Gita lite 3 – Chps 6-8

[Online course on Bhagavad-gita]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so today we will start with the sixth chapter onwards so till now we have been discussing how the Bhagavad Gita is answering Arjuna’s question of what is the right thing to do and expanding his scope, his frame of reference so first it talks about you are not the body you are the soul and therefore what your actions result in immediately is not as important as what they result in ultimately then Krishna talks about how detachment works when work doesn’t seem to work then in the third chapter Krishna talks about how it is through duty that we maintain social order and harmony as well as we progress in spiritual order and then the fourth chapter Krishna talks about the knowledge that enables us to act in a way that disentangles us, the frame of reference how we can expand the spiritual knowledge further that was discussed in the fifth chapter we discussed about how when we act with spiritual knowledge then there is the concept of material diversity but spiritual equality because we see the difference of the level of the body but we also see the commonality at the level of the soul so in today’s session we will start with the sixth chapter onwards and I’ll be sharing the screen now where I’ll talk about the, we’ll have the powerpoint which talks about the sixth chapter overview, it is the same powerpoint which we had last time so where I further extended it so I will share the same powerpoint on the whatsapp group also in case you would like to refer to it there and you are not able to refer here and so let’s look at the sixth chapter overview the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita talks about the process of yoga primarily yoga for connecting internally with our spiritual side and the fifth chapter ended by talking, pointing to the ultimate reality and the sixth chapter gives one one process for progressing towards that ultimate reality so here there is a chapter overview so managing the first text, this is 47 texts in the sixth chapter so texts 1 to 9 say that the theme is managing the mind is the key to rise from the preliminary to the advanced stage Arudhksha and Arudh these two Sanskrit words are used over there it’s like a person who wants to first time get on a horse on the saddle is barely struggle and they can’t even stand on the saddle, they are slipping falling but then they rise again so that is the Arudhksha stage then Arudh the person is comfortably sitting on the saddle like the horses going according to their will so like that if you consider the mind to be like the horse on which we are sitting so initially this is like a wild horse and we go wherever the horse is going that is the uncontrolled mind which in this section Krishna says can be our greatest enemy just as a wild horse can take a person into enemy territory, into dangerous territory, to death whereas a horse which is controlled and disciplined can enable the person to go to their destination much faster than what they would go on foot so a controlled mind is a great friend and an uncontrolled mind is a great enemy so Krishna says that in the inner journey how well you are situated on the horse of the mind that is critical and that how do we do that, that is the essence of the process of yoga now if you remember the context of Arjuna’s question is Arjuna is concerned should I fight or should I not fight so should I engage in action or should I renounce action and go to the forest so in that context what Krishna is answering here is that whether you are inside a forest whether you are in a kingdom or in a forest the important thing is where is your mind, is it in your control or is it out of your control and without having the mind under control going to the forest and being alone is not only of not much use it is often a recipe for disaster to some extent it is our society that saves us from insanity it is the community, the people around us, they keep us sane at each moment our mind can give us hundreds of options and if we do not get carried away by any of those options and especially the mind can come up with the craziest of options and if we are not to get carried away it is largely because we know people around us will question us they will disapprove us, they will criticise us so of course we don’t want our actions to be determined only by society, only by social approval or disapproval but the point is that in general if we are living around decent people then that keeps us decent so if we are going to be alone and we are alone with our mind then the curves that society places on the mind tendency towards insanity are removed because there is no society around us and then we will ruin ourselves or rather our mind will ruin us so Krishna says the first stage is that you need to manage your mind you need to discipline your mind now in this chapter Krishna is taking a path to a conclusion which goes through another path that means Krishna has earlier told Arjuna that it is best that you do your duty with detachment but then Arjuna may feel that maybe it is better that instead of fighting this war I go to the forest and I meditate and by the solitary meditation I gain spiritual elevation spiritual liberation so in this chapter Krishna will say how that path of going to a forest will also have to ultimately culminate in a spiritual focus and that spiritual focus is available to him right now in the kingdom also in the battlefield also so it is better that he seek spiritual focus where he is rather than go away thinking that that will help him to focus spiritually so in this so Krishna does two things in this by going through another path this is the path of Ashtanga Yoga I will talk about that little bit more but by going through this path what Krishna shows firstly is that this path is not the ultimate it is penultimate ultimately he has to come to devotional focus and also this path is extremely difficult that Arjuna himself will admit in due course so sometimes rather than telling someone that something don’t do something it is give them a view of what doing that will entail and they themselves will come to a decision that maybe this is not the path I want to go along so that is what Krishna does over here so the word yoga so now let’s look at 10 to 32 so as I said focussing the mind is the key so Krishna talks about how focussing the mind can lead to progressively higher and higher levels of spiritual realisation so practise to perfection that’s what is the journey and he talks about this journey in three different levels and in each of these it’s like a spiral when you have a spiral it moves round, it’s moving ahead it’s coming closer, again it moves round and again it comes closer to centre and again it moves round and comes further and closer till it hits the bullseye so like that Krishna is going on a spiral towards the bullseye so in the first five texts Krishna talks about here how when we practise the process of yoga, what is the process of yoga that one goes to a jungle, sits in solitary meditation and gives up all sensual indulgence and first focusses on external object like the tip of the nose or the space between the eyebrows and then gradually by that focus draws one’s vision and concentration inward and then when one does that, one starts perceiving a light within oneself and one realises this light is not just within me this light is everywhere and when we understand this light is everywhere that is the time when we grow in our spiritual journey that is the time when we learn to move onwards in recognising there is a reality beyond matter that is the reality of spirit, the reality of the supreme spiritual of a spiritual reality now the Bhagavad Gita describes this ultimate spiritual reality is actually three level this elaboration will come in a later verse in the ninth chapter but I introduce this concept over here that there is the all pervading light, there is the universal witness and there is the all attractive supreme person, technically they are called as Brahman, Paramatma and Bhagawan the idea is that whenever we perceive anything, the closer we are to it, the better we perceive it so if we consider some delicious dessert say maybe in India there is gulab jamun now this dessert now any delicious item its key thing is taste, but attractive food should not just taste good, it should also smell good it should also look good so suppose we are sitting in a room and then we hear, we sense the fragrance of some dessert now we get attracted now we are experiencing the dessert, but we are experiencing one aspect of that dessert, that is its fragrance and through our nose then we say, oh where is this and then we, when we walk towards the kitchen and there we see on plates that