Gita Jayanti special – part 1

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you very much. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nithyananda Shri Advaita Gadadhara Shri Vasadiga Bhaktavrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna.
I’m grateful to be here with all of you today. So today we are going to discuss the Bhagavad Gita on the occasion of the Gita Jayanti. So I’ll talk on the theme of repeated verses in the Bhagavad Gita.
So some verses are repeated partially, sometimes two lines are repeated, sometimes one line are repeated. So we look at these verses, how the repetitions in the Gita emphasise, convey its message. That will be the theme I’ll discuss.
So we will see how many verses we can take today and tomorrow. And the relationship with the Bhagavatam is of course that in the Bhagavatam, when Krishna has departed from the world and Arjuna is devastated, that is the time when he remembers the Bhagavad Gita and he gets solace. So we’ll talk about how the Gita’s message can provide solace to all of us also.
So let’s look at the verses that are repeated and what that repetition conveys. So let’s begin with first things first, as they say. So how many verses in the Gita are repeated? There are about half a dozen verses which are repeated to different degrees.
And there are, of course, if you consider two line repetitions, one line repetition and significant words repetition. So it could be phrases. Now, nowadays, if you say write articles, one sign of a good article is that you don’t repeat the same word again and again.
Say for example, it was wonderful, it was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. If the same pronoun comes again and again, then that’s considered at one level to be maybe the person who is writing doesn’t have a great vocabulary. That’s why they’re repeating that word.
However, if somebody who is known to be a good author repeats a word, then it indicates that that word has some special significance. So we will look at, depending on how much time we have, we look at repeated verses, we will look at repeated parts of verses and we look at repeated words today and tomorrow. So, let’s look at, today I’ll start with mainly two verses first, so 335.
So when we talk about repeated verses, because the Gita is just 700 verses, so 700 verses is just a few thousand words. Now, if you consider the Gita itself, the whole Gita, if you printed it on a page of New York Times, just the front page and the back page would complete the whole Gita. I will just mention the verses and we’ll discuss based on that.
Okay, so first I was talking about 335 in the Gita. श्रेयान् स्वधर्मो विगुणः परधर्मात् स्वनिष्ठितात् स्वधर्मे निधनं श्रेया परधर्मो भयावः So this is 335 in the Bhagavad Gita. So, one of the fundamental principles in the Gita or a fundamental principles of teaching is that first of all, teaching has to be relevant.
See, learning can happen in different contexts. So somebody is going to a school where they have formal education, they are obligated to learn over there, because they are paying for it more or less. But unless people feel that this is relevant to me, why does this matter to me? So unless that relevance is there, the interest doesn’t come and learning doesn’t happen.
That’s why the important thing is to begin with relevance. And how does one begin with relevance? So the Gita begins with Arjuna facing a serious problem. What is that problem? At one level, it is specific and on one level, it is universal.
And we’ll talk about the two verses are repeated in the Bhagavad Gita and how they address Arjuna’s question at a specific level and at a universal level. So generally speaking, any subject that we are discussing. So for example, somebody is, say, staying in a particular country and they’re thinking should I relocate to another country or not? So one is, the question can be addressed specifically at, should you relocate or not? And the question can be addressed at a universal level.
Okay, if somebody is immigrating, what are the results of, what are the factors to be considered in immigration? So any question can be addressed at a specific level for the particular person and it can be addressed at a universal level where broad principles apply. Now, if we consider, we may say specifics are more important than universals. Well, it depends.
If you’re talking one-to-one, if we know that person specifically, then we can talk about specifics and that helps. But if we don’t know that person, then it’s better to speak in universal principles. So if it becomes specifics, then what happens? For that person, it is super relevant, but for others, it is not relevant at all.
So it’s okay, you know, your parents are here and you are like this and you have this kind of job and that job is not available over there, that kind of career is not available over there. So it all becomes very specific. So specific increases relevance, but for a narrow audience.
