

Nityananda’s invaluable instruction on pranayama is sprinkled throughout the aphorisms. In aphorism 210 he says: “What is called pranayama is all internal working.” This is most important, for we must not think he is talking of physical breathing exercises, but working with the prana solely within the mind–specifically with the repetition of Om.

In aphorism six he speaks of “the Breath of Omkar.” Perhaps he had in mind the statement of the Yoga Vashishtha: “Pranayama is accomplished by effortlessly breathing and joining to it the repetition of the sacred Om.” (Yoga Vashishtha 5:78) Without this form of pranayama “a man cannot be a yogi; nor is he a sannyasi”–he can neither join his consciousness to the Divine, nor can he be capable of the dispassion (vairagya) that is the basis of sannyasa. It is the pranayama accomplished through the Pranava that enables us to direct the “boat” of our individual life here and in other worlds.

46. To a good man, every man is good; everything is good. A man can be good by his own exertion.

The first sentence is no small concept. I have, in fact, never heard it–or any version of it–spoken outside India. Yet it is true. I saw it as an actualization, not just an ideal, in Swami Sivananda, who saw not just the good, but the God in everyone. Of course, if we ponder the matter, we can conclude that taken to its furthest reach, Good and God are synonymous. That is truly good which reflects God. There is no good outside God–but since all things are in God, they, too, are good. This is not an easy state of awareness to attain or maintain, but it is certainly necessary to all sadhakas.

The meaningful thing for us is the second sentence: “A man can be good by his own exertion.” Now there we have it. Those who strive for union with God cannot help but become good–and then in time become God. “Therefore, Arjuna, become a yogi” (Bhagavad Gita 6:46).

47. We drink the juice of the sugar cane and throw away the refuse. Similarly, this body is a house for the atman. When it is spoiled, we build a new one.

The major point to this is the fact that we do not incarnate aimlessly, even though nearly all people–including the believers in reincarnation–have no idea why they are here. We incarnate for a very real purpose that leads to our eventual liberation. The idea that our life is something for us to fiddle around with and use for whatever small-term goals our deluded minds and egos can come up with is a terrible mistake, and does result in wasting lifetimes. It is an invitation to more and more suffering and frustration. Finding out our purpose is not really difficult. An intellectual friend of mine used to mock this sentence, but Swami Sivananda had it right: “Read Gita; read Upanishads; and attain moksha.”

48. It is the nest that perishes; not the bird. The nest is built of earth. The blood vessels and nerves are earth; in the blood vessels are the blood and semen; this body made of flesh is subject to death; if it is not washed for a single day, it stinks; we cannot trust the human body.

This is not hard to sum up: the Self (Atman) alone is immortal, alone is to be trusted and taken into consideration in the overall view of our life. On the other hand, the body is so mortal, so evanescent, as to not even exist in the context of the eternal Self, much less be overvalued and identified with.

49. Mind is the creator of ideas. When the gross ideas are suppressed and the man lives in the subtle, this state is called nirvikalpa samadhi or samadhi without ideas. Just as we teach a bird how to talk, keeping it in a cage with its feet bound, we must keep our mind in our buddhi. A man must learn for himself.

• Mind is the creator of ideas. When the gross ideas are suppressed and the man lives in the subtle, this state is called nirvikalpa samadhi or samadhi without ideas.

This is really quite simple, and extremely valuable because it gives a much more correct understanding of nirvikalpa samadhi than is usual. Most people have a very abstract and even exaggerated idea about the nirvikalpa state, thinking that it is the state of total identity with the Absolute in which nothing but the One exists for the yogi. Instead, the nirvikalpa state is just what Nityananda says it is: the state in which “the gross ideas are suppressed and the man lives in the subtle.” That state, made permanent will lead to total absorption in the Absolute, but it is the path to that Goal–not the immediate attaining of it.

Another important point is that Nityananda does not say the nirvikalpa state is the total absence of mental impressions (chitta-vritti), but a condition of living and functioning in subtle consciousness when “the gross ideas are suppressed.” When the japa of Om becomes subtler and subtler and transmutes into virtual silence–that is the nirvikalpa state. If the yogi can remain in that state during meditation and even in the daily life outside meditation, he is firmly on the path to Liberation and is dwelling in Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi–about which people also have an exaggerated idea. Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the path to moksha, not moksha itself.

So we must be examining our meditation and seeing if we are on that path or not–for that alone lead us to Unity.