dessert is being served and then we see it oh this looks so attractive so first we are seeing with the we smell it with the eyes, smell it with the nose, then we are seeing with the eyes and then we go there and we sit there we pick up the plate and then we eat it so when we eat it, that’s the time when there is a complete experience so similarly for us the absolute truth can also be experienced differently at different distances so the first perception of the absolute truth is as a all-pervading light and that is called as Brahman that is like perceiving the fragrance of the Gulab Jamun then the next is the when we see the fragrance when we sense the fragrance and then we see the shape, the attractive spherical juicy shape, soft shape soft succulent shape of the Gulab Jamun so that’s the experience of the Paramatma, that yes there is not just one all-pervading consciousness which is like a celestial divine light but actually there is also a person there is a conscious observer who is observing, who is overseeing what is happening so it’s not just a light which underlies all of existence but there is a conscious source of that light there is a conscious being who is who oversees existence so the impersonal light underlies existence the conscious being oversees existence that is the Paramatma understanding that God is also conscious being who witnesses then as we go closer and realise the spiritual truth deeper then it’s like experiencing the Gulab Jamun by tasting that is the time when we understand its full experience, so the full experience is that God is not just a being who observes he is also being who reciprocates love, who is not just the giver of benedictions but who is also the source of all attraction who embodies everything attractive in this world so that is the complete experience of the ultimate reality so in terms of the mind the whole journey here is how can one get one’s mind unattached keep it unentangled while functioning in the world so the idea is Krishna says first withdraw your mind from the world but that’s not enough then you have to direct your mind towards spiritual reality and in that spiritual reality the first thing we perceive is beyond the changing world of matter there is some unchanging substrate of spirituality that is the first perception of the spiritual but beyond that there is another perception that is if we are being tossed about in an ocean here is wave, there is wave and we find some kind of stone which we hold on so that is one level of centre but then we find the stone is not actually a stone we thought it’s a hard object but it’s a life raft or it’s a it’s lifeline thrown to us and there is a person behind it and then our vision shifts from the lifeline to the person so similarly what happens is on the spiritual path first we need something unchanging to focus on and that is the spiritual light then we look at what more is there in that unchanging and there we see there is a conscious person and then once we are pulled out we see that that person is not only just saving us maybe like a life guard saving us out of duty but that person is very attractive and that person loves and cares for us then it’s an entirely different dimension that if you are not just trying to survive amid the ocean but we want to link with in love the person who is our saviour so we just from being a survivor in the ocean we want to link with the saviour so similarly on the spiritual journey we move forward with deeper and deeper realisation so the idea is fixing the mind on spiritual reality becomes easier when spiritual reality becomes clearer and that clarity comes as one gains more and more spiritual knowledge and realisation and then after this Krishna in the next section so now Arjuna has spoken all this, Arjuna has heard all this and Arjuna says actually Krishna you are telling me to detach myself from, detach my mind from matter and fix it on the spirit, see the equality of everything spiritual beyond the duality of material things but the mind is very restless I can’t fix it then so like I said don’t tell a person don’t go on this path let them themselves see how tough the path is and they will say okay I don’t want to go by this path so that’s what happens to Arjuna, Arjuna says this is too tough, I can’t do this I might be able to control a raging wind but I can’t control my mind and then Krishna says at that time that yes it’s possible but he says you need the right process so he says that have the right process then have patience and have perseverance so it’s like if we are sick so if we are coughing very severely because of sickness then it’s not just a matter of willpower I will not cough that’s not going to work we need a proper process willpower is required to follow the process, in this case it may be that we have to avoid any cold food items, we have to wear warm clothes, we have to take a particular kind of maybe hot food only, whatever it is so we need willpower but not raw willpower it is refined willpower directed for following the process and while following the process we can’t expect that I just take one hot drink and my cough goes away, I need patience, I need perseverance, so Krishna doesn’t tell here specifically what process to follow but Arjuna himself says that his process is very difficult and then this is Arjuna’s first question the second question that Arjuna asks is okay you are saying that I should persevere but what if this life is not enough what will happen then say suppose we are going on a very long ride and we fear that our fuel will run out along the way and it’s wilderness, then what I will go on that ride but if my fuel runs out what will I do so similarly if we fall short if we resolve to practise spiritually but then our restless mind makes us go off track go back to the material way of living then what will happen this is a beautiful section and there Krishna assures that the spiritual inclination the spiritual attraction that we have developed is never lost even if we get temporarily deviated even if we are deviated for the rest of our life in our next life we will carry that spiritual attraction and that spiritual attraction will bring about again a spiritual reorientation will be spiritually reinstated will come back on the spiritual path and ultimately will attain spiritual perfection so the idea here is that spiritual growth is a treasure that continues with us from one life to another we may have a big bank balance, we may have a big bungalow, we may have a great car but none of those will go with us after death but our spiritual attraction that we develop toward transcendence that will always stay with us so Krishna assures that even if we don’t complete the spiritual journey we don’t lose the spiritual journey we carry our credits and continue from that point so somebody has developed up to 40% spiritual covered 40% distance 40% spiritual attraction in the next life they start from 41% and then in the last part so this was 38 to 45 and last two takes 46 and 47 Krishna says that just trying to that better than working in the world is working to connect with spiritual reality and better than just connecting with spiritual reality is lovingly devoting oneself to spiritual reality and that higher spiritual reality is Krishna so this whole process of yoga this chapter culminates in Krishna telling Arjuna that the best way to fix the mind is to fix it on Krishna so there is a two step process over here first Krishna talks about how we are attached to the world and what is attached is the mind which is attached so we need to detach ourselves and after we detached ourselves from the world then we seek out what is spiritual reality and become attached to that spiritual reality so it’s like if somebody is carrying a big heavy stone in their hand and they are being weighed down by the boulder practically and then somebody wants to give them a treasure maybe a suitcase filled with jewels they could either put their whatever boulder they are carrying they lower the boulder, put it down and then they go and pick up the suitcase or just move their hands to pick up the suitcase and as they are picking up the suitcase they spread out their hands then can grab the suitcase and the stone falls so Krishna in the next chapter onwards will describe how, will take from the conclusion of this chapter that rather than first detaching oneself from matter, renouncing the world and then finding the spiritual and trying to attach oneself to the spiritual Krishna says just straight try to attach yourself to the spiritual and you will by that as a side product, as a by-product become detached from the material so this is, this next chapter is quite long and that’s why I went a little over time in explaining this and I will focus on one theme in the sixth chapter