Gita 18.66 The call to rise above dharma is not a call to slip below dharma

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
come true. And in his promise lies our supreme hope.
Thank you. Bhagavad Gita 18.66. So, here Krishna is speaking what is famously known as the Charam Shloka of the Gita, the climactic verse. This is the title given to this verse by Sripad Ramanujacharya, systematizer and pioneer of the Sri Vaishnava tradition.
And this verse has both a contextual and a universal significance. Let’s look at both of them. Before that, let’s look at its meaning first.
Sarva-dharman, parikshya, give up all dharmas. Mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, and to me alone surrender. Vaham tvam sarva-pāpebhyo, and from all sins, mokṣeṣyā mīmāśu cahā, I will free you, do not fear, do not fear.
So, here Krishna is urging us that we should just surrender to Him. Now, specifically, if we look at the contextual significance for Arjuna, Arjuna was confused about which dharma to follow. His kula-dharma by which he was meant to protect the members of his kula, his dynastic duty, which would mean that he should not fight against people of his own dynasty.
Sarva-dharman, parikshya. So, sarva-dharman, give up all dharmas. So, don’t worry whether you have to do a kula-dharma or a kshatriya-dharma, which obliges Arjuna to fight whoever be the opponents.
So, Krishna tells Arjuna just surrender. mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, unto me you surrender. Vaham tvam sarva-pāpebhyo, I will free you from all sinful reactions.
So, even if say you, because of the abandonment of one duty, you get some sinful reactions, I will protect you from them. So, here, there are several significant points. That means, even if Arjuna considers fighting against his relatives sinful, that was one of his arguments.
Pāpam evāśrayed asmāt, hatvaitān ātatāyina, he had said that. I cannot kill, because they are my relatives. So, janam ekatham hatvā, sukhina syāmādhava, how can we ever be happy by killing our loved ones? So, Krishna says, even if there is going to be sin, I will protect you.
That means, Krishna is asserting his position above the law of karma, that he can protect from sin. This indicates Krishna’s transcendence, that he is not within the laws of material nature. He is beyond them and he can take us to them.
He can take us beyond them. So, mām ekam śaraṇaṁ vraja, so whatever it takes Arjuna to surrender to me, do that. So, Krishna is not telling Arjuna to become adharmic, obviously, but he is telling him to do that by which he can surrender and he can attain Krishna.
So, he can, that is, in this case for him, fighting, doing the kṣatriya dharma, I will protect you from them. So, Krishna assures Arjuna that if he surrenders, no inauspiciousness will come upon him. If any inauspiciousness will come, he will protect and mā śucaha, do not fear.
We all live in fear, fear of the future, fear of what will come about. So, fear is something which results when we are unable to process what we are going through in life. Fear is when we, our mind conjures up many things that may come upon us in future and that is when we end up unable to function.
So, Krishna says do not fear because whatever are the sources of fear, Krishna exists beyond the sources of fear. mādhir mandamana vichintaya bahudhā yāmiṣcchiram yātana naivāmi prabhavanti pāparipahasvāmīnanu śrīdharah. So, Kulaśekhar Mahārāja in his prayer says, O mind, do not fear the torments of hell because do you not know that your Lord, naivāmi prabhavanti pāparipahasvāmīnanu śrīdharah, and the enemy of sin is your Lord, śrīdharah, and He is the Lord of the Goddess of Fortune.
Therefore, how can His fortune befall you when you are surrendered to such a Lord? Having said this, Krishna moves on and says further that, let’s look at how this applies to us in our specific contexts in terms of the universal, not beyond Arjuna’s specific context, to the universal theme and then to our specific context. So, universally, Krishna is telling that while surrendering to Him, whatever may be the wrongs that may be done because of those sins, if we surrender, He will take us beyond them. He will enable us to move onwards beyond those sins.
Whatever karma may get us to, Krishna will get us through. Such is the assurance of this verse. Clearly, this verse is not calling us to be adharmic.
All that it is doing is calling us to be paradharmic. So, there is adharma, there is aparadharma and there is paradharma. So, adharma is when we act contrary to the principles of morality, duty, ethics, responsibility.
Aparadharma is material responsibility wherein we act as per our understanding in our various social roles as are explained in scripture and as we feel the need in our situation. So, material responsibilities. Paradharma is our spiritual duty.
We are soul’s parts of Krishna and as His parts, we are meant to serve Him. So, whatever situation we face, we are just meant to serve Him. So, then we face a conflict between two aparadharmas.
Should I do this duty or should I do that duty? Krishna is telling us to rise above this conflict by focusing on the fundamental identity. We are soul’s parts of Krishna and therefore, we can think how best can I serve Krishna in this situation. So, this verse is telling us to let go of the specific bewildering dilemmas that we may face and go beyond them to the universal operating principle of life.
That is Krishna is my Lord, I am His servant and how can I serve Him in this situation. So, if we have this attitude, then when we have a dharma sammoha or dharma sankat, we have perplexity about how to follow dharma, which dharma to follow when multiple dharmas beckon us, we can go to the fundamental level and follow the dharma that will enable us to devote ourselves to Krishna. And thus, we can find out through that mood of service, how we can continue through that perplexity.
Thus, this verse can be a practical guide for us amidst perplexity that by cultivating devotional intensity, by cultivating a service attitude, we can go beyond perplexity and if there is any complexity that results, it is Krishna’s mercy that will be our guarantee, that will be our security. Thank you.