BHAGAVAD GITA – THE ULTIMATE SUCCESS BOOK

Some of the modern success teachers, they actually use Vedic knowledge and
they develop different concocted systems of how to be successful in this world.
The usage of Bhagavad Gita by some people is wrong. They are using it for the
wrong purpose. They derive an obscure meaning. They do not understand
Bhagavad Gita through the disciplic succession but by their own interpretation.
They interpret it in different ways.

So here I would like to show how this book can be used for success in all
important areas of life and therefore we call this article: Bhagavad Gita - The
Ultimate Success Book.

I would like to start with a little story about a lion - who is supposed to be the
king of the jungle. Once a lion was walking in the forest and he came across a
monkey.

He asked the monkey, “Monkey, who is the king of the jungle?”

The monkey said, “You are sir.”

“That’s right - and you never forget it!” Then he continued, and came across
the snake.

“Snake! Who is the king of the jungle?!”

“You are sir.”

“That’s right - and you never forget it!”

Then he came across the elephant, “Elephant, who is the king of the jungle?”
and the elephant just walked by.

The lion got a little bit upset. “Elephant, who is the king of the jungle?”

Elephant just ignored him. And then third time when he asked, the lion got so
angry that he actually bit the elephant, and the elephant got angry himself. So
he took him with his trunk and smashed him several times and threw him
against the trunk of a tree.

Then the lion said, “Wait, wait! Okay, okay, you don't have to get so angry with
me just because you don't know the right answer.”

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So one of the morals of the story is that there is always someone higher than
me. There are other things that people derive from this story.

When you look at your life, what would you consider a success. What is
success?

UNTO HERE

Do you want to be successful on the path devotional service? successful in

spiritual life.

okay. Other things? Is this the only thing you want to be successful in? Or is
there something else?

Gentleman: being successful in private life.

private life, what does that mean?

Gentleman: that I’m happy within the varna and ashram that I live within and
service I do…

okay, happy in service.

Gentleman: it contributes to my emotional stability.

okay, emotional stability, and relationships. How many of you would like to
have financial success?

okay that's nice that you're not too shy about that because we need money.
Although we are practising spiritual life we need money to survive. And money
if not misused is not bad. So that's one area in which you need to be successful
in order to function.

Of course if you want to take to spiritual life you don't need so much money
and even if you are poor you can practice spiritual life successfully and
effectively. But one reason why we need more money also is because we want
to spread Krishna consciousness. We want to print more books, we want to
open more centres. We want to refurbish more centres and in that way we
want to facilitate peoples’ spiritual life, peoples’ approaching spiritual life.

So some people want to be successful in relationships, some people want all

these areas. So I would say success for us, is being successful in all these areas.
Being successful in relationships with other people, being successful financially,
health-wise. You need to have good health. If you neglect one of these areas,
it affects other areas. So there has to be a balance. There is a big thing now
in the corporate world, professional/business world: work-life balance.

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You are working 12 hours a day, you come home very much irritated. Your
wife/husband says something and there is a clash. Then you suffer mentally or
emotionally; you get a heart attack. So there must be a balance. And for a
balance there must be knowledge how to balance, there must be determination
to do it and patience. one needs so many things in order to have this balance.

So regarding this book, I want to give a personal statement that this book
transformed my life and the lives of hundreds of people I know all over the
world. Hundreds of devotees, who are my friends, my acquaintances.

So I want to speak about this book because of my personal experience that I

have benefited, so it is natural that I want to share it with others. In order to
benefit from this book and what is in there, we at least have to give it a
chance and be a little open. Of course you are devotees, most of you are
practising very seriously and you are open but are you getting the most out of
this book?

Some you have books. Nowadays they try to make it very practical, very short…
you do not have so much time to read. So they are making books: how to get
the most out of your books. So I think we should have a leaflet and give people
a few pages of instructions about how to get the most out of the Bhagavad-
Gita. I think we should do that. What do you think?

And then people will say, okay let me use this book for my own benefit. In
order to benefit from this book we first have to be open to it. You may say,
“Well I already read it,” but are you really open? So how many of you are
ready to be open to the Bhagavad-Gita?

Okay so you will have big ears and listen. Also when you read have big eyes.
This book deals with very important questions in our life. What are the
important questions in your life? What would you say?

Gentleman: how can I be happy by giving a contribution.

how can I be happy by giving? That's nice. Usually people say how can I be
happy by getting. We have a different paradigm. Okay that is one question
that is important. What questions are important to you, to others?

