Bhagavad Gita - chapter 1, verse 1

Chapter 1, Verse 1 ARJUNA VISHADA YOGA YOGA OF DEJECTION

Dhrtarasta uvaca
Dharmakshetre kurukshetre samaveta yuyutsavah Mamakah pandavascaiva kimakurvata sanjaya

1. Dhritarastra said, "Oh, Sanjaya! When my people and the Fandavas assembled to fight in the sacred field of Kurukstetra, what did they do?"

Dhritarastra is the king of the KURUS. But symbolically the name means one who is protector, savior and preserver of our body-kingdom. Now, the question is, who is the actual savior of our body-kingdom? The answer is, it is the Soul (Krishna) who constantly inhales through the nose of every human being. He is the savior, receiver and protector of our body-kingdom. But every human being does not feel that Soul is our sole doer. So every being is blind to seeking Soul. Dhritarastra was a blind king, because he was after the material world. He had no judgment and knowledge. He could have easily prevented the battle, but due to his ignorance, he was in darkness.

Our spinal canal is our KURUKSHETRA. Kuru means you always do this and that work and are absorbed in it. Inside our spinal canal there are five work fields. The first four are: the coccygeal, which is the money center; the sacral, the sex center; the lumbar (navel), the food-center; and the dorsal, the many-types-of-negative-thoughts center, such as anger, greediness and suspicion. These four centers are mostly biological centers. There, people are engrossed in money, sex, food, pride, doubt and friction. These types of activities do not allow human beings to attain divineness, because they are always engrossed in their body senses, the fifth center is the vacuum center. People who cannot withdraw their mind from the lower centers cannot perceive super conscious stage. These five centers are our KURUKSHETRA.

In DHARMAKSHETRA, there are two words, DHARMA and KSHETRA. DHARMA comes from DHRI, which means the power of receptivity, and MON, which means the power of God and Soul, we are all alive. KSHETRA means place. DHARMAKSHETRA means where our living Soul remains.

In the scriptures, it is said: ATRA TISTA DASH ANGLAM, which means the Soul remains inside the cranium, 10 fingers above our eyebrows. If you place four fingers of your left hand on your forehead, starring between your eyebrows, then place four fingers of your right hand above them, and then again, two fingers of your left hand, you have place 10 fingers over your eyebrows. There you will find a hole, the fontanel, which is called the divine goal. Most probably you have seen that every baby has a soft spot in the middle of the scalp. This the place into which the power of God enters into every human baby. It is called SAHASRARA-PADMA, which means the thousand petal lotus-God gives a thousand types of thoughts to every human-being. If you penetrate down from the fontanelle, you will find the interior and posterior pituitary 10 fingers directly below. That is the junction of our five sense-telephones and the seven-crossings of our life, which is DHARMA-KSHETRA. Our two vagus nerves and the 10th cranium start from the same center, and our motor and sensory nerves also function from that place.

If you can withdraw your senses from the five lower centers inside the spinal canal, which is KURUKSHETRA, and penetrate your attention above the cranium, which is DHARMAKSHETRA, you can withdraw knowledge from ignorance, honesty from dishonesty, immortality from mortality. Then, you can get the psychological force that remains inside the cranium.

The seven-crossings is the junction in our head of lines joining seven points. It is the intersection of lines between the fontanelle and coccygeal centers. The seventh is the path air travels as we inhale through our mouth and draw it up to the pituitary, with the breath giving a cold sensation on our uvula. Jesus said you are to be born from above, that means, above the seventh cross.

Dronacharjya, the guru of pandavas and Kuravas, could not be killed until somebody shot an arrow through his throat that crossed the seventh junction. Dronacharjya means a person of fickleness. Until we come up above the seventh cross, our fickleness will not die or disappear. If our fickleness doesn't disappear, we cannot get God—realization. Until we cross the seventh junction, our human stage will not disappear and we cannot attain God.

Although there was actually a fight on Kurukshetra between the Kauravas and Pandavas, metaphorically the fight is between relatives or human beings; it is a fight between evil and good in every human being. The evil qualities of a human being are related to his body, as are the good qualities. But good and evil qualities cannot exist without Soul (Krishna), so Krishna is mediator of the good and bad qualities in every human being.

Our ignorance is darkness and our knowledge is light. KURU-PAKSHA is our ignorance, and Pandava is our light. If there is a fight between light and darkness, who will win? An example will illustrate. If you enter a dark room and turn on the light switch, immediately the darkness will disappear and be converted into light. So, darkness (ignorance) will surely be defeated by light (knowledge).

Now inside our body, there is a blind king like Dhritarastra. We are always in darknes. It was known to Dhritarastra that the people of Kaurava (ignorance) would surely be defeated by the Pandavas (knowledge). Yet, he asked Sanjaya, when the two parties assebled together in the sacred field Kurukshetra, what did they do?

All human beings are born for Self-realization. So we will also get a realized guru, like Sri Krishna, who will always guide, conduct, instruct and lead us to the divine goal. But now, we are all engrossed and absorbed in the biological force, and we re in delusion, illusion and error. So we are not getting the peace which comes from remaining in God. But the day will surely come when our ignorance (darkness) will disappear, and we will get virtuous inclination and reach the divine goal: formless-stage, liberation and Self-realization.

When God first created human beings, we were like savages and brutes. We did not know how to wear clothes, how to lie down on nice beds, how to eat food, or how to behave. Gradually, we have advanced and learned many things. Though starting with little education, we now are extremely advanced scientifically; we are doing many things. Although we have no foresight like Sanjaya, we scientifically see things which come from a long distance with television. Sanjaya was able to hear sounds or see sights from long distances. Through telephone and television, you can scientifically talk and hear the exact voice of your friends and relatives between America and India. So, we are all advancing scientifically towards the divine goal.

If you practice the scientific technique of Kriya Yoga, as written in the Bhagavad Gita, 6th chapter, llth and 12th verses, you can perceive Self within a very short time. Because we are the children of God, we have the potential for purity, love and perfection. So, the purity and perfection which are in God always remains inside our cranium and in the pituitary. Therefore, your spirituality, divineness and liberation are always in your hands. If you meditate, surely you will perceive God. Jesus also said, you are all remaining in the lower centers and not perceiving God. If you come above, into the pituitary, you can perceive God.