Gita Jayanti class – The Gita brings a message of fearlessness to a fear-filled world

[Festival class at ISKCON, Perth, Australia]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So once more.
Prapanna Pariyataya Totravitrayi Kapanaye Jnanamudraya Krishnaya Jnanamudraya Krishnaya Gitaamritaduhenamah Gitaamritaduhenamah Hare Krishna. Thank all of you for coming today on the sacred occasion of the anniversary of Gita Jayanti. The Gita was spoken thousands of years ago.
And today I’ll speak on how the Gita brings a message of fearlessness to a fear-filled world. The world is filled with fear and the Gita offers us a message. Do not fear.
Shri Jiva Goswami, while analysing the Bhagavad Gita, states that how can we know the essential message of a book. One way is by looking at its framing statements. That means what is spoken right in the beginning and what is spoken at the end.
So he looks at what are the first words spoken by Krishna in an instructive mode and what are the last words spoken by Krishna in an instructive mode. So the Bhagavad Gita has 700 verses in which Krishna speaks only two words. Actually two words in the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita.
पार्थपश्चैतान पार्थपश्च भीश्मद्रोणप्रमुक्तः सरवेशाम्चमहिक्षितान महिक्षितान वाचपार्थपश्चैतान समवेतान कुरुनिति So at the start of the Gita, Arjuna requests Krishna please take me in the middle of the two battlefields, two armies. So Krishna takes him in between and he says वाचपार्थपश्च Arjuna, you want to see? See. What is there to see? This is the only two words he speaks in the first chapter.
In the second chapter, he speaks two verses more in a mode of friendly encouragement. Come on, Arjuna, don’t become weak. Don’t give in to fear like this.
Don’t give in to weakness like this. कुतस्त्वाकश्मलविदं विषमेसमुपस्तितं अनार्युष्तं अस्वर्ग्यं अकीर्थिकर्वार्जुन क्लैब्यम्मास्मगम्हपार्थ नै तत्वयुपपध्यते शुद्रं रुदेधवुर्भल्यं त्यक्तोतिष्ठ परद्धप Oh Arjuna, from where has this weakness come upon you? Do not give in to such weakness. This will not lead to auspiciousness.
Rise and fight. So here there is not much philosophy. There is simply encouragement.
Then after this in 2.7 Arjuna surrenders. I’ll go back to these verses later once again. But the important thing is after Arjuna surrenders, then Krishna’s role shifts from that of a friend to a teacher.
And in 2.11 is the first word that Krishna speaks in an instructive mode. And at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavad Gita ends with 18.78. But Krishna’s speech ends in 18.72. The 73rd verse is Arjuna’s reply and 74th to 78th, last five verses, is Sanjay giving his conclusion from hearing the Gita. But even in the Gita, the 66th verse is the last instructive word that Krishna speaks.
67 to 71 is the Phalashruti. Phalashruti is the fruit of hearing the Gita or the benefit, the glory of hearing, speaking, studying the Gita. And 72 is an enquiry.
Have you understood Arjuna? So in that sense, the first instructive word that Krishna speaks are 2.11. And the last instructive word that Krishna speaks is 18.66. So what is common between these two? But in these two verses, let us see. So 2.11 is अशोच्यानन्वशोच्यस्त्वं प्रघ्यावादांश्यभाष्यसे गतासून गतासुम्ष्य नानुशोचन्तिपण्डितः He says that Arjuna, you are speaking learned words, प्रघ्यावादांश्य. However, the emotions that you are expressing, the sentiment that you are expressing, they are not very learned.
They are actually of a person who is uninformed. You are lamenting for that which is not worthy of lamentation. The implication there is, do not lament.
And his lamentation has come because of fear. So the essential implication is, Arjuna, you are fearing that which is not worthy of fear. Therefore, do not fear.
So अशोच्यान, शोच is lamentation or fear. अशोच means do not fear. And the last instructive word that Krishna speaks is, सर्वधर्मान् परितेज मामेकंशरनंवरजः अहम्त्वाम् सर्वपापेभ्यो मोक्षयिष्यामि माशुचः He says, give up all varieties of religion.
Just surrender unto me. Whatever sinful reactions may be there, I will protect you from them. Do not fear.
It’s exactly the same root word अशोच्यान and शुचः. शुचः is fear. अशोच्यान is do not fear.
The Bhagavad Gita begins with a message of do not be afraid. And it ends with a message, do not be afraid. So there is a symmetry in the starting and the ending of the Gita.
And now, how does it build up this message of do not be afraid. The world we live in is a place of great fear. The Mahabharata, of which the Gita is a part, describes that there are four modes of functioning that all living beings exhibit.
आहार, निद्रा, भयमैत, नम्च, सामान्यमे, तत्पशुभे, नराण So it says, आहार, निद्रा, भयमैत, नम्च, eating, sleeping, fearing and defending. Sorry, fearing and mating. These are four common functions to all living beings.
But there is something which differentiates humans. That is, धर्मोहितेशाम् अधिकोविशेषो. Dharma is what differentiates.
And धर्मे नहीन पशुभी समान. If there is no dharma, then humans are just like animals. And interestingly, Arjuna begins his surrender.