I could say for every one of you, the question that is important is: how can I get
what I want? But if we get more specific then you can tell me: how can I get
this, how can I get that… maybe you are a little shy to say it. But that is a very
important question to ask.

Of course in order to be able to ask this question, you have to ask yourself
another question first, which is what?

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What is the question before the question: how can I get what I want?

Lady: what do I want?

Akrura Prabhu : what do I want? That's a great question in our lives!! What is
it that I really want. If you clarify what you want then there is a big
probability or likelihood that you will maybe start working on it and maybe
ultimately get it.

How many of you know what you want in life? Only three hands! 4, 5! Wow!!
You see we do not have a consensus here!! So I can give you some tools how to
work on it. I mean this is a large part of my service: helping people clarify
what they want. Because they don't know! Believe it or not! Sometimes they
say I have been here such a long time and I still do not know what I want.
What is it that you want the most? What is it that you want in general, what is
it that you want long-term, what is it that you want short-term?

The beginning of success is what you want. Do you want to benefit from this
book, do you want to learn what is here. Do you want to use it? It is up to
you. If you do not want it, even if you read it, even if you come here, it will
not help you. There are two people sitting in the audience listening to maybe
some inspirational class who are very wise, who have a very nice wisdom and
they react differently to it. One person takes the principles and tools that he
or she learns and makes a huge success of his or her life and another does
nothing, does not use it. So you can decide in which category you want to be
in. Do you want to use things that are given to you for your success or you
want to remain indifferent? It is up to you. This book is not very useful if you
do not use it.

Sometimes I send free e-books to people. If you want me to send you a free e-
book, I have very good books with very good principles. You just e-mail. But
with this book that I will send you, you will get a note from me, and the note
says: “This book is useless if you do not read it!”

Then, this book is even more useless if you do not use it, if you do not apply it.
And this is where we need assistance: how to apply things. So that is why we
need the help of devotees - how to apply the Bhagavad Gita and in their
association.

Do you know the three most dangerous words in English?

Lady: ‘I don't know.’

well, that is very nice but the answer is wrong.

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Any other combinations? What are the most three dangerous words in English?
Someone would say ‘I am God’ – devotees. It is very dangerous for devotees to
think like that.

Any other? This is very close. What mataji said. Very close to the right
answer.

Gentlemen: ‘I am not responsible.’

I - am – not - responsible. These are for words. Three words.

Lady: ‘I know everything.’

YES!!!!!! Fantastic! ‘I know everything’ or ‘I know that’ is the same thing.

Excellent! Thank you very much - ‘I know that.’ You come to class and
somebody like me is giving a deadly boring class and you are saying, “Yeah
Yeah I've heard this already and I know that we are not this body and when is
prasadam…” and things like that. But if you think that ‘I know that’, you will
never learn anything. You'll never learn anything.

Just a few hours ago a devotee came and we asked him, “Why you coming
here?” and he said, “I came here to learn something.” It is a very nice reason
to travel. I learn from different places.

So if we think ‘I know that,’ we will never learn anything. The best attitude is
that: I have no idea, I do not know anything. I do not know is very nice… it is
actually a success principle. “I do not know. I am a fool. Basically if you look
at me I do not know anything, very little.” The most knowledgeable people of
this planet, whether they admit it, know very little. (may have transcribed this
wrong, please make sure this sentence reads how you want it to read)
Scientists, these people who really have knowledge. So most people they say I
know.

Smart people never say that. Now, how will you know if you know something?
Practically. What will be the proof that you know something?

Gentleman: Backed up by hard evidence. Results from knowledge

You know something only if you live it. Not only if you say it, if you have heard
it, if you agree with it, if you believe it.

So if we know the Bhagavad Gita but we do not live it, then we do not know it!
And the worst thing of all is that we do not benefit from it. That is the worst
thing.

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Now it takes a lot of repetition to learn things. Some people learn more
quickly than others but we need to be very patient in repeating things and
repeating the activities, until it becomes unconscious competence - where you
do things perfectly and automatically.

So for this one requires a lot of practice. If you learn a principle from here, try
to apply it, then you have a practice. As they say practice makes perfect. We
attempt to become good at something and then we give up after a few
attempts. Some people give up after one attempt, some people even before
they have attempted they say, “I can't do it.”

So how will they be successful if they give up even before they have tried?
Have you had an experience of giving up even before you have even tried?