• Just as we teach a bird how to talk, keeping it in a cage with its feet bound, we must keep our mind in our buddhi.

Here again Nityananda, like Sri Krishna, is pointing us to Buddhi Yoga–the centering of our minds in the buddhi, for the buddhi is the link between the mind and the Self. How do we do this? First, since the buddhi is the place in which conscious thought arises, we engage in the japa and meditation of Om, which in time draws us upward into the higher levels that touch the spirit, and from there on into consciousness of the Self.

• A man must learn for himself.

This is surely a fragment, but it may be an assertion that no matter how much external instruction we may have, experience is the real teacher, so everyone of us must learn truth for himself.

50. Holding the nose with the hand, with eyes turned upwards and holding the breath in tight as if winding a clock spring with a key are similar to circus feats or a cinema show–these are not what is called samadhi.

Artificial and strenuous breathing exercises are not yoga–much less samadhi. These are in the realm of Hatha Yoga. Although they can in time produce some minor psychic abilities, they are no more than “circus feats” and are really no more than movies–illusions that have no real substance, and therefore no real benefit. Such things eventually evaporate, leaving behind nothing but emptiness and a wasted life. This is true of a great deal of “yoga.”

51. The sense of equality is the greatest thing in this world. People go mad after shadows; very few are mad after the invisible (the subtle). True madness is very rare, it being found only in one among a lakh or two. Other people run mad after sixteen things in a ghatika (twenty-four minutes). “I want this,” “I want that,” “This is different,” “That is different,” such is their mad talk. Entertaining various motives is madness. Fickleness of mind is madness. Greatness is madness. Practicing and seeing the reality is the opposite kind of madness. Liberation from birth and death is divine madness. Those who have not realized the truth are mad after the gross. Everyone has one sort of madness or another. Thousands of people possess houses, diamond jewels, gold and property. They did not bring these with them at birth nor will they take these with them at death.

• The sense of equality is the greatest thing in this world.

Nityananda is speaking of samadarshana–the state of mind in which one sees all things as the One, making no differentiation in the sense of liking or disliking. It also implies perfect equanimity in all situations and toward all things. This is actually a divine trait, for in the Gita Krishna says: “My face is equal to all creation, loving no one nor hating any” (Bhagavad Gita 9:29). It is also a trait of the illumined, for Krishna further says: “He who regards with an eye that is equal friends and comrades, the foe and the kinsman, the vile, the wicked, the men who judge him, and those who belong to neither faction: he is the greatest” (Bhagavad Gita 6:9). And: “He who dwells united with Brahman [is] calm in mind, not grieving, not craving, regarding all men with equal acceptance” (Bhagavad Gita 18:54). An infant regards all with the same attitude, but that is no virtue for it is based on ignorance and inexperience. Tamasic people have a knack for not caring what or who comes and goes, but that is the samadarshana of stupidity and moral torpidity. What Nityananda is thinking of is the result of Self-realization, a state of clarity of perception united with absolute stability of consciousness.

• People go mad after shadows; very few are mad after the invisible (the subtle).

In contrast to the stability of samadarshana, human beings are running frantically after what is basically nothing–mere shadows. This world and all within it is really insubstantial, a mirage. Yet from life to life people struggle for things of “the world” and suffer when they cannot get what they want–and suffer even more when they do. What a horrible paradox! When I was small, I had the most peculiar delusion. I believed absolutely that if I could hold on tightly enough to something in a dream, I would be able to bring it over into the waking world. Sometimes I just came upon the thing in a dream, and sometimes I found myself in a store like Woolworth’s which was a paradise for a child. Being alone in the store, I would run around in a frenzy of greed, grabbing as much as I could hold of what attracted me. Then I would sit down and hold on as tightly as I could. The strain of that would of course wake me. I would look down at my arms: empty. After a while I gave up, but humans take dozens if not hundreds of lives to get the idea.

People think it is clever to say: “I only believe in what I can see,” so in their ignorance they do not seek the Invisible Spirit, though it is the only Reality, the only thing they can really make their own. Their suffering is colossal, stretching through life after life, until they get the right “madness” and seek God.

• True madness is very rare, it being found only in one among a lakh [100,000] or two.

“True madness” is which reveals the True. Nityananda’s use of the word “madness” is an indication of the all-consuming intensity needed to find God. The ideal teacher of this divine madness is Sri Ramakrishna. So here are his words on the subject:

“If you have to turn mad why should you do so for the things of the world? If you are to turn mad be mad for God.”