that is spiritual growth is conscious, continuous cultivation, this is 625 and 26 in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna says that wherever and whenever the mind wanders bring it back under the control of the self so the mind may stray away let it not stay away bring it back and in this case each of these articles which are, what the sentences that are described in the description that are there in the slide body this is a hyperlink and if you click on this there is a Gita daily article which elaborates this theme that the essence of commitment is recommitment so what Krishna means in this context in terms of managing the mind means that we can’t expect that we decide from now I am not going to let my mind go to this or that or that I am going to focus our mind, my mind and it’s going to be focused no, we have to repeatedly focus, it will go off focus bring it back on focus, it goes off focus bring it on focus so commitment is not something which we do it once and it is there forever for us commitment essentially means we keep recommitting ourselves again and again when a plane is flying through the sky at that time it’s not that the plane just goes in a straight line the plane in 90% of the time it is off course but the pilot it goes off course because of its own momentum because of the atmospheric conditions because of the wind but the pilot keeps reorienting and that repeated reorientation is what gets the plane to the destination similarly for us in our spiritual journey on our journey for inner growth it’s recommittment which will demonstrate our commitment not just a one time decision but a repeated reorientation without getting discouraged that I am getting, why am I forgetting this, why am I getting distracted, why am I getting deviated, we expect that and we prepare accordingly we reorient ourselves, so that is repeated reorientation is what is required for managing the mind so are there any questions based on the 6th chapter overview at this stage ok so let’s move on to the 7th chapter so 7th chapter is a very interesting development in the flow of the Bhagavad Gita in the 7th chapter what is happening if we consider the first 6 chapters were centred on how our essential identity is non-material it is spiritual so therefore knowing that we are non-material we can detach ourselves from the material but from the 7th chapter onwards the focus shifts not that we detach ourselves from the material because we are non-material but because the non-material reality is so much more attractive than the material and what is that non-material reality a three level experience of a Gulabjamun, so from the 7th chapter onwards the close up experience, the experience of the ultimate reality as an all attractive person will be described, so this chapter has 25 texts and those 25 verses broadly two sections can be had that one is the previous chapter ended with the top most yogis fix their mind on Krishna, now why Krishna why should they fix their mind on Krishna why not anything else so then here first part describes the position of Krishna so it gives us knowledge of Krishna as the object worth being supremely attached to, so Krishna is the ultimate reality and knowledge has no meaning or really no value unless it is applied suppose somebody is sitting at a lunch table and they give a long talk about how delicious and nutritious the food is well the talk is not of much use unless people eat the food the talk is important to the extent it inspires people to eat, so similarly spiritual knowledge alone is not enough, so the second part is how we apply the spiritual knowledge that is by connecting with Krishna in love that is by surrendering to him and knowing that that is the path to ultimate liberation so the first part is knowledge, second part is the application of that knowledge in terms of developing a personal relationship with the ultimate reality merely acquiring spiritual knowledge without applying it is like it won’t lead to any spiritual advancement it is like reading books on weight loss and expecting that will cause us to lose weight now reading books on weight loss is fine but we have to actually apply them, then only we will lose weight, similarly reading books about spirituality can’t make us spiritual just as reading books on weight loss alone can’t make us lose weight, so after reading what we do is important, so let’s look at these two sections of the seventh chapter here the first section is within the first section there are certain sub sections in many chapters in the Bhagavad Gita, in the seventh chapter and ninth chapter in the 10th, 11th, 14th chapters many chapters Krishna begins by an attention grabbing verse or series of verses just like if somebody gives a talk and they start by telling, now today I will give you a secret by which you can earn a million dollars within a month now whether they can give a secret or not, whether there is a secret by which anybody can earn a million dollars in a month, that’s a question but if somebody starts like that then even if it’s a false promise it catches attention, but suppose some medical researcher has found a cure for an unincurable disease and they proclaim now today I will tell you the cure for a disease that has not whose cure has yielded millions of researchers who has spent millions of dollars on it, but we now have the cure, everybody will be full of attention so Krishna he draws attention to the message by first speaking about the glory of the knowledge, he says this knowledge if you understand this then in essence you understand everything that is necessary for living a meaningful life he says this knowledge is such that only one among thousands even millions ever masters this knowledge and those who master this knowledge they attain life’s perfection then what is that knowledge that earlier in the first six chapters the vision of the Bhagavad Gita was more of dissection, dissect reality into matter and spirit and Arjuna you do not belong to matter you belong to spirit, therefore the dissection leads to detachment, but now the Gita goes beyond dissection to integration that yes there is matter and there is spirit but both matter and spirit come from this ultimate reality, come from the all attractive supreme person come from Krishna so in this way from dissection to integration Bhagavad Gita journeys so it describes Krishna as the source of everything material and spiritual and then Krishna is not just the source but he is also the sustainer of everything just like we might say that our family our particular dynasty started maybe ten generations ago with XYZ now that person is the source of our dynasty, but that person is long gone and dead now that person is no longer there so Krishna is not that kind of source who existed long ago and is now no longer there so Krishna is the source and the sustainer the pervader of everything so here the Gita talks about how God is God permeates all material existence so God is everything in this world is permeated with God’s presence so basically there are two aspects of God with his relationship with respect to the world one is called as transcendence and the other is immanence transcendence means God exists beyond matter beyond the material world, God exists in another level of reality that is transcendence, means transcendence to go beyond matter, but immanence immanence means God exists within matter also, God pervades all of reality, so here Krishna talks about how he is not, although he is transcendental, he is not inaccessible because he is also immanent he is present in the world and thus we can connect with him and how does one connect with him how, if he is pervading everywhere, all of existence then is everybody connected with him and Krishna the next part of the verse describes that, that actually this is a very important principle which will be reiterated in the in the tenth chapter also elaborately, but when we say God pervades everything that means that the attractiveness of everything comes from God so there is someone who is very good looking, now their good looks come from God, it is God who has given them those good looks now of course they may they may take care of their looks and they may apply makeup and everything, but beyond that, some people are just born beautiful they did not craft their beauty while they were in the mother’s womb they are just beautiful, similarly some people are just brilliant, their intelligence so sharp, now they didn’t make themselves sharp they did not do anything to have a high IQ score while they were in the mother’s womb so their brilliance comes from God, it is God’s gift to them and their brilliance reflects God’s supreme brilliance so the idea here is that whatever attracts us in this world is actually a spark of God but