Okay, let us say I ask some of you, “Tomorrow you are going to give a lecture in
public at Dublin University.” What would you say about Krishna?

Gentleman: great!

I can imagine some would say no way! Why? You think you cannot do it?
“Maybe I can do it but my English is not so perfect, if they ask me some
provocative questions I will go red in the face so I can't do it.”

So they did not even try, they did not even give themselves a chance to try. So
similarly if I say can you chant one round a day and you say, “I can't do it.”
Immediately giving up. So these are the principles of failure. Opposite of this
is success: when you are ready to try.

I teach people, “You come to me and tell me that something does not work,
only when you have tried it 108 times first.” and they say, “wow I never
thought about this.”

Does anyone know about Edison and his attempts to try to invent the light bulb?

Gentleman: before Edison invented the right one he invented 10,000 that did
not work.

when he was on the 5000 attempt a journalist interviewed him and said, “Mr
Edison why are you wasting time, you are wasting people’s time and national
resources?” and he said “Young man, you do not understand how things work. I
have not failed 5000 times, I have just invented 5000 that do not work and I am
going to succeed.” And he succeeded. So that is called persistence.

So if you are may be not too successful in your spiritual life, do not give up. Do
not give up. Just keep on trying. There is a famous saying: if at first you do
not succeed try again.

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That is the common one but I have another one: if at first you do not succeed,
ask yourself why. That can help because you can find the causes of why you
are not succeeding. Not just like a bull trying to go through the wall! “Okay I
will be persistent like anything.” Be more intelligent about the way you are
going about being persistence.

When your mind tells you: ‘I know that.’ You can tell your mind, “Thank you
for sharing,” and then you move on to learn something. Be open to learning
something. This is the principle of success.

I wanted to teach you some more principles and elements of success. As they
say there are inner laws of success and they are described in the Bhagavad-
Gita. One of these laws is that it is s not enough to be in the right place at the
right time, you also have to be the right person, to be in the right place at the
right time, in order to be successful. So this means that one has to have the
right character, the right attitude. So if we look into how we can succeed in
spiritual life, financially… we have to be the right person.

Am I doing what successful people do? Successful people are self-disciplined

and unsuccessful people are not self-disciplined. They say, “Well I would also
like to be rich,” but are you ready to do what this rich person does? “Well I
don't know it's too hard.”

How many of you want to be successful?

Okay more than half. Thank you.

Now the difficult question comes. How many of you are ready to pay the price
for success?

Many people want to be successful but they are not ready to pay the price for
success. So in order to start our road to success, helped with the Bhagavad-
Gita, we have to ask ourselves some basic questions.

Who are you? What are your beliefs? What are your values? What do you stand
for? What are you ready to die for? What are you ready to sacrifice for? Are
you ready to act in spite of fear? Are you ready to act in spite of doubt? Are
you ready act in spite of anxiety or worry? Are you ready to persist?

So if we analyse the lives of those who are successful whether spiritually… we

can see that there are some character traits that are there. They are very
determined, they are usually moral people, they like to give, they like to help
others. So these are universal laws of success and they are also given in the
Bhagavad-Gita. So if we follow in the footsteps of those who are successful,
we can become successful and it is up to us, it is our choice if we want to do it.

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How many of you believe that your inner character will make a big difference
in your life and bring you to success?

Bhagavad-Gita helps us develop our character. Prabhupada was always proudly

speaking about what we are doing for society; we are actually training people
of high character. He would always say: they do not eat meat, they do not
take intoxication, they do not gamble, they do not have illicit sex. So these
are just basic principles for a good character but there are other things also.
Devotees can be very gentlemanly and sensitive.

So if you want your life to get better, YOU have to get better. You cannot
remain the same or continue doing the same things and expect different
results. That is just the law of nature or law of God.

So Bhagavad Gita is giving us very basic principles about how we should develop
ourselves, how we should grow. Without growing our life will not be very
productive.

Now just imagine, you have a tree here and there are different fruits. Here is
a trunk, branches and roots. So usually when people look at a tree what do
they look at?
Fruits. Like nice apples, bananas, guavas. In order to get these fruits what do
you have to do with the tree?

Gentleman: water the roots.

So this is what is in the Bhagavad Gita: how to water the roots and ensure you
get fruits. But if you do not water the roots there will be no fruits. This is just
the law of nature. This is what Bhagavad Gita is teaching us: how to create
conditions for your success. And there is a law, that if you know it and if you
follow it, there will be no failure, you cannot fail.