In 2.7, when he surrenders, the question that he asks is, In 2.7 he says, कार्पण्यदोषोपहतास्वभावपृच्छामितौं धर्मसं मूडः चेतः एश्रियस्यानिष्चितं भूरूहितन्मे शिष्यस्तेहं शाधि माम्तौं प्रपण्नम् So he says, Arjuna says, I am overcome by weakness. Please, O Krishna, tell me, what is dharma? The same thing that the Mahabharata says differentiates between humans and animals, dharma, Arjuna is saying, please tell me, what is dharma? पृछामित्वां धर्मसं मूडः चेतः I am bewildered. What is dharma? Please tell me.
So, in fact, the whole Mahabharata is actually an enquiry about what is dharma? What is the right course of action? How should one act in one’s life? The Bhagavad Gita has a most unlikely setting for a philosophical book. Normally, when people want to discuss philosophy, when do they discuss it? They sit down peacefully, maybe in a serene place, maybe in a forest or in some other serene, peaceful place. Want to shut out all disturbances.
And then we sit and discuss philosophy. It is intellectually demanding. But the Bhagavad Gita is a book of philosophy spoken on, of all places, a battlefield.
So speaking a message of philosophy in a battlefield signifies many things. But just to understand how extraordinary this is, the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita builds the setting where the warriors on both sides have blown their conscience. And after they have blown their conscience, that means that the battle is about to begin.
And that time Krishna tells Arjuna, Arjuna tells Krishna, I want to see who are the soldiers on both sides. उसेनयोरुभयोर् मद्धेरथं स्थापयने अच्छुता यावधेतान् निरीक्षेहं योधुकामान अवस्थितान् कैर्मयास योधव्यम् अस्मिन्रणसमुद्यमे योध्समानान वेक्षेहं यईत्यत्यसमागतः धार्तराश्टस दुर्भुद्धे युद्धे प्रियचिकी इरिशमः In 21, 22, 23, 21, 22 basically, these two, three verses, he says, I want to see who is there in between. And they come in between the two armies.
Krishna takes his chariot in between. And there Arjuna breaks down. And then the whole message of the Bhagavad Gita is spoken.
So suppose there is a World Cup cricket final. There are thousands of spectators assembled. There are millions of people watching on television.
The toss has been done. The batsmen have gone out to bat. The fielders are in position.
The baller is in the run up. And at that time, the striker calls the non-striker. And both of them come in the middle of the pitch.
And they start talking. And they keep talking. And they keep talking.
Everybody will become restless. What is happening? Why are they talking? What is going on? Just keep talking and talking and talking. So Krishna and Arjuna talking in the middle of the battlefield is 100 times more extraordinary than that.
Sometimes, some players, if the match is not going in their favour, they may try to slow down the match. They may just talk and say, I am injured. It’s called gamesmanship.
They try to delay the, delay the tempo, delay the, break the tempo of the opposition by delaying the play. But if the players are, the striker and non-striker were talking, but they are not, they are known to be very good players. They are sportsman.
They don’t exhibit any gamesmanship. Then everybody will be eager to know, what are they talking about? What is it that is so important that you have to keep everybody else waiting? So the Bhagavad Gita has this setting. And this setting actually creates enormous interest.
At the middle of a, just when the battlefield is about to start, what is it that Krishna and Arjuna are talking for so long? What could be so important at that time? Now, Bhishma knows that Krishna and Arjuna are not simply delaying. So after the conches are blown and everybody is about to start fighting, Bhishma raises his hand. Stop.
He tells his warriors, stop, don’t shoot. And everybody waits. Krishna and Arjuna, they speak over there.
So at that time, Krishna and Arjuna, they start speaking. First chapter is mostly Arjuna speaking. And he, as he observes the opposing army, he gets so overwhelmed that he breaks down.
He starts crying. The second chapter, the second chapter, first verse is, tam tatha krupaya vishtam, ashru poorna kulekshanam, vishidantamidam vaakyam uvaacham adhusudana. He says that tam tatha krupaya vishtam, he’s overwhelmed by emotion, and ashru poorna kulekshanam.
His eyes were filled with tears and tears were falling out of his eyes. Now, normally, even when we get very upset, we get very distressed, we don’t usually cry in public. If we feel overwhelmed by emotion, we go into private and we cry.
Now for Arjuna, he’s not just crying in public, he’s crying in full view of the public. He’s at the position of the maximum visibility. Now both the armies can see him because he’s right in the middle.
And normally, Kshatriyas, they are trained to not show any fear or any action that may be construed as weakness. Even if two boxers are fighting, now if a boxer has a slight injury from a previous bout in a jaw, and then the other boxer just brushes over there. Now when the boxer brushes over there, there’ll be much more pain at the place where there was a previous wound than anywhere else.
Now if this boxer winces, shows some pain, then the opponent will say, oh, he’s weak over here. And in any war, the strategy is hit where it hurts. So hit where it hurts.
So the opponent will exploit that weakness and hit there, there, there and overpower the opponent. So therefore, in war, people, the warriors are trained not to show any sign of weakness. Like at the end of the Kurukshetra war, when Bhima and Duryodhana are fighting, Bhima is fighting with full force, but because Duryodhana is empowered with the blessing of Gandhari, none of the blows of Bhima hit Duryodhana.