we don’t most of us don’t know it and that’s why we get attracted to those sparks and we go away from the home it’s like suppose we are in a desert and while we are in the desert we see some drops of water sprinkled here and there oh these drops will lead me to the ocean and we start following the trail of drops and then we will got to get to the ocean but suppose the drops are sprinkled everywhere so we are here, the ocean is here the ocean is here and there are drops sprinkled here also, drops sprinkled here also so now we need to know which drops will take us to the ocean and which drops will take us away from the ocean so all the drops of water have come from the ocean but all the drops of water do not take us to the ocean similarly everything attractive comes from God but everything attractive doesn’t take us to God so whenever we become attracted to something we surrender to something we surrender for example when two people get romantically attracted to each other they say they fall in love so fall is the idea that we give ourselves completely it’s like surrender so when we are attracted to something we just fall, we just get captivated by it, but are we getting captivated by the drops which are taking us towards the ultimate reality or taking us away or just taking us literally here and there we have to see that so why should we surrender, because he is the all attractive source of all attractive things and he is the ocean so instead of chasing the drops we look for the ocean, that is the mood of surrendering to Krishna and Krishna talks about those who surrender to him those who don’t surrender, some people who get attracted to the drops which take them away from Krishna, so there are different kinds of people who be atheistic, materialistic, nihilistic and they do not surrender, then Krishna talks about those who surrender, now they also progress gradually that gradual progression in their conception of God, that will be talked about, I will talk in a later slide but those who surrender and gradually they attain complete love for God, that’s the perfection of life, but then there are those who may surrender to something other than God that is they may be attracted not to the supreme person they may be attracted to the light, you remember the light I talked about like the, they are attracted to the fragrance of the gulab jamun, but they are not so much attracted to the shape or the taste of the gulab jamun and also in the tradition of, in the dharmic tradition of India it is described that there is not just one God we have this whole polarity of monotheism and polytheism but what the Bhagavad Gita describes is that this is simply a polarity based on a particular worldview, a particular theology there is one God or there are many Gods and if you see the Greco-Roman tradition had many Gods and that’s why it was considered polytheistic but the Abrahamic religion Judaism, Christianity, Islam have one God they are proud of being monotheistic and they condemn polytheism as a very primitive conception of God and often they think that the dharmic traditions from India are also polytheistic but actually what Bhagavad Gita reveals is neither the monotheism of the Abrahamic religions nor the polytheism of the Greco-Roman tradition it is what you can call as polymorphic monotheism it’s one ultimate reality but polymorphic and one ultimate reality manifests at multiple levels, so there is one supreme God, God with a capital G and there are many Gods who are Gods with small g so they are the assistants of the Gods assistants of the supreme God, so in the in the Abrahamic tradition there is one true God and there are many false Gods and the idea is that because there is only one true God and all false Gods are upstairs so they have to be destroyed and this often this idea often leads to religious intolerance in fact if you look right from the old testament to the Quran wherever any religious ruler conquers a king the first thing they do is destroy the idols of the false Gods because their idea is there is one true God and all others are false, so to proclaim the glory of the one true God the false Gods have to be destroyed have to be destroyed but the Vedic understanding is the Gita’s understanding is that there is one true God and there are many other assistant Gods and ideally speaking the assistant Gods pave the way for the person to reach to the supreme God and in that sense they aid one on the spiritual journey, now of course it may happen that sometimes some people start thinking of the assistant Gods to be the supreme God and then that can become an obstacle but it’s a progress it’s meant to be a progressive path so Krishna says that those who surrender either to the Gods or to the light it depends on their conception, do they see the light and the Gods as their aids, their pointers to some higher reality or do they see these only as the ultimate reality that will determine their destination and if they can see that everything attractive is a pointer to the all attractive, then the soul in the world can get liberated by knowledge of that ultimate reality that’s the focus of the Bhagavad Gita’s 7th chapter that when we gain knowledge of the all attractive supreme person then that knowledge inspires us to surrender to that absolute reality and by surrendering to that reality we can attain liberation in fact, liberation has two aspects to it just like we can talk about freedom there is freedom from and freedom for, freedom from means somebody wants to become free from some kind of addiction say maybe it’s drug addiction or alcohol addiction so it’s it’s important to become free from those things but more important than becoming free from something is to become free for something okay, if you become free from drugs, what are you going to do? one of the most successful experiments in social experiments in helping people become free from drug addiction is in Portugal now Portugal decriminalised all drug drug indulgence and many people are saying and then it seems that their drug addiction rates decreased by almost 50% from the 2000 in the last 19 years and so there was a big push to decriminalise drugs but it is not that decriminalising drugs detached people from drugs it was what they did after that they used all the money that they were not that was being used to try to criminalise and persecute drug users and drug vendors to rehabilitating drug users so they said that if somebody is a drug user employers might actually be apprehensive to give them jobs they would tell the employers you employ this person and we will the government will pay half the salary so basically they help people create a life worth living and once more and more people started having a life worth living then they became detached from drugs so the point here is this is giving example not so much of that we should decriminalise drugs as that what makes a person addicted is not so much that the substance is so attractive but rather the rest of life doesn’t seem meaningful attractive that’s why they relapse in it so whenever somebody has to give up something if you focus too much on I have to give this up then it’s a very negative focus instead we focus on what can we take up what can we take up and once we have something worthwhile to take up then giving up becomes much easier so the Bhagavad Gita reveals this vision from the 7th chapter onwards that instead of seeking freedom from matter that freedom from matter is detachment from matter, detachment from material things, material pleasures don’t so much worry about freedom from focus on freedom for understand what awaits us when we become detached from matter when our consciousness becomes free and available to experience spiritual reality understand how attractive the supreme spiritual reality is and then we can become captivated by that reality and then we can joyfully march toward liberation that is the 7th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita let’s take one thing from it so the same point this is talking 790 see God as the ultimate object of the mind’s search for pleasure often people think that oh if I try to become devoted to God I have to give up so much pleasure so many pleasures there is an atheistic joke about Christianity he say in the beginning was the world and the world was God so that talks about how through articulated speech our sound is the way to experience and access divinity and that’s what is the premises of our mantra chanting also so the atheists what they say in the beginning was the world and the world was no that is they think of religion as simply saying no you can’t enjoy this you can’t do this you can’t do that now once we have this negative restrictive depriving conception of religion then we just can’t function with much positive