So this is a very important principle to understand. That if I want to be

successful in any area, I have to learn how to do it. Sometimes people come to
me and say they want to achieve this. I say do you know how to do it? No. So
what is the next natural question? How to do it! But even before this, the
question is: are you willing to learn? And then they suddenly say I am not sure.
Good luck!

So you can learn anything if you decide to… how to do things and how to
achieve success but are you willing to learn? Are you willing to learn how to
become a first-class devotee? Are you willing to learn how to become a
successful businessman?

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In London we had a meeting amongst our Temple leaders/care leaders, they
are mainly managers and our president was teaching us principles of success.
He says he was studying turnaround experts. When you come to a company
that is in crisis and you analyse what is wrong there and how to turn round the
whole financial crisis… as they are in minus and so many other things. He said
the common thing they notice is that somewhere at the top there is conflict.
There are strained relationships and it shows up in lack of profits. It is a
practical consequence.

Have you heard of the Hindujas? Very rich. They visit the temple in London
every day. He was saying that they are always in communication, wherever
they are in the world. So if you want to have a good relationship with other
people, communicate with them, do not avoid them. How can you have a good
relationship by not communicating? It is impossible. By not communicating
that you care about people, that you value their opinion and so on so that is
also a principle of success.

So these people, at least materially, are very very successful but they do
certain things that unsuccessful people do not do. If you look at devotees: who
is a successful devotee for you and what do they do? So we learn from them.

If you look at the tree, the roots are actually below the ground level, you do
not see them. So many people are unsuccessful because they are unconscious.
They just deal with what they see. But they do not deal with what is unseen.
For example you cannot always see motives of people. Like somebody has a
hidden agenda or hidden motives, only later on it becomes obvious that they
had a very dubious motive.

If somebody is curious: what will actually make them successful, what will be
the cause of the good effect that I want? We live in a world of cause and
effect. Action and reaction. Law of karma. So what are the things that will be
the causes of good results? There is a law to it.

So we may say that my life is the product of luck, of destiny. That is not true.
You can create your own life. You can influence your destiny. To some extent
it is true but you can affect it positively. Like if you started to chant Hare
Krishna, your karma decreases. Large parts are wiped out. So everybody
would like this especially if the karma is bad.

What are the unseen forces? Unseen laws? Unseen causes of the visible,
tangible effects? That is also explained in the Bhagavad-Gita. What are these
rules that will bring these wonderful fruits? Now in the physical world we see
something manifested but what is behind it?

I will give you an example about the egg. Just imagine there is a newspaper
article, which says: a great breakthrough – the chicken has come out of the

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egg. It has broken out of the shell and it is so amazing. And someone might
think it is wonderful, but what happened before that, you tell me? What
happened before the chicken has come out of the egg?

There is one thing that we know. That the chicken really endeavours to get out
of the egg. You see only the end result that this is so wonderful, but there was
hard work before that. So there is one very very famous ??? teacher, he
analysed the best companies in the world but you would be shocked that these
companies are not so famous. He analysed their success over the period of 30
years and they are still successful, like Gillette. They measured profits,
turnover. They analysed how they have become successful and they said that
we have become successful between the period 1960 and 1990. Over 30 years
they are working extremely hard to build up this company, every part of this;
the management and leadership.

The thing that we can learn from this is that success does not come overnight.
One has to work over a period of time and one has to be patient also. The
fruits we see in the physical world but the roots are actually in the spiritual
area and the emotional area, what is in the mind.

In the London fitness club there is a sign on the wall which says that: the extra
mile is between your ears. The way you think affects the results you have in
your life. So if you change your thinking, if you change your consciousness your
life will change and your results will change.

One thing that unsuccessful people do: they make excuses. So my question for
you is: that do you want to have excuses or results in your life? You can
become expert. Maybe you are already expert… in excuses. What are your top
ten excuses or top one excuse for why you are not the best you can be, or why
you are not achieving better results?

Gentleman: I do not have enough time

nice that is a classic one

Gentleman: It is too hard

I am not good enough. My parents were very incompetent so the genes and
environment is not conducive to my growth. So many things, but if you think
very deeply, you can see that these are actually excuses.

What else do unsuccessful people do? They blame others.

Just like taking antibiotics you feel temporary remedial pleasure and feel
better about yourself - because they are actually responsible for my failure in

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life but successful people do not do this. How many of you are expert in
blaming others?