And at one point, Duryodhana hits Bhima fiercely. And that blow is so fierce that it would have just killed any ordinary warrior. And Bhima is shaken.
Bhima is wounded, but he does not show any emotion. And it takes him time for recovery, but because he does not show any emotion, Duryodhana is stunned. What kind of opponent is this? And he just holds back for a moment.
And in that moment, Bhima recovers and he moves out of the reach of Duryodhana. So if Bhima had shown any weakness at that moment, Duryodhana would have swooped down and followed that one blow with other blows. It could have been fatal for Bhima.
The point I’m giving is that Kshatriyas are trained not to show any emotions which will be construed as weakness. With this kind of training, for Arjuna to be crying in public indicates that he must be under overwhelming distress. Ordinary pain he would easily have concealed.
This must be such an extraordinarily devastating distress that he is going through that his emotions are breaking through in public at the time when he is going to fight the most important war of his life. So such is the magnitude of Arjuna’s distress. And his distress is primarily because of fear.
What is the fear? His fear is that nothing looks auspicious for him. In 1.30 he states, He says, whichever direction I look, I see auspiciousness everywhere. Whatever course of action I may choose, I see only distress.
So what should I do? नचैतद्वित्माकतरन्नोगरेयो यद्वाजयेमेधिवानोजयेयु यानेवहत्वानजजीविशामस् तेवस्तिताःप्रमुखेधार्तराश्णा So he says that if I win, normally in a battlefield a warrior would want to win. But he says, if I win, I’ll have to kill my relatives. I’ll have to kill my venerable elders.
That will be distressing and on top of that, he fears that will be terribly sinful. So he fears the loss of his loved ones. He fears the sinful reactions that will come.
He says, great sin will come to me. So he fears the consequences of his actions. So fighting and winning is normally for a warrior considered to be great.
But he says this is not at all a good option. On the other hand, not fighting will also not work. Because the Kauravas, the opponents are determined to fight.
They’ve been persecuting them, trying to hunt them down wherever they go. Even in the forest they’re coming. So he says, we will not be able to live in peace.
And not only I myself, all my loved ones, they will have to suffer. They will either have to live in poverty, in exile or they will have to live in fear of being attacked anytime. So what should I do in this situation? So this is the context in which Arjuna becomes completely fearful.
In management parlours this is called as, sometimes we find ourselves in a lose-lose situation. Whatever we do, there is no good option. In life, we become distressed not just by what happens to us.
But events alone don’t cause distress. It is the meaning that we assign to events that causes distress. So we all experience different situations.
Say, suppose a confrontation is going on between India and China. And suppose India wins. Then if I am an Indian, I will feel joy.
If somebody is a Chinese, they will feel pain. So the event is one. But the effect on different people is different because the meaning they assign is different.
And this assigning of meaning to events is done by the mind. So now sometimes there are dangerous situations in life and we do need to be cautious at that time. But sometimes our mind assigns meaning to events or interprets events in a misleading way.
And that is what causes fear. So the Bhagavad Gita begins by telling Arjuna that your feelings are uneducated. Your feelings are uneducated.
What do we mean by uneducated feelings? That means that in different situations we experience different feelings. And what emotions we experience depends on how much knowledge we have. Normally we think that the head and the heart, the feeling and the thinking are two distinct faculties.
I feel with my heart, I think with my head. But actually our emotions are also determined by our knowledge. Couple of examples.
Say if there is a stock market crash. And suppose there is a person coming from a village who knows nothing about stock markets. Who knows nothing about economics.
And he just sees a big screen on which a line has gone down. And he sees around, everyone is panicking. Some people are almost on the verge of getting heart attack.
What happened? Just one line went down on the screen. So now that perception is just one line going down on the screen. But because he does not have the knowledge, he does not experience anything.
So we experience, as I said there are events and there are experiences. Now how we experience the event, the experience means the emotion that we undergo. And what experience the event will cause, that depends on the knowledge we have or the knowledge we lack.
So on the other hand, you can consider another situation. Suppose somebody has got some swelling on their chest somewhere, on their body somewhere. And they have heard that if they have small swelling, that swelling can be cancerous.
Become very fearful. What if I got cancer? What if I got cancer? What if I got cancer? And then they go to a doctor. And the doctor says, no, it’s just a benign swelling.
There is relief. So the event was there, there was swelling on the body. But that swelling on the body, as long as I do not know what is the cause, then my mind imagines some cause.
And based on that imagined cause, I experience certain emotions. So here also, sometimes what we know or what we don’t know, that will determine what emotions we experience. So when Krishna tells Arjuna that you are experiencing the emotion of fear, but you are not perceiving with knowledge.
So fear can be understood in different ways. If you consider fear, it can be seen as an acronym, false extrapolation from apprehended reality. From, you can put in bracket, F-E-A-R.
False extrapolation from apprehended reality, F-E-A-R. There is a reality out there. But we apprehend it in a particular way.
And from there we extrapolate. There is illusion and there is hallucination. There is a difference between the two.
Hallucination means, sometimes some people wake up at night, and they feel, I heard some voice. Some thief here. They look around.
They wake up others. I heard some voice. There is no voice.