“I said to Narendra [the future Swami Vivekananda], ‘Look, God is the ocean of bliss. Don’t you feel like plunging into this ocean? Just imagine that there is a cup of syrup and that you are a fly. Where will you sit for drinking the syrup?’ Narendra said, ‘I will sit on the edge of the cup and sip the syrup stretching my head.’ I asked him, ‘Why so? Why should you sit on the edge?’ He said, ‘If I venture to go too far I will drown and lose my life.’ Then I said, ‘But, my child! There is no such danger in the ocean of existence-consciousness-bliss. It is the ocean of immortality. No one dies plunging into it. A man becomes immortal! A man does not lose his head by becoming mad for God.’”

Vivekananda quoted Sri Ramakrishna, saying: “My Master used to say, ‘This world is a huge lunatic asylum where all men are mad, some after money, some after women, some after name or fame, and a few after God. I prefer to be mad after God. God is the philosophers’ stone that turns us to gold in an instant; the form remains, but the nature is changed–the human form remains, but no more can we hurt or sin.’”

One of Sri Ramakrishna’s spiritual teachers had told him: “My son blessed is the man upon whom such madness comes. The whole of this universe is mad–some for wealth, some for pleasure, some for fame, some for a hundred other things. They are mad for gold, or husbands, or wives, for little trifles, mad to tyrannize over somebody, mad to become rich, mad for every foolish thing except God. And they can understand only their own madness. When another man is mad after gold, they have fellow-feeling and sympathy for him, and they say he is the right man, as lunatics think that lunatics alone are sane. But if a man is mad after the Beloved, after the Lord, how can they understand? They think he has gone crazy; and they say, ‘Have nothing to do with him.’ That is why they call you mad; but yours is the right kind of madness. Blessed is the man who is mad after God. Such men are very few.”

The last word should come from Sri Ramakrishna himself: “If you see in a man ecstatic feeling and love of God spilling over and see that he is mad for God and is intoxicated with his love, know for certain that God has become incarnated in that man.”

• Other people run mad after sixteen things in a ghatika (twenty-four minutes). “I want this,” “I want that,” “This is different,” “That is different,” such is their mad talk.

Since we live surrounded by this, there is no need for a comment.

• Entertaining various motives is madness. Fickleness of mind is madness.

People have all kinds of reasons and justifications for running here and there. How noble so many of them sound! And how wise and even scientific. It is wonderful how “doctors” and “researchers” find that indulging their whims and addictions as actually good for them. For example, a “true Freudian” will tell you Freud claimed that sexual abstinence caused neurasthenia, when in reality he said that sexual indulgence produced neurasthenia, and was himself a strict celibate in the latter part of his life, having told his wife that sexual activity was inconsistent with the accomplishment of any great work.

The changeability–i.e., instability–of the “wanting” mind is also tremendous and a continual torment to the individual and those around him.

• Greatness is madness.

The search for mahima–external greatness in the sense of great power, fame, influence, control, and possessions is one of the worst strains of madness, for it not only is all-consuming it is also virtually impossible to cure. Here, too, those who gain what they want are made utterly miserable and ultimately ruined by it. “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:23, 24). This applies to any abundance of “the good things” of this world, for they addict human beings mercilessly–and it is a very real addiction. First they compel people to seek so many things, and when they get them they become even more compelled to get more and more–and all the time live in fear of losing even the smallest amount of their “treasure.” It is a net almost impossible to break free of.

Here is an example from “yoga life.” The renowned operatic soprano Amelita Galli-Curci bought a small house in Borrego Springs, a tiny town in the low desert of southern California. After some time Dr. Minot W. Lewis, Yogananda’s first American disciple, bought that house and used it as a private meditation retreat. Some time before his mahasamadhi Yogananda told James Lynn (Rajasi Janakananda) about the Borrego area and advised him to make a similar meditation retreat there. After Yogananda’s passing he built a small house for himself (where he left the body), but although he was a great yogi and spiritually very advanced, he was yet so addicted to making money that even though he was worth millions he just could not stop. So he also bought four hundred acres which he turned into a potato farm and bought up quite a few properties which he rented out (one of our friends in Borrego had been one of his tenants). After the passing of Doctor Lewis his house became the site of a small chapel and was used as a spiritual retreat, and today is a retreat for the monks of Self-Realization Fellowship. Rajasi’s property, on the other hand, was sold off after his passing and his own house was abandoned, becoming a ruin and a haunt of squatters and drug users. Finally a devoted yogi bought it and moved it to his property where he restored it and lived in it himself. There is a lesson here–and not hard to get. This is not a criticism of Rajasi, but an affirmation of what Jesus and Nityananda had to say about “the game” of this world.