energy so the Gita reveals God is all attractive supreme person who is the ultimate object of the mind’s search for pleasure to really understand this you can become devoted to him so devotion commences commences when God becomes our guide that rather than we might go to God and pray please fulfil this desire that is good that is religious piety at least we are connected with him but that is more of a transactional kind of interaction I do this worship and you do this to me but what devotion is meant to be not transactional but transformation that it is meant to transform us raise our consciousness transform our definition of pleasure instead of looking for pleasure in finite material objects we look for that pleasure in infinite spiritual reality so when we initially might go to God thinking I know this is an object of pleasure oh God please help me to get it but that is fine but that is not really devotion that is just preliminary religious piety but devotion commences when God becomes our guide guide in the sense of what what is the source of pleasure what is the way to a meaningful fulfilling life when we become open to learn that from God then that is when our devotion journey commences Arjuna that is what happened initially he was saying that fighting this war is not the way to pleasure it is the way to misery I won’t fight it but then his journey towards enlightenment begins when he stops imposing his own definitions of pleasure and pain and asks Krishna what is the right thing to do so he accepts Krishna as his guide and that is how the Bhagavad Gita’s journey begins similarly devotion begins it commences when God becomes our guide and it culminates when God becomes our goal that means we understand that God is not simply teaching us about how to go where by which you can find pleasure God himself is the source of all pleasure he is the source of everything attractive and thus we need to devote ourselves to him so that devotional surrender to God is the essential message of the 7th chapter so any questions about this till now? ok hi yes thank you so I am actually doing 12 steps and I am just at the point of surrender so I am hearing that word a lot and you know I have been coming to temple a long time and words like surrender yoga transcendental knowledge could you just maybe say 2 or 3 things I know what I have to do like I know in chant but can you just maybe say some practical examples if you don’t live in the temple and you want to how do we surrender and how do we well they are 2 separate like how do we actually learn to love God and make him our goal and I guess how do we surrender what does that mean what are some practical things that we can do on a daily basis to surrender thank you so how do we surrender to God practically what does it mean in our day to day context at one level surrender means to give ourselves completely to God at another level at another level surrender means to do what we can with what we have now surrender means to do what we can with what we have now so if we have a tiny nascent attraction towards God then we focus on that we develop that so broadly this is a big subject just recently couple of weeks ago I gave a 4 part seminar on the 6 limbs of surrender but surrender as the 6 limbs are you can understand this from a medical metaphor perspective first is it says except what is favourable avoid that which is unfavourable it’s like a doctor will give us prescription and proscriptions so similarly based on our God given intelligence in our situation look at what is favourable and try to do it as much as possible so whenever you can go to the temple whenever you can you associate with those who are devoted to Krishna and avoid that which is unfavourable like there are certain influences which are pulling us down try to keep a distance from them as much as possible so surrender here is this dynamic action orientated understanding that we are constantly choosing is this favourable, is this unfavourable let’s surrender so if you consider the medical metaphor in a medical metaphor there are probably 3 things one is that the patient does their part in terms of the prescription and proscription second is the patient has faith that the doctor can cure and third is the patient has faith in the cure so similarly for us faith in the cure means the patient has faith in this context in one’s own curability that this cure can cure me that the doctor is wise enough, expert enough to cure me and this treatment can also cure me I am curable so first of all there is the action orientated except the favourable and beyond that there is a conception that we have read this that although we are on our own spiritual journey which in many ways is unique but still it is not that we are the first one on the spiritual journey there have been many before us so millennia people have tread on the search for the ultimate reality and many have succeeded and we too can succeed so this understanding is vital for us that yes God is expert enough no matter we may be very far away from God but God can extend his hand, his hand can become long enough to reach out to us wherever we are and lead us by the finger toward so just do what you can wherever you are try to do the things that take you closer to Krishna and try to avoid the things that take you away from Krishna and by doing this know that from wherever you are Krishna is expert enough to draw you towards him and we might say that I have so many conditionings I have so many weaknesses I have so many impurities actually God’s love for us is not just based on who we are it is based on who he is even if we feel I am so ungodly maybe I am not worthy of God’s love God’s love for us is not based on our worthiness or unworthiness it is based on his godly nature so he is there for us and he can uplift us from wherever we are so just do what you can and that means that right now wherever you have some attraction towards Krishna just focus on that and do that more and more say for example if you find hearing classes as attractive but you find chanting difficult then at least make sure that you hear some talks regularly and then use that attraction to your class to the spiritual wisdom as your anchor for stabilising your chanting say if the mind wanders you in chanting rather than letting it wandering while chanting Krishna’s names maybe you take some philosophical points about Krishna’s beauty and glory that you have heard in the class keep them on a notepad in front of you and then if the mind wanders let it wander towards that point so there is a point of concentration and there is a circle of concentration that if we can’t focus on that point, we don’t have to go all over the universe, we can go around the circle, if the mind wanders let it wander to the philosophical point that way what will happen is we will stay close to Krishna even if we are not focused on Krishna, we will stay connected with Krishna so this in Sanskrit is called as Uddipan Uddipan is spiritual attraction or spiritual stimulus so we find our own spiritual stimulus and use that as our anchor for going closer and closer to Krishna does it answer your question? yes, I am so glad I feel so blessed that I have this knowledge about Krishna thank you so let’s move on is there any other question right now? ok so I will move on to the last part of the session where we will talk about the 8th chapter now in the 8th chapter Krishna it’s a very interesting chapter about firstly let’s look at how it is developing from the 7th chapter in the 7th chapter Krishna talked about Bhakti, about understanding him as Bhagwan and surrendering to him with Bhakti now Krishna is going to integrate the knowledge of chapter 6 and 7 in chapter 8 chapter 6 if you remember talked about how in the process of yoga one first becomes detached from matter and then becomes attached to the supreme spiritual reality in 7th chapter by knowing the spiritual reality doesn’t exist far away in the forest or far away in some other level of reality but exists everywhere we start connecting with that spiritual reality right away that’s the 7th chapter so in the 8th chapter Krishna talks about how he draws a contrast between the path of yoga which is Ashtanga Yoga Ashtanga Yoga means going out in the forest meditating and Bhakti Yoga which is the path of love but before that there is a slight technicality which I just mentioned but I am not going to see every field of knowledge has its own jargon jargon is the word jargon sometimes have a negative connotation but the point is that whenever people become specialised in any field they start using terms for referring to things which only they can understand say if two software engineers are going to talk about something then if somebody who has no knowledge of software engineering