They go to sleep. I hear a voice. No, there is no voice.
So when there is no perception at all, and still there is experience, that is hallucination. When there is nothing out there, but I imagine something. So when there is experience without any actual stimulus, that is hallucination.
Suppose, I look at the ground and I feel, oh, there is a snake over there. And there is no snake at all. There is nothing at all over there.
If I feel there is a snake and become fearful, that is hallucination. But if there is a rope over there, and I mistake it to be a snake, then that is an illusion. Hallucination means, there is no stimulus, but there is some imagination, and some experience based on that imagination.
In illusion, there is a stimulus, but that stimulus is perceived wrongly. There is a rope, but we perceive it to be a snake. So false extrapolation from apprehended reality.
So the reality is, there is a snake. What we apprehend is, the reality is there is a rope. But what we apprehend is, oh, there is something long, slithery.
Maybe it’s a snake. What if the snake comes and bites me? If it bites me, I will die. I become fearful.
So Krishna tells Arjuna, right in the next verse, He says, you are lamenting for that which is not worthy of lamentation. So what is it that is not worthy of lamentation? Krishna says, actually you are thinking either you will die or they will die. He says, no one will die.
Everyone is eternal. He says, you are eternal, I am eternal, all the kings over here assembled are also eternal. How can we be eternal? I can see that if an arrow hits them, they will die.
Krishna says, it is only the body that will die. So first he said, do not lament. And now he says, Dheera will not lament.
Because a sober person sees that beyond the changing body, there is an unchanging soul within. And this unchanging soul is the essential person. This will never die.
The Gita’s vision actually shifts from the body to the soul. And this shift of vision brings relief. How does it bring relief? Because the body is perishable, the soul is imperishable.
Two verses later Krishna says that, in 2.16, he says that, The wise people see that there are two natures. There is matter, which is never permanent. And there is spirit, which is never changing.
The whole focus of the Gita is to shift the consciousness from the changing material to the unchanging spiritual. The more things change, the more we need to hold on to things that don’t change. Suppose there is a sudden storm, and that is sweeping things away from us.
A few months ago I was in America, and there was a big hurricane over there. So when the hurricane came, we were inside our house, of course. But afterward we saw that, actually, big trees were swept away, cars were swept away, even a truck was swept away.
And there are some homes which are mobile homes, they don’t have foundations in the ground. The homes entirely were swept away. So, when this happens, when things start changing, we need to hold on to something that doesn’t change.
So, somebody says, what do I hold on to? I hold on to my house, but the whole house gets swept away. And then I hold on to a tree, but the tree falls down. So, when things start changing, we need something which does not change.
Something that we can hold on to. So, what is it that we can hold on to? If there is a storm, that will naturally cause fear. But if I find out there is a big sturdy banyan tree, and I hold on to that banyan tree, and I go behind the banyan tree, the storm is blowing, blowing, blowing, but I hold on tightly, then I’ll be safe.
So, when things start changing, we need something unchanging to hold on to. And at the material level, we are promised shelter through various things. We are promised shelter, say sometimes through, okay, you have problems, just have money.
Through money you’ll get shelter. But what if tomorrow the currency gets devalued? In the 1920s, 1929, when there was a big stock market crash, there was a depression in America. One of my friends is from Zimbabwe, he told me something happened recently like that.
He said that the currency devalued so much, that when people had to go to the market to purchase food, they would take bucketfuls of currency notes. And at the market, they would say that the currency has no value, they would throw away the currency, and they would sell the bucket and get bread in exchange for that. So, we may have shared security in money, but money may not give us security.
We may seek security in our job, but we will be fired from our job. In today’s world, things are so uncertain that we may go to office, and we find we have no job, we’ll be just fired. One friend of mine in America, he was there, he said he went to his office, and he found there was no office only.
I asked what happened. He said actually that he had gone to India for two months, and when he came back, that company had gone bankrupt, and not only the company sold itself, but some other company, some other organisation had bought that place, and they had decided to raise the building and create another office over there. So, the office itself was not there, company not being there.
So, there is no security. Some of us, we seek security in our relationships. But now, relationships are so fragile that people don’t have commitment.
Sometimes somebody goes to office, there’s no guarantee you’ll have your job. You come back home, there’s no guarantee you’ll have your spouse. So, we may seek security in various things in life, but there is no certainty.
So, where do we get that security? Where do we get that certainty? What is it that we can hold on to? So, Srila Prabhupada, in one of his purports says that among these four activities that are common to humans and animals, eating, sleeping, mating and defending. He says defending is the common denominator of everything else. Because even when we are eating, there is a fear that what if I lose my food? What if I don’t get food? Even when we are sleeping, we can get nightmares.
Or sometimes we may not be able to sleep because of fear. So, when there is mating, one of the biggest fears in the modern world is the fear of rejection. Somebody tries to develop a relationship and the other person rejects them.
So, fearing is the common denominator of all of these. And the major difference between humans and animals is how they address the fear. Animals, they try to address the fear simply by creating some better arrangements for eating, sleeping, mating.
If there is a say animals, they may like camels when they are in the deserts, their body is adapted so that they have humps in which they can store food. Frogs, when it becomes very cold, they go underground and they hibernate. So, the fear animals also deal with, sometimes they deal with very expertly.