In fact, I would like to go further in this matter. For many years Rajasi Janakananda was a disciple of Yogananda–who often praised him–and after the Master’s passing he became the president of Self-Realization Fellowship. Yet one day after his guru’s mahasamadhi a terribly sad fact was revealed. In meditation Rajasi had a vision of Yogananda–the first after the mahasmadhi. He came in great joy to Sister Durga, another advanced disciple of Yogananda, and told her about the vision. In conclusion he confessed to her that all through the years as Yogananda’s disciple he kept wondering if Yogananda was so kind and loving to him because he had a lot of money–that it was his money Yogananda was interested in. But after Yogananda came to him in the vision he could at last believe in his guru’s love. How tragic! The decades of association with his guru were blighted by doubt, fear, and mistrust–all caused by his money! What a curse his wealth was, for it poisoned that time of his life which should have been the most blessed. He was unable to fully have faith in such a great Master because his money was always looming in the background of his mind. As Jesus had warned: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21). Again, this is an indictment of riches, not of Rajasi.

• Practicing and seeing the reality is the opposite kind of madness.

The Vision of God is the only real cure for the wrong kind of madness, and that comes only through practice–abhyasa–which produces the right kind of madness. We continually come across people who insist that since they are the Self they need do nothing but just BE the Self, that any kind of practice affirms a false identity and is a denial of their real nature–and therefore an obstacle to realization. But how can anything be an obstacle to the Self? Whence comes their fear of delusion if they are nothing but the Self and need do nothing? We may have two perfectly good eyes, but if our head is wrapped around and around in veils, we will be unable to see. Who but a fool or a lunatic would simply deny being blind and say that nothing is needed for them to see? True: they are not blind, but their sight is being blocked by veils which must be removed before they can see. It is certainly true that they can already see, but that which prevents sight must be taken away.

When we speak of evolution we do not mean that the Self evolves, but that the gross and subtle bodies must be refined and brought to the condition where they no longer inhibit the light of the Self, and can eventually become dissolved into that Light altogether. When we are in total darkness we cannot see our hands, and the quest for light is hardly a denial that we possess them. In same way, the practice of yoga is an unveiling and an illumination. Those in jail would be insane if they went on and on about how by nature they are free and need not be released from the jail. A lot of craziness goes on under the cloak of “advaita” and “non-dualism.” For example, Sri Ramana Maharshi is held up as an example of someone who “did” nothing but entered into enlightenment spontaneously. Not so. Only after he went through the process of methodically experiencing death did he gain awareness of the Self. So he “did” something just as much as any yogi. Since he was obviously born only a step away from enlightenment, that was all it took. But he did take that step, and so must we whether it be a single step, a mile, or a million miles. And by the way, he did not stay at home, but fled to Arunachala, so he did not seem to think that for one who knows the Self it makes no difference where the body may be.

• Liberation from birth and death is divine madness.

So only the liberated can be totally mad.

• Those who have not realized the truth are mad after the gross.

Is this ever true! For example, phony yogis–just like those addicted to hallucinogenic drugs–constantly talk about “energy” and “vibrations,” never mentioning consciousness which is the only real thing, for consciousness is the sole nature of both the jivatman and the Paramatman. They are always involved in “shakti” and in the most material of practices. They obsess on everything from rudraksha beads to hatha yoga and coffee enemas. These are the kind that think if they bang their coccyx on the floor they will awaken the kundalini. Bandhas are their minor deities along with violent and strenuous breathing exercises. Of course diet takes up a great deal of their attention. Ayurvedic cooking classes! Panchakarma! And all while wearing navaratna beads.

• Everyone has one sort of madness or another.

That is obvious to any conscious observer.

• Thousands of people possess houses, diamond jewels, gold and property. They did not bring these with them at birth nor will they take these with them at death.

It is a miracle that this truth never seems to impinge on the unreality in which humanity lives every moment. Not only do we not possess anything after birth and after death, we really do not possess anything in between either.