And universal increases relevance for a broader audience. So good communication, especially has to deal with both the specifics and the universals so that the message can be learned in a way that can be applied in that specific situation. And also one can learn something which helps one to apply in other situations.
So if the Gita focusses only on the specifics of say Arjuna’s battle and should Arjuna fight or should Arjuna not fight, then it becomes a matter of interest only for Arjuna and those who are interested in Arjuna or the Mahabharata. Then the Gita becomes just like some historical book or even some fictional book, say in some historical situation, there was a war to be fought. So in the Second World War, should Hitler have attacked with Russia while he was fighting on the Eastern Front, while he was fighting on the Western Front also, people debate that.
And so if you consider Star Wars, in Star Wars, should this war have been fought or not? Should this person have fought on this side or that side? So people who have specific interest in that particular context, only they find it interesting. So the Gita, Gita’s relevance is there to the Mahabharata and the Gita’s relevance transcends beyond the Mahabharata. The Bhagavad Gita is a book which is a part of the Mahabharata, part of the Bhishma Parva and simultaneously the Bhagavad Gita goes far beyond the Mahabharata.
So how does it do these both things? That’s what we will try to discuss. So the specific question for Arjuna is, should I fight or not? Now he’s not asking, this question could be seen at different levels. So should I fight this particular war or should I fight at all? Should I be a fighter at all? And then going beyond, you know, who am I and what am I meant to do? So generally, you know, very few people suddenly start asking about universal questions.
Most people don’t suddenly wake up one day and think, oh, what is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of the universe? We all have certain issues that we are going through and quite often when we have set up some purpose for ourselves and that purpose either doesn’t work or that purpose works, but it doesn’t fulfil us and start asking, what does it matter? Or sometimes, you know, there is a theme called in psychology called post-disaster acceleration. Post-disaster acceleration means that after disaster, any kind of disaster, it might be a road accident, it might be a close shave with a terrible disease or it might be a mass terror attack. So what happens at that time, after that people accelerate things, you know, maybe I have to do these things.
So whatever it might be, it might be, they might be dragging their feet in a relationship, they might be dragging their feet about their spiritual life, whatever they consider important but they are postponing, they start postponing it. So the point is that there are things can be discussed at a specific level. So let’s look at the specific level.
So addressing Arjuna’s concern at a specific level, there are two verses. And addressing Arjuna’s concern at a universal level, there are two verses in the Bhagavad Gita. So what is the specific concern of Arjuna? Should I fight or should I not fight? Now basically, when he is asking that question, he is concerned about his relatives or there Bheeshma and Drona, Bheeshma, Drona, Pramukta, Sarveshwam, Mahikshitam, Uvachaparth, Pashaitan.
So he says Bheeshma and Drona and he says, they are the venerable elders and seeing them triggers this question. And the question for Arjuna is, what should I do? He starts thinking that should I be a Kshatriya at all? See, in the past, most people had well-defined social roles. And if a person in a particular social role, they would naturally take up the responsibility of that role.
So that was the sense of duty or responsibility, which was implicit in society in the past. So because of that, now Arjuna thought if I am a warrior, if I am a Kshatriya, then I have to fight. And so Arjuna was torn between two duties.
One was his duty as a Kshatriya. The Kshatriya, he has to fight against aggressors and he can’t avoid fighting against them. But he’s also a member of a particular family, a particular dynasty.
He’s a member of the Kuru dynasty. So there is Kshatriya dharma and there is Kula dharma. So his duty as a warrior and his duty as a member of a particular dynasty.
Now quite often in today’s world, we may be quite uprooted or disconnected from our sense of dynasty or traditions. In the past, actually, the fact that a person belonged to a particular dynasty and that it’s my duty to continue the dynasty and to take care of the dynasty. That means that if there are people who are connected with my family, even if like a remote connection, still I have to take care of them, if I can, to my capacity.