But they deal with it only at a material level. We humans have the intelligence to raise our consciousness to the spiritual level. And we also need to work practically at a material level to address fears.
But if that is all we do, then we are not using our human intelligence. We are meant to understand that the way out of fear is not just by creating security at the material level, but by finding security at the spiritual level. Creating security means I have a house and I make sure that I have a security system in the house.
I make sure that I stay in a place where there is no crime, where the police are good. So, we try to create security systems at the material level. That’s important from a practical perspective.
But if you want to find security, that is to be found only at the spiritual level. At the spiritual level, we understand we are eternal. And the security that we may create at the material level is meant to help us take off towards the spiritual level.
Otherwise, we keep perpetuating more security at the material level. But it all leads to greater and greater insecurity and uncertainty. So, the Bhagavad Gita tells Arjuna, the first step is understanding.
If you want to become free from fear, Krishna says, you are lamenting for that which is not worthy of lamentation. That’s because you are not the body. You are the soul.
You are indestructible. This understanding itself can lead to fearlessness. Now, in the Western tradition, there is the example of Socrates.
Now, he faced death fearlessly. He had the knowledge that I am indestructible. When his executors threatened him, they said, aren’t you afraid? He said, you can’t even catch me.
How will you kill me? So, he had a conviction. Now, many people try to have that Socratic attitude toward death. They say, I’ll be very fearless.
I’ll just be calm. I’ll be peaceful. Now, it’s fine to think like that.
And some people may put on a facade like that. It’s not just about concealing our fear. It’s about transcending fear.
Woody Allen is an American comedian. And he said, it’s not that I’m afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
It’s not as if death is an event that is happening to someone else. Death is going to happen to us. So, we can’t be not there when death happens.
So, we can’t in that sense evade death. We can’t conceal the fear of death. But what we can do is elevate our consciousness to the spiritual level where we won’t experience the fear of death.
Shri Gaur Nitai Bhagwan ki Jai. Now, the first six chapters of the Bhagavad Gita focus on Atma Gyan, knowledge of the soul. And the theme over there is, you are the soul, you are not the body.
Therefore, do not get worked up by what happens at the bodily level. The theme is detachment. Be detached, be detached.
And generally, our fear is caused by detachments. Say, somebody is very attached to cricket. And recently, maybe three, four months ago, there was India-Pakistan Champions Trophy Final.
And India was expected to win, but India lost very badly. So, one boy, just an upcoming devotee, he came and told me, after that, for three nights, I could not sleep. How could India lose like this? Now, he was in India, that match happened in England, but the consciousness was caught over there.
So, when we are attached to something, we experience emotions in relationship with that. So, even geographically, there is a great distance, but still, the emotion is experienced. If somebody becomes detached, okay, somebody is not interested in cricket, why are you getting so worked up about it? How does it matter? So, attachment causes emotions, and one of the emotions is fear.
And we fear some unfavourable result coming in relationship to the thing we are attached to. The first message of the Bhagavad Gita is, become detached, become detached. But then, from the seventh chapter, the message changes.
The first verse of the seventh chapter is, make your mind attached to me. So, the Gita shifts the message, not just detachment from the world as a means to fearlessness, but rather, attachment to the source of the world. Attachment to the Lord of the world.
We human beings, we conscious beings, we, to be conscious means to be desirous. Because when we are conscious, we observe things, this is good, this is not so good, this is attractive. So, to be conscious means to experience, and then to have desires in relationship with our experiences.
So, to be detached cannot be our steady or central focus. We need to be attached to something. So, detachment is important, because if we are too attached to something, then we will not be able to explore anything else also in life.
So, somebody is so attached to say, watching movies, then even if something interesting is happening around them in their vicinity, they will not come to know about that only. When the twin towers fell, there were three businessmen, who were actually busy surfing on the net. Others told them, the towers are crashing, nothing is going to happen.
And they kept surfing, they kept surfing. And they were actually on one of the lower floors, they could easily have come out. But they did not come out.
And some other people who were at a higher floor, they came out and they survived. But these people were so caught in surfing on the net, that the twin towers crashed and they died. I have to respond to this mail, I have to read this, I have to do this, nothing is going to happen.
So, at one level, detachment is important. If we are too attached, we become unaware of what is happening around us. So, some amount of detachment from matter enables us to explore, is there something beyond matter.
But the important thing is, we have to then thereafter become attached to the spiritual. And the Bhagavad Gita reveals, the spiritual reality is supremely attractive. The Gita offers a vision of God who is both, who has both greatness and sweetness.
So, the greatness of God is revealed philosophically in the 7th chapter, in the 10th chapter. It’s called the Vibhuti Yoga. How great Krishna is.
He pervades everything, He sustains everything. And then, what is given through verbal exposition is then given through visual demonstration. In the 11th chapter, the greatness of Krishna is shown through the Vishwaroopa.
Arjuna looks at this Vishwaroopa and he says, I can’t see any beginning, I can’t see any middle, I can’t see any end. This is majestic, this is pashyami, I am perceiving the Vishwaroopa. So, Krishna’s greatness is demonstrated in the 11th chapter of the Vishwaroopa.