what are you talking about? there are so many terms over there so like that in the dharmic tradition or you could say the dharmic dictionary there are many spiritual terms and Krishna mentions those spiritual terms towards the end of the 7th chapter primarily to talk about how he Krishna is the ultimate reality he uses words like Adibhuta, Adideva Adiyajna and he uses other terms also which are in the broad dharmic dictionary like Karma, Brahma, Adhyatma and then Arjuna Krishna talks about these terms and Arjuna asks Krishna what do these terms mean? now Krishna answers those questions the first questions he basically answers in two verses so the verses 1 and 2 in the 8th chapter are Arjuna asking several questions and Krishna answers about the 6 terms in one line in the next two verses and then he focusses on the 7th question almost throughout the whole chapter so the 7th question is that Krishna tells that if you have this conception of the ultimate reality and if you maintain this conception at the time of death then you will attain the ultimate reality so the question comes up over there that Krishna asks Arjuna Arjuna asks Krishna how can one maintain one’s composure at the time of the greatest distress at the time of death then Krishna answers that question for most people death is just a time of great trauma it’s a time that we don’t even think about we in today’s world frequently talk about death without ever thinking about death that means there is talk about death everywhere in the world there are news headlines which talk about casualties there are movies in which there is so much horrific violence and death but we don’t really seriously think about our mortality because it’s scary however, once we understand that we are souls on a multi-life journey of spiritual evolution then we see death not as a full stop where our existence ends but we see death as a comma it is just a transition like when we are phrasing a thought a period means a thought has ended but a comma means yes a thought is going on but in a slightly different direction so death is a transition not a termination and where does one go after death that depends on what one is thinking about in death this is important it is not a mechanical act ok, so Krishna says that what we remember at the time of death we will attain what this means is not that it’s not so much like an intellectual remembrance like somebody remembers what is the capital of Ukraine what is the capital of New Zealand what is the capital of Somalia it’s not factual knowledge here the remembrance refers to the thing that is closest and deepest in our heart we remember that it’s like what we take shelter of generally whenever we are in distress at that time our mind gravitates towards that thing in which we have experienced the greatest comfort it’s like if our house was caught in a tornado then we would go toward that part of the house maybe some underground cellar which is the sturdiest and most likely to withstand the onslaught of the of the tornado similarly in our life journey we all experience storms and we all experience shelters among the storms say for example you might feel very bored or frustrated and you might just go and watch a movie that movie gives us some shelter or you might just chat with some friend and temperature goes down emotional temperature goes down these are all shelters now at the time of death which is the time of the greatest distress like the ultimate tornado hitting us our mind will naturally go toward that thing where we have experienced the greatest shelter and that thing Krishna says should be God should be him so to remember Krishna at the time of death we need to remember him throughout our life and not just remember him again in an intellectual factual sense remember him as our ultimate shelter so amidst life’s storms if we can take shelter of Krishna and experience shelter in Krishna then in life’s final storm that is death, we will naturally seek the shelter of Krishna and here what it means is that if we, when we take shelter of something that means we value it recognise that this is the foremost value so if we become attached to Krishna then we attain Krishna, that’s the whole significance of remembrance of Krishna at death, so that’s 5 to 8 now how may one cultivate such remembrance of Krishna Krishna talks about different strategies for that and one is that even in the practise of yoga yoga is sitting in postures regulating one’s breath and regulating one’s consciousness in the world even in that ultimately like Krishna has told in 6th chapter one has to come to the level of bhakti one has to remember him so remembrance by yoga practise permeated with bhakti, that is one way of cultivating the remembrance of the divine and Krishna says if you do this, if we do this then we will attain the divine then that is 9 to 13 and 14 to 15 he recommends something else, he says that it is better that you focus on me directly, not through yoga practise but through your love for me if you do this this is much much easier and after this, this is one of the few verses in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna says the spiritual path can be easy normally he talks about how does it start, it requires perseverance, patience you may have to persevere beyond one life to another lifetime and the mind will wander, you have to bring it back, so it talks about how this process is tough but here he says if the process of spiritual growth is powered by love for the supreme spiritual reality, then this process becomes easy, it becomes joyful soon love is joyfully attained then after that Krishna takes another line of thought see the idea here is that whenever we want to tell someone to do something if we just impose rules it triggers resentment now why should I do this do this, don’t do this, why? what will happen if I don’t do this that is what it triggers so rather than giving people rules what we need to help, give people the vision to see rules as routes this is the route and this is where it will take you give them that vision so if I am on a particular path and somebody tells me don’t go left, don’t go right, don’t go back, just go straight say why, what is there on the left but if then I see oh on the left there is a big cliff and from there there is a big fall into a valley, on the right there is a huge mountain, on the back side there is wilderness and then straight ahead is the path to civilisation, path to comfort path to a city, oh this is where I want to go, so what rather than just giving people rules we need to give others a multi-dimensional explanation of the reason for going on a particular route and once that when we give multi-dimensional explanation, some explanation clicks if you just give one explanation sometimes people just don’t find that explanation relatable or understandable so we give multi-dimensional explanations, ok this is one reason, this is one reason, this is one reason, oh yeah this makes sense, oh good, then follow it so like that for cultivating remembrance of Krishna Bhagavad Gita is giving here multi-dimensional explanations, so one explanation which is used here in the 16 to 22 verses is earlier Krishna has talked about matter and spirit and that we don’t belong to the world of, we are not material, we are spiritual now that dissection of reality into matter and spirit was talked about, now Krishna takes this further and says that it’s not just matter and spirit, there is a material world and there is a spiritual world, the material world is the place where everything is temporary, and this is where Krishna says this world is dukkha laya, it’s an unknown verse in 15 and 16 it says that this world is a place of misery, now many western thinkers when they were introduced to the Vedic texts they said this is so world denying, this is so pessimistic actually it’s not pessimistic it is it is we could say initial pessimism for eventual optimism it’s like if a patient is sick and the patient doesn’t realise how sick they are and the patient doesn’t want to take treatment, then the doctor may have to give the prognosis in the gravest possible terms you are here right now then your kidney might collapse or your lungs might fail or you might have dementia, there is this and then all this and the doctor might say what is the doctor doing? something so scary but the idea is there has to be initial pessimism that things cannot go on the way they are then the doctor talks about the cure and then says that this is a time tested cure not many complications just take the treatment then it’s a message of optimism sometimes we need to see how terrible will be the results of the path we are going on for us to change course and go on another path so what the bhagavad gita does over here when it says this world