So there is an extended sense of responsibility was there because of the sense of dynastic connection. Now, of course, there is something called an antinatal movement, which says that the world is such a miserable place that actually we will be causing suffering to our children if they are born in this world. So therefore, to protect our future children from suffering in this world, we will not give them birth.
So now, this is quite a superficial understanding. Yes, the world is a place of suffering, but the solution is that we teach responsibility. We give a spiritual purpose and meaning by which they can tolerate and transcend the suffering.
So Arjuna had that sense of dynastic responsibility. So should he do his Kula Dharma or should he do his Kshatriya Dharma? That was the question for Arjuna and Krishna answers this at one level in 335 when he says that Shreyan Swadharmo Viguna Paradharma Swanishchitath Swadharme Nidhanam Shreya Paradharmo Bhayavaham. So let us look at this verse and then look at another verse, 335 and 1847.
Shreyan Swadharmo Viguna Paradharma Swanishchitath Swabhavanyatam Karma Kurvannapnoti Kilvisham. So, this is half of the verse is exactly similar in both of these. So what is happening here in this two half of the verses when they are similar? That first it is saying that Shreyan Swadharmo Viguna, it is far better to do one’s dharma even if it is Viguna, when it is faulty, then Paradharma Swanishchitath, Paradharma then to do another dharma Swanishchitath, better to be situated in one’s own dharma.
Why? In fact, Krishna goes further and says Swadharme Nidhanam Shreya, Swadharme, to be situated in one’s own dharma and even if one is destroyed while doing that, that is better, Shreya, that is better than Paradharmo Bhayavaham, that doing another’s duty is fearful, it is fearful, do not do it like that, Paradharmo Bhayavaham. So what is going on over here? What Krishna is saying is that there are certain things which are to be feared and certain things which are not to be feared. It’s very significant that when Arjuna is fighting the war and he expresses various kinds of apprehensions about fighting the war, the Kurukshetra war, he doesn’t mention even once fear of his own death.
Oh, what will happen if my enemies overpower me and they kill me, then fear of death is not a consideration at all. There is fear of the death of his loved ones, those whom he is opposing, there is the fear of sinful reactions, but there is no fear of death, of his own death per se. So why is that? Because Arjuna is a warrior and warriors are trained to be fearless and Arjuna is not just like an ordinary warrior, he is an extraordinary warrior.
So, yudhe chaapya palayanam, abhayam, that one fearlessly refuses to turn away from a war when that is required. So that is, fearlessness is there. So when Arjuna is talking about bhaya, in life, sometimes people like to hear seminars, how to overcome all your fears.
Well, well, well, I don’t think all our fears are ever to be overcome. There are many fears which are overcome, to be overcome, and there are some fears which are healthy and those fears actually need to be cultivated. So for example, if a child is just, children might be fearful of the dark.
Well, a child, suddenly if the things go dark and a child starts screaming or starts crying, running, well, it’s not that everything dark is filled with some monsters. As we grow older, we have to grow the fear of the dark. So that is a fear to be outgrown.
But if a child is rushing into the traffic in the middle of the road, so that one should not do that. So here it’s ironical that we grow out of some fears and we grow into some fears. So in some contexts, fearlessness indicates growth.
You know, children are afraid of the dark, but as we grow older, they’re not that afraid of the dark. But children may not be afraid of going in the middle of a road, but adults are afraid of that. So we grow out of some fears and we grow into some fears.
And this is how we can differentiate between unhealthy fears and healthy fears. So, Krishna is telling here, bhaya vaha, this is fearsome, this is to be feared. So now, say, for example, in the current pandemic, some people might have no fear, it’s no big disease.
Well, we might think like that, but then we hear about the death toll and we hear about the severe consequences, then we say, maybe I should fear this, maybe there is to be feared. Now, of course, there can be paranoia, there can be excessive fear and that has to be avoided. But the point is that we grow out of some fears and we grow into some fears.
So Arjuna is not having the fear of, say, death over here at all. But what is his fear? His fear is that by my wrong choices, I may be the cause of death of