And that same Arjuna, who is surrendered to Krishna, he becomes overwhelmed again by fear. Because he knows the Vishwaroopa, but in the Vishwaroopa, Krishna shows one more thing to Arjuna, that is the Kaalaroopa. The Kaalaroopa is something which has never been shown before.
The Vishwaroopa is the universal form. Universal form means how the whole universe is contained in the form of the Lord. So, there is a peculiar question that Arjuna asks in 11.30.31. He says, I am asking you, who are you? Now, Arjuna has only told Krishna, please show me your Vishwaroopa.
And Arjuna has also identified this is the Vishwaroopa. But then he is asking, who are you? Because in this Vishwaroopa, he also sees the destructive form. That he says, in this mouth, there is a blazing fire coming out.
And all the warriors, they are entering into this fire. And they are getting destroyed. He says, what is this? So, you know, if we meet some friend, and then, we know this friend to be a nice person.
And suddenly, that friend starts speaking in a different language. He says, who are you? Who are you really? Or we are talking with that friend, and then that friend suddenly makes a phone call. And he is talking with the Prime Minister of the country.
He is ordering the army of the country. He is doing, hey, who are you? So, similarly, Arjuna, when he sees Krishna, he says, who are you? Who are you? That means, what is this feature that you are demonstrating? And then Krishna replies, Time I am, the destroyer of the worlds. So, it’s interesting.
Change is what causes fear. The Bhagavad Gita is a message that is meant to free us from fear. It tells us, take shelter of God, and He will free us from fear.
But then the Bhagavad Gita says that the force which causes change and fear in this world, that is also God. Kaala, time, is what is so fearful. Kaalosmi loka kshetravato.
Time I am the destroyer of the worlds. So, is it that God is the cause of fear? Is it God himself is a destroyer? The point is that God destroys the temporary to make way for the eternal. So, the purpose of the destruction of the temporary is to help us redirect our consciousness towards the eternal.
One way to understand this is that if say we have a child and the child is screaming, crying, having a terrible nightmare. What will we do? We will shake the child out of the nightmare. You are safe, you are safe, do not fear.
Now, when we shake that child out of the nightmare, the child is having a whole world and experience within that world in a dream. So, when the dream is destroyed, when the person wakes up, it feels like a destruction. But the destruction is for elevation, for protection.
Now, the world we experience is not exactly like a dream. It is reality in the sense that we do experience emotions over here and our actions have consequences here. But like a dream is temporary, this is also temporary.
So, when Krishna destroys the temporary, the purpose is not to cause us misery. The purpose is to wake us up to higher reality. And when this Vishwaroopa, Krishna is showing to Arjuna at that time, Arjuna becomes fearful.
He says, Krishna, Bheeta, I am fearful. Please don’t show this Vishwaroopa now. Please show your normal Roopa.
Krishna teases Arjuna and he says, Krishna, this Roopa has not been seen by anyone in the past. Even if you do great Punya, you will not be able to see it. It is a very special vision.
Arjuna says, no, no, I don’t want to see it. Please show me your benevolent form. So, please show me your Saumya Roopa.
And then Krishna says, okay, okay, calm down, do not be fearful. I will show you my two-handed form. He shows first his four-handed form and then his two-handed form.
So, like that, when we see destruction or disaster in life, we need to see that this is the Kaala Roopa of Krishna. When Srila Prabhupada was in Calcutta and at that time, the Japanese started bombing Calcutta. At that time, Prabhupada said that, I saw that these bombs were also Krishna.
He said, this is not a very pleasant form of Krishna. And Prabhupada was so fearless, Prabhupada was cooking kachoris for Krishna in the form of his deities. And everybody else was running to their bomb shelters.
Swamiji, come along. Prabhupada said, you know, I am serving Krishna, let me cook kachoris for Krishna. And the bombs were falling and Prabhupada cooked the kachoris, offered the kachoris and ate the kachoris.
So, you see, we saw Krishna everywhere. So, a devotee, when we see distress, when we see devastation, the devotee sees this is also a form of Krishna. This is not a very pleasant form of Krishna.
But the Kala Rupa is meant to impel us to direct our consciousness to the Shama Sundar Rupa, the attractive two-handed, bluish complexioned form of Krishna. This has happened to Arjuna. He saw the destructive form and he says, Krishna, please show me your sweet form.
The distress of this world. So, the 11th chapter, it also symbolises the journey of the soul. We encounter destruction in this world.
What is this? Is there some shelter? We move towards Krishna. And then the 12th chapter talks about devotion and how we can practise devotion at various levels and thereby become absorbed in Krishna. 13th through 17th chapters, they all talk about through philosophical analysis, how we can understand that Krishna is the supreme reality.
And then in the 18th chapter, Krishna summarises all the chapters and towards the end, he tells Krishna that, he tells Arjuna that, I will protect you from all dangers. aham tvam sarva-papebhyo mokshe shami maha-sucha Do not fear. I will protect you from all fears, all sinful reactions.
Whatever it is that may be a cause of fear, I will protect you from that. There is a beautiful prayer of Kulashekhar Maharaj, where he is actually praying to his mind, do not be afraid. So, I started by talking about how fear means false extrapolation from apprehended reality.
