Gita 18.69 See the superlative as an exhortation to devotional action

Transcript

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Bhagavad Gita 18.69 Krishna is continuing to speak here about the glory of sharing his message and he says that among all people no one is more dear to me than who? that person who is mentioned in the previous verse so here the point being made is that actually there is no such thing as simply the state of neutrality in the process of spirituality spirituality when it is understood as revealed in the Bhagavad Gita is a process of reciprocity not neutrality yes God is impartial in the sense that he does not have he is not biased against anyone at the same time he is not neutral like a stone he is reciprocal for at his very core he is a person who loves each one of us and out of his love for us he cares that we do also express our love for him and express our love for him by sharing those by sharing his burden by taking responsibility in his mission no one is more dear to me than one who is in this way spiritually motivated to share my message with others nor in future will anyone be more dear so essentially Krishna is making a proclamation here that those who are devoted those who share his message with him are supremely eternally dear to him and we wonder is it that one who shares Krishna’s message becomes as dear as Srimati Radharani to Krishna are there not degrees to Krishna’s affection there is always context in which statements are made so for example the Bhagavatam says Vaishnava nam yatha Shambhu among Vaishnavas among the devoted Shambhu is very special he is very devoted at the same time there are others who are there are other contexts when it is said that Vishnu is not the exemplar of devotion there are others such as Krishna himself or rather the Gopis themselves who are the exemplars of devotion so we can’t neglect the context here Krishna is talking in terms of the phalashruti of the Bhagavad Gita and he is basically expressing his heart when he is saying that how dear are those who share this message with others it is interesting that there is not much record of Arjuna exactly going about becoming a preacher of the Bhagavad Gita sharing its message with everyone Arjuna’s thrust has always been on doing his dharma of Kshatriya dharma of fighting of course he is deeply devoted to Krishna and through his actions he does demonstrate how we can be deeply devoted but he himself does not directly share by preaching because that is not generally a dharma of Kshatriya in Kaliyuga of course it’s a spiritual emergency right now both in terms of the socio-cultural structure not being there and also in terms of people not having basic spiritual knowledge which because of the pious culture of the time when the Bhagavad Gita was spoken was prevalent at that time so therefore we can focus not so much on the specifics but on the principle Krishna is so eager that this message of love be shared far and wide that he is ready to even that he expresses his heart in an endearing way no one is as dear to him as those who share and it’s not that this love will last only for a short while Krishna is assuring that this love will last forever that forever and ever those who are dear to him now will stay dear to him it is through this understanding that everyone of us can gain heart personally to ourselves share Krishna’s love with others according to our capacity and secondly recognize that this is how eager Krishna is for us to turn to him for us to offer our love to him for us to connect at the deepest level of our heart with him so when we understand this point of how dear each one of us can become to Krishna we share his then we will feel inspired to do the best that we can for sharing it rather than getting carried away by negativities we’ll stay focused on positivity we’ll stay focused on hope on learning on growing and on sharing the world can be a gloomy place and we need the message of the God of love for ourselves and the world needs to hear that message to the extent we can play our part in sharing it to the extent we can appreciate both appreciate that message better attract Krishna’s mercy more and thus move towards attaining him this declaration no one is more dear it is a very forceful way in which Krishna is telling us please share this message when the nature of love is that not only especially when love is for something far bigger than us then the nature of that love is we want to share it with as many others as possible so we all want to share the message of Krishna’s love with as many people as possible and thereby move towards attaining Krishna move towards attaining the attraction to Krishna more and more in our hearts by trying to ignite the attraction towards Krishna in others hearts so the candle of spiritual wisdom burns brighter when it lights many more candles the more candles it lights the more it itself burns such is the mystery of the candle or the lamp of spiritual devotion Gyan Deepen Bhasvataha Krishna has said that Atishamevanu Kampartham Aham Gyanu Jantamaha Na Shayamyatma Bhavasto and with the torchlight of knowledge everyone of us can go deeper into our spiritual practices because the lord who is there within our hearts will reveal himself to us removing the darkness from within and the more we work externally as his representatives to connect others with him the more we help help him illuminate people’s hearts and thus he in reciprocation illuminates our heart more so the torchlight of spiritual knowledge will burn brighter in our hearts when we light more and more torchlights in others hearts