is dukkha leh it’s a place of misery it gives us this unvarnished picture of our destination if we live in materialistic consciousness we will all grow old we will all get deceased we will all lose our capacity to enjoy the things that we consider enjoyable and we will sink into misery and ultimately we will die so it’s a very stark picture but the idea is then what is the solution? the solution is we don’t have to live in material consciousness we can rise towards spiritual consciousness and for rising towards spiritual consciousness what is required? we need a follow up process that raises us from material to spiritual consciousness and that process is the process of bhakti yoga so Krishna talks about this contrast here in broad terms of the nature of the world itself so he says this world is a place of distress and ultimately destruction whereas there is another world the other world is the world of eternity that is the world of eternal life eternal love, eternal joy now this is one of the biggest differences between pre-modern and modern times in the pre-modern times whether it is the Indian civilisation or the Middle East African civilisation, the European civilisation the Native American civilisation the Russian civilisation almost everywhere people had this understanding that this world is like a journey and there is another world which is a better world and that is what is to be attained but through the progress of science and technology humanity’s hope started increasing that why do we need to go to some other world which is supposed to be a paradise through technology we will create paradise in this world itself and thus the fantasy of a technological paradise relegated to the background any thought of spiritual paradise and now people think of any spiritual paradise as a fantasy but while this is a historically we can explain how this has happened but essentially no matter how much we advance technologically still we remain mortal beings we have to grow old, we have to get diseased and we have to die and we still long to live forever so where does our longing to live forever come from suppose we are sitting in a room which is made of stone and concrete and normal construction material and suddenly we see some gold some gold fallen over there maybe it’s a golden nugget a golden ring or whatever and the first question we have is where did this gold come from and I think here this room is golden, this must have come from somewhere so is that some treasury with a lot of gold from where this has come over here similarly everything in the world here is temporary but we long for eternal life and like we discussed in the second chapter of the Gita how we are spiritual beings we are indestructible so if everything here is destructible and we are indestructible then where did we come from we must have come from some indestructible level of reality and that is the spiritual reality that is the spiritual world so this is a reasonable inference we can make pointing to spiritual reality so Krishna also again stresses to Arjuna fix your mind on me by talking about how this world is destructible whereas the spiritual world is indestructible and again he says the way to attain the spiritual world is by focussing on focussing on the lord of the spiritual world on Krishna and then again the last part of the 8th chapter goes into little bit of technicalities where it talks about how with respect to the moment of death traditionally in the dharmic way of living certain times of dying are considered auspicious certain times of dying are considered auspicious but Krishna says don’t get caught in such technicalities if you are focused your mind on the ultimate reality then the time place of death is not as important as the consciousness at death and thus Krishna says focus your mind on developing the right consciousness so in ashtanga yoga the yogis regulate their breath and by regulating their breath it is said our number of breaths in life are fixed so if we slow down our breathing one school of thought is that we can live longer so then in this way by slowing down their breath they try to plan to live to die at an auspicious time Krishna says you don’t have to bother about all these intricacies of ashtanga yoga if you just learn to love me then you will attain me no matter when or where you die because your consciousness, your heart will be attached to me that brings us to the last point which we will discuss in today’s class that our disposition at death determines our destination after death so at death we don’t have to leave home we can go home Bhagavad Gita Krishna says if you strive to remember me throughout your life you will attain me at the end of your life that if you remember me constantly throughout your life then your mind and energy is absorbed me you will surely come to me at death so basically when we talk about home home is the place where all loved ones are where those whom we care for they are there now if we practise bhakti then Krishna becomes our supreme loved one and then when we die we will understand that we are going to Krishna or if you are not pure enough to go to Krishna then at least we will go closer to Krishna and in that way we are not leaving home because ok yes we will have to leave our physical home where our loved ones are there but we will go to our spiritual home where our supreme loved one is there so if we can develop our love for Krishna by the practise of bhakti then death is seen not as a brutal separation from our loved ones but as a transition for an eternal reunion with our supreme loved one so one of the great commentators in the Bhagavad Gita Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur he gives an example that normally say if a girl is to get married is to be married the tradition was that the girl was living in her parents home and she used her parents home to go to her husband’s home where her in-laws are living and often because it’s a new life new people there is some apprehension there can even be fear but if there has been a long courtship before the marriage and the girl knows the groom loves the groom knows the groom’s family loves the groom’s family then although at one level she is leaving her own parents there is eagerness there is anticipation there is excitement there is joy to go to her husband’s family so similarly Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur says that the practise of bhakti yoga in this life in this world is like our period of courtship with God we are in this world and God is not entirely accessible to us just like when people are courting when they are married they are always with each other but when they are courting then there are sometimes when they are together sometimes they are not together but when two people are courting then even when they are not together they are constantly thinking of each other when will we meet next time excitement of newness is there similarly he says we can treat our practise of bhakti yoga in this world like a courtship with God and whenever we get the opportunity we try to make the maximum of that opportunity we try to spend as much time with Krishna by hearing about him reading about him worshipping him associating with those who are devoted to him and when we can’t we go on with our life but we try to cultivate a longing to be more and more with Krishna and if we do this if by the end of our life if our love for Krishna has become more than our love for this world then Krishna will take us out of this world there is no reason for us to be in this world even if we don’t love this world if we love Krishna then naturally we will go to Krishna and that is life’s supreme perfection so I will summarise what I spoke today I spoke on the theme of how the Bhagavad Gita’s how the Bhagavad Gita’s 6th, 7th and 8th chapters are taking the question of what should Arjuna do for world so first in the 5th chapter Krishna has talked about how you should be detached with knowledge then Krishna talks about if you want to not only just be detached with knowledge but actually be detached from the action in the world also what is the qualification first you have to regulate your mind and without managing the mind just being isolated from society is the pathway to disaster then he talks about after detaching the mind from matter you focus the mind on spirit and get an increasingly clearer perception of spiritual reality the all-pervading, the light then the conscious being who is witnessing who is the source of that light and then the all-knowing person and then the mind will find it very difficult to just detach itself from matter and focus on some unknown higher reality so Krishna says Perceive your and even if you can’t complete in one life you can continue in the next life and then he deals