The Bhagavad Gita tells us that Krishna is always in control, whether there is prosperity or adversity. So, at the spiritual level, Krishna is always in control and Krishna is always our well-wisher. And even through the worst thing that may happen in our life, Krishna will bring out good.
So, by shifting our vision to Krishna, we can become free from fear. So, Kulashekhar Maharaj, he prays that, mābhir-maṇḍa-mano-vichintaya-bahudhā yāmiś-chiram yād-dharmā naivāmi-prabhavanti-pāparipavaḥ svāmī-nanu-śrī-dharaḥ ālasyaṁ vyapanīya-bhakti-sullabhaṁ dhāyasva-nārāyaṇaṁ lokasya-gasanāpano-daṅkaro dāsyasya kim nakṣa-maha He says, oh mind, why are you being so lazy? mābhir-maṇḍa-mano-vichintaya-bahudhā yāmiś-chiram yād-dharmā You are thinking this problem will come, that problem will come. Thinking that, oh, I will get this reaction to this action.
You are worrying all this, all these fears. Why are you so lazy? He says, don’t just think about these fears. A lazy person cannot move very far.
The lazy person may run also, but lazy person runs a little bit. It’s not worth it. So the mind that is lazy, it runs, but it runs only in the world of matter.
What if this goes wrong? What if this goes wrong? What if this happens? What if that happens? He says, don’t be so lazy. Just think beyond. Think to what? Think about Krishna.
Don’t you know, ma? naivāmi-prabhavanti Do you not know that whatever sins may be there, whatever reactions may be there, pāparipavaha Your Lord is the enemy of sin. svāmi-nanu-śrī-dharaḥ Not only He is the enemy of sin, but He is the Lord of the Goddess of Fortune. So He can fight off all misfortune from your life, and He can bring all good fortune.
Then why am I experiencing distress? That is because you are not thinking about Krishna. You are not absorbing yourself in Krishna. ālasyaṁ vyapaṇi Just give up this laziness.
bhakti-sulabhaṁ dhāyasva-nārāyaṇaṁ Bhakti is very easy. Just meditate on Krishna. Meditation on Krishna may not immediately solve the problem, but it will raise our consciousness about the problem.
It will give us relief from the problem, and then we can deal with that problem. Suppose it’s very cold outside, suppose it’s very hot outside, and then we come to an air-conditioned room. If we just come inside that room, we’ll experience relief.
So the world is filled with problems. Coming to Krishna consciousness is like coming in an air-conditioned room. If we just think about Krishna, try to absorb ourselves in Krishna, the distress will go down.
We will get relief. But it’s hot out there. Yeah, we’ll go out and deal with the heat afterwards.
First, get relief. So when we think about Krishna, we get relief. Unfortunately, what we do is, we come to the door of the air-conditioned room, we open the door, and we wait for the whole atmosphere to become air-conditioned.
That is not going to happen. Sometimes we come to Krishna, but even after coming to Krishna, we don’t become Krishna conscious. We stay problem conscious.
Krishna, I’m having this problem, please solve this problem. You have not solved it. When are you going to solve it? Krishna, I’m not even now.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. My problem is still there. Krishna, Krishna.
It’s not yet gone. Hare, Hare. Oh, still there.
Hare Ram, Hare Ram. When is this problem going to go away? So we chant Krishna’s name, but we’re not Krishna conscious, we’re problem conscious. And because of that, we don’t experience the relief that remembrance of Krishna can give us.
So yes, Krishna will deal with the problem. But he will deal with it as per his time, as per his plan. So what we can do is absorb ourselves in Krishna.
At least from the burden of the problem, we’ll get relief. And then, even if we experience the air-conditioning for some time, we get relief, then again we can go out in the heat and do what work has to be done. But if we are continuously in the heat, we’ll just get drained.
So when we come to Krishna, rather than being problem conscious, thinking, when will this be solved, when will this be solved, just absorb ourselves in Krishna. That will give us some relief. That will give us some strength.
And then we can go out and deal with whatever issues we have to deal with. So our mind is very active in imagining all the ways the problems can get worse. But the mind is too lazy about thinking about Krishna.
It says, give up this laziness. Bhakti is easy. Absorb yourself in Krishna.
And then limit doubt. But will Krishna really solve my problem? He says, even people who are not even really very seriously devoted to God, they just come to God whenever they have problems. And even their problems the Lord solves.
Now there are thousands of temples, thousands of churches, thousands of mosques. People come there. They must be getting something.
Otherwise why do people keep coming there? They pray. Everybody’s, every problem may not be solved. But some problems do get solved.
And these people may be materialistic, just come sometimes to God and pray. Kulshikar Maharaj says, even their problems get solved. And for those who are His servants, those who have dedicated their life to Him, why will the Lord not protect them? The Lord will surely protect.
So have that faith. So the same faith through knowledge is offered to us by the Bhagavad Gita. That Krishna is always in control.
Krishna is always our protector. And when we just become absorbed in Him, that itself will be His first protection. And then we can, with the calmness, with the clarity coming from that absorption, we can deal with whatever issue that needs to be dealt with.
Arjuna had to face that difficult war. And it was not that after hearing the Bhagavad Gita, suddenly the war went away. Or he won the war.
No. He still had to fight the war. But what happened was, internally where he was weakened, internally he became strengthened.
