Gita 18.32 Intelligence in ignorance mistakes the binding to be freeing

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
in the mode of passion Krishna is talking about intelligence in the three modes and in this verse he is concluding the three part series by describing intelligence in the mode of ignorance buddhi sa partha tamasi he says adharmam dharmam itiya that intelligence which considers that it is unrighteous adharmam dharmam itiya it considers the unrighteous to be righteous manyate tamasavrta it is thought by those who are covered by ignorance avrta sarvartham viparitamsthu sarvartham viparitamsthu sarvartham viparitamsthu that one who is in every way thinking of things to be the opposite of what they are their intelligence is in the mode of ignorance thus for example people who are alcoholics sometimes they are put in restricted area where they don’t have access to alcohol and they sometimes furiously rebel desperately fight to somehow get their hand on some little alcohol somewhere so that requires actually speaking an understanding that their understanding has become perverted alcohol is the cause of their bondage and freedom from alcohol being able to give up their alcoholism is freedom but unfortunately in that addicted state they think that if they can drink alcohol then they are free otherwise they are bound so in such a situation it is extremely difficult to help them in any way because as long as a person’s intelligence is distorted then they will fight to do that which is wrong that which is unhealthy now with respect to alcoholism it is relatively easy to understand it but if we go further many people nowadays think of sexual licentiousness as freedom they feel that anybody who tries to restrict what they are doing those people are doing moral policing and that is considered unhealthy, unwanted but unfortunately actually speaking it is not moral policing it may be sometimes of course if it is interfering with people’s basic freedom to do things but sometimes if people are engaging in terribly self destructive activities then they are they are actually that which is restriction they are thinking of it as freedom that which is going to bind them they are thinking that is going to liberate them this is a very unfortunate situation to be in and the way to get out of this unfortunate situation is simply by gaining knowledge not just gaining informational knowledge but gaining knowledge from those who are transformed and those who compassionately aid those who are bound to become transformed to become liberated see for example in today’s world some extreme feminists they think that having children is a burden and they think that abortion is biological freedom they think that nature has unfairly straddled women with pregnancy and they want to avoid that they still want to have sexual pleasure and the way they do it is by thinking that they can get away with whatever they want to do if they can just avoid the responsibility so they think abortion is so pregnancy is biological slavery and abortion is technological freedom similarly some women they say that we are not childless we are child free now it is true in today’s world sometimes marriages are unstable careers are demanding and finances are stretched because of which sometimes children can seem like a burden but that is an unnatural setting to be able to bear a child that is a special privilege that nature has given to women and if unfortunately women start thinking of that as a burden they call themselves child free women and they have an innate need to nurture and then they will have to fulfil that need to nurture somewhere and then they end up trying to fulfil that need by doing by by obsessing over pets by having beds and having luxuries for pets by even having therapists and psychotherapists for their pets by having barking competitions for dogs by pampering their pets the way they would pamper their children so it is unfortunately misdirected now of course it can go even worse adharmam dharmamitiya means some people may do horrible activities and think that this is what is dharma so for example terrorists kill innocent people in the name of religion now violence is an unavoidable fact of life and sometimes violence just has to be fought sometimes wars have to be fought peacekeeping forces is a force to bring about peace so war is sometimes unavoidable but war has to be fought properly according to codes so kshatriyas fight for example with equals who are armed and who are alert but terrorists they kill people who are neither equal nor armed nor alert sometimes they kill children and sometimes they use children to kill children they brainwash, indoctrinate small children into becoming weapons of death machines of death almost suicide bombers so in such situations such people are convinced that it is their religious duty and it is their religious honour in fact to be able to kill others to kill others and be killed this is a horrendous understanding this is adharmam dharmam itiya they are so covered by ignorance that they can’t see that the people whom they are killing are also children of the same gods are also creatures coming from the same creator they are also human beings and living beings just like them but they think that god will be pleased by their killing innocent people so adharmam dharmam itiya those who think the adharma to be dharma similarly we may think that if in our own situations sometimes we may also do some things for our own gratification and think that it is dharma not just rationalize it by giving some justification to make others believe it but we may ourselves believe it also so to deceive others is bad and to deceive ourselves is far worse because then it is almost impossible for us to convince ourselves and for us to become elevated that is tragic so such is the perversion of intelligence in the mode of ignorance