to what will be developed in the next 7 to 12 chapters that is the point is not just to detach oneself from matter but the point is to attach oneself to the supreme spiritual reality Krishna, that is the topmost the 7th chapter talks about two main things why is Krishna worthy of being the supreme object of attachment for us because he is he is not just a supreme spiritual reality, he is the source of all of reality Bhagavad Gita dissects reality into matter and spirit and integrates reality both material and spiritual reality by saying that they are coming from one source and that source is present even in the world as the immanent reality so we talked about how Krishna is the attractive principle in all attractive things and just as we have an ocean there are water drops sprinkled all along in the desert so everything attractive comes from Krishna but we have to focus on those attractive things that take us toward him we want water but we need to focus on those drops of water that lead us to the ocean not away from the ocean so different, some people may surrender to Krishna some people may surrender to anti-demotional attractive things which take them away from Krishna or some people may surrender to transitional realities which if they understood properly can help them go toward Krishna, that is like the inner light or the various gods and ultimately Krishna talks about how by knowing him and if we live that knowledge that means we read about weight loss and then apply and then we lose weight similarly we learn about him and then we seek to love him then we will become liberated and then the 8th chapter focusses on the theme of what will happen at the time of death so we talk about at death to remember is not just like an intellectual factual remembrance it is we will remember at death that thing which has given us the greatest shelter before death that’s why we need to practise bhakti amidst life storms and experience our greatest shelter in Krishna and Krishna is a multidimensional approach to encourage Arjuna to fix the mind on him in bhakti and he says that this is easier in the path of yoga and then he says that actually this world is temporary and perishable so better focus on the other world and focus on the lord of the other world and then he talks about how you don’t have to worry about the technicalities when you die if your consciousness is fixed on me you will surely attain me and he concluded by discussing how the practise of bhakti yoga in this life we can see as a courtship period then death will not be something which takes us away from home but it will take us home thank you very much is there any one question yes Shilpi Hare Krishna Hare Krishna one question yeah so for me it is easier to understand the concept of Brahman and Brahma realisation but it’s a little difficult to understand one realisation so is it possible to understand it as a direct experience rather than an intellectual concept or conclusion can you explain can you specify a little bit why you find it difficult to understand Bhagavan as compared to Brahman and Brahma so as per my understanding in one realisation we are actually talking about a personality a personality of Godhead which is just like us but we have not seen it with our eyes so it is difficult to perceive that’s one very nice realisation but Brahman and Brahma realisation it’s a little bit easier to understand because we can understand the concept of soul and there is so much of research on the experiences and all of our experiences so it’s easier to understand that concept and Brahman realisation because it is easier to see how everything around us like mountains and water bodies you know there are energies that we see around us which are moving in a certain order so good question so how can we gain a better appreciation for the personal aspect of the divine of the ultimate reality there are different modes of inferring things and we have to look not only what inferences we can draw but also what blocks we might have in drawing certain inferences so at one level we could say that we see that there is personality all around us we are persons we have our personality people around us have their personality and personhood is an integral part of our identity so if the ultimate reality is a source of everything the ultimate reality should also have personhood in fact we will consider there are two distinct things there is form and there is personhood we often associate form and personhood together but form is also very attractive and if the absolute truth does not have form then the absolute truth lacks that which is very attractive in the world that means the source of the world will end up being lesser than the world that’s one way of looking at it now another way of normal objection to this is that the personal form if it is a person with form then it is limited and the absolute truth is supposed to be unlimited so here we have to understand that there is a dichotomy of personal and impersonal but God is neither personal nor impersonal, God is what you can say transpersonal transpersonal means it’s a transcendental personality in the world personality and form limit but for God there is no such limitation what do I mean by no such limitation that that God is more a person than the persons of this world that his form does not limit him if we think that form causes limitation then imagine if say you are sitting in a room now and that room is limited it has a particular form and it is limited, now suppose we destroy that form suppose we blow up a bomb over there and that form was destroyed would the formless be limited or unlimited it would still be limited so what causes limitation is not form per se it is matter when material things are there whether they have form or no form they are limited when spiritual reality is there spiritual reality has the potential to be unlimited whether it has form or whether it doesn’t have form so God is not limited by his form so if that is the stumbling block that we have we can consider that God is not limited by his form because he is not limited to his form he can be at one place at the same time he can be everywhere Advaitam Achyutam Anandam Anantaroopam he is non-dual that doesn’t mean he has no form Anantaroopam he has unlimited forms and then another point to look at is that if we consider that God or the ultimate reality is the embodiment of Rasa is the embodiment of all the things that lead to the formation of a loving relationship so our heart longs for relationships and in Krishna there is a supreme opportunity for relationships so we are at times when we have many bad relationships we feel I just don’t want any relationship so that’s like a person who is very sick maybe they have arthritis many parts of their body and every movement causes pain I move my hand a little bit eyes everything causes pain so at that time the person may simply desire if I could just stop moving I will be free from pain now it’s very difficult to stop moving first of all and even if they stop moving what will happen is they will become free from pain temporarily but soon they will desire to start moving again because the cause of their pain is not motion the cause of their pain is disease and stopping motion doesn’t create a meaningful life it just removes pain but it doesn’t bring meaning and they want meaning ultimately in their life some meaning, some value, some joy so similarly for us we might have had some negative experiences with relationships we might have had negative experiences by being attracted to forms but people with particular personalities and you might feel that no form, no personality no relationship I just want to be in this I just don’t want to move my body at all yeah that will give us relief but it’s temporary so for us we need to know that although God is a person He is not a person like us it’s a different ball game entirely that’s why I said transpersonal that’s why if we if we just focus on maybe hearing the pastimes of Krishna, reading about Krishna Leela and seeing Krishna not as we see Him but trying to see Krishna as those who are devoted to Him from that perspective then a whole new universe will open for us so approaching Krishna as an object of love as He is approached by His devotees can help us see that Krishna’s personality does not limit Him that if there is a whole arena of reality beyond just the attainment of peace beyond the agitation of the material world that can help us arise towards spiritual appreciation of Krishna’s personality does that answer your question? yes, thank you so thank you very much and we will continue next Monday and then we will be discussing on the 10th chapter on 9th to 12th we will try to take 4 chapters in next session thank you very much Hare Krishna Hare Krishna