And he was able to face that situation. And emerge victorious through that situation. So Arjuna was overwhelmed by great fear, became free from fear by hearing the Gita’s message.
And similarly, we too, by meditating on the Gita’s message, understanding our eternality as souls, and understanding Krishna’s omnipotence and Krishna’s omnibenevolence, that Krishna is the supreme controller, Krishna is the supreme well-wisher. By that, we can also become free from fear. Thus the Gita offers us this solace, this strength, this spiritual knowledge that both raises our consciousness above the material level, and it equips us to face things at the material level.
So for Arjuna it was a devastating reversal when he was just overwhelmed by fear and agony. But Krishna raised him above. And because Arjuna got overwhelmed that way, that’s how Krishna got the opportunity to speak the Gita.
So when adversity comes in our life and fear comes in our life, there is some higher purpose over there. Arjuna could have just turned away from there and ran away. He says, forget it, I’m not fighting.
But Arjuna, instead of turning away from the war, he turned towards Krishna. So instead of turning away from the problems and fear, we turn towards Krishna in faith. And when we do that, Krishna will guide us through.
So when we are down to nothing, Krishna is up to something. So what Krishna is up to, if we faithfully keep serving him, he will give us the eyes to see. And the philosophical vision, the Jnana Chakshu is provided by the Bhagavad Gita.
That can help us to go beyond fear. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today. I spoke about how the Bhagavad Gita offers us a message of fearlessness in a world filled with fear.
So Jiva Goswami says the starting and ending sections of a book can tell us what its essential message is. So the first word is Ashocana in Krishna’s instructive words. And the last word is 1.11 and 18.66 Ma Ashucha.
So do not fear. Now how does one become free from fear? So to understand that, we see how Arjuna, who was a battle-hardened warrior, became so overwhelmed by fear that in the most important battle of his life, he was crying in public. So although he was trained to conceal his emotions, he started crying.
Such was his magnitude of fear. And the Bhagavad Gita is spoken on a battlefield so that it revives our attention. It’s like a conversation between two batsmen in the middle of a field on a big, on a World Cup finals.
Everyone wants to know what are they talking. So in the height of that action, Krishna speaks. The first part of his message is that you are eternal, you are indestructible.
So our emotions arise not just by the event that happened. Our emotions arise from the meaning that our mind assigns to these events. So the education is meant to help us change the meaning that we assign.
And then our emotions will change. So we may have a swelling and we feel this cancels and become fearful. We may see a line going down on a computer screen and say, what is the matter to be fearful? It may be the stock market crash.
So we need the eyes of knowledge which can help us to see things as they are. So there is material reality where there is uncertainty. We may seek security through our bank balance, through our profession, through our relationships.
But none of these can offer enduring security. So we need to make arrangements for security in these levels. But that is not permanent security.
We make some circumstantial security so that we can get transcendental security by raising our consciousness to the spiritual level. The first part of the Gita tells, you are not the body, so be detached from matter. Just like somebody who is not attached to cricket will not get agitated if his favourite team loses.
So if you become detached from the body and body things, we will not be so fearful. But to be conscious means to be desirous. So the Gita’s second part is that become attached to Krishna.
And the glory of Krishna is told in the middle section. And there even when the Kaala Rupa is shown in the 11th chapter, it’s very fearful. But the purpose is the Kaala Rupa directs Arjuna to the Krishna Rupa, the benevolent attractive form.
So sometimes at the material level when we face disaster we should say this is the Kaala Rupa of Krishna coming. Krishna destroys the temporary not out of any malevolence but out of his benevolence to make us rise to the eternal. Like a child having a nightmare, mother wakes up the child so that the child can come to reality.
So the way from the nightmare to the reality is through the spiritual knowledge the Bhagavad Gita offers. And it concludes by assuring Arjuna that do not be fearful, just become conscious of me. And I quoted the same theme of how we can pray to our mind to learn to see things not just based on its past impressions but based on the knowledge that the Bhagavad Gita has given.
As Kulasekhar Maharaj prays like that. There may be many problems, many dangers, many fears but our Lord is Krishna. He is the enemy of all fears, of all dangers, of all sinful reactions.
And He is the Lord of the Goddess of Fortune. And He relieves problems even for those who just approach Him for utilitarian purposes. But for those who have dedicated their lives to Him, He will surely protect.
So we just have to give up the lethargy of the mind and focus it on Krishna. So rather than being problem conscious and demanding when the problem will be solved, we just become Krishna conscious. Rather than expecting that when will the outside weather become cool, just come into the air-conditioned room.
And we will get relief and we will get rejuvenated so that we can face whatever issues we may have to face. By meditating on Krishna’s eternal love for us, we can get the strength to face whatever life sends our way and to grow through it. Arjuna had a devastating reversal but through that the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita came to him and through him to the whole world.
Similarly, bad and fearful situations come in our life. If instead of running away from that situation in fear, we turn towards Krishna in faith, Krishna will also help us grow spiritually. When we are down to nothing, Krishna is up to something.
Shri Krishna Bhagwan ki, Shrimad Bhagavad Gita ki, Shreela Prabhupada ki, Gaur Bhakta Vrinda ki, Gaur Premananda ki.