I really commend those who have raised their hands because to publicly admit
that you are good at this art requires courage!

Blaming others and justification. How many of you are expert in justifying your
own imperfections?

It is good that you can see things that you need to be changed.

Make two lists: a to do list and a stop doing list.

So Bhagavad-Gita is teaching us to take full responsibility for our lives.

Three magic words, three secret words for success are: I am responsible.

Who is actually responsible for our conflict? I am responsible. Maybe you are
also responsible because you are responsible person but for anything that
happens to us, we are responsible. That is according to the laws of nature. We
do not get what we do not deserve according to the Bhagavad-Gita.

So once you do this, your road to success starts. As long as you are blaming
others and justifying. Blaming your grandparents, your parents, politicians,
leaders, teachers they are wrong and self-centred. We can blame the whole
universe because it does not make me happy. Why is everyone not dedicated
to making me happy? That is the question. Why are you people not dedicated
to making me happy? Why are you not worshipping me? Why are you not
offering the fire and water and incense? Why? Because you are not God. We
do not like to worship God sometimes we want to please ourselves.

If one is thinking like this, by default, by the law of nature, one cannot
succeed. So if you change the way you think and see things, then there is the
likelihood of becoming successful and changing your life. Do you believe that?
Try to see things according to a higher knowledge.

Faith in principles.

Do you know that you can affect the way you think, feel and will and desire -
consciously? It is very difficult to accept that. I do not want to think nonsense
but it just comes. Where is it coming from?

Gentleman: just the mind.

well I can see the thought. Who is it that is seeing these thoughts? Just now I
am thinking: I would like to eat five kilos of prasadam. My mind is saying this

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but my stomach is saying no you are torturing me, I cannot digest this much
prasadam and I am well aware of this dialogue going on. More food; 5 kilos; my
stomach is saying no. So who is observing this? Who is seeing this?

How do I feel at the moment? I feel a bit let down by all of you because
somehow I am trying to get you very much fired up but you are quite quiet!

Gentleman: so the problem is that we identify with the mind? We think that
we are the mind. But actually we are not, we are spirit soul.

yes thank you. There are certain rules and principles of success and they are
given in this book. And this book has given even deeper success principles than
you can find in other success books. Because this book is spiritually based. So
if you use these principles, and get assistance on how to use them from
devotees, then you can increase the likelihood of your success.

A little story: once there was a chicken farmer who was also a very very
passionate mountain climber. So one day he was climbing the mountain and he
came across a nest with three large eggs and the eggs were beautiful, so he
was thinking: shall I take one? He had a henhouse and he was thinking that
maybe I can put it there and the chicken can hatch it. But he knew it is illegal,
it is unethical it is not ecological. He was in doubt whether he should do it or
not but still he did it. Put in the bag, climbed up to the top and put it in his
henhouse.

The chicken enthusiastically laid on it and after some time a creature came out
and the chicken was very proud because it was different from other chickens.
New kind of child. And this little creature looked at the other chicken and
started living with them and identifying with these chickens, thinking that I am
a chicken. It was doing what other chickens do, pecking around a courtyard,
sometimes trying to fly a few metres like chickens do. They do not fly very
much.

For many years this bird lived with the chicken, like a chicken, doing things like
them. But one day this bird saw something in the sky and was so impressed,
and asked the sister chicken: what is this? It is so wonderful. It is like poetry in
motion.

And the chicken said, this is an eagle, it is the king of the sky, the king of the
birds. And we are not part of his life. We are just meant to do what we are
doing here. He can fly so elegantly and high.

But something was touched in him at that moment. Why? Because he was an
eagle. So he looked and he was thinking, oh okay. But when the chicken said,
we are not part of his life he said, oh okay and he continued living for years

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like a chicken, doing what chickens do. And this eagle - he lived and died as a
chicken because it is all he thought he was. Sad story.

So you tell me, what do you find in this story? Is there any message that you
are getting?

Gentleman: he did not try to find out his real identity

excellent, anything else?

Gentleman: we develop desire and consciousness according to the association

we get.

Gentleman: he based his life on the false belief that he is a chicken.

Lady: you do not get what you expect and if you identify with a set of
restrictions then you will not be able to surpass them.

So it's our choice. If we want to remain where we are, if we are happy with
this, you can do it. If we want to soar we can do that to. The opportunity is
available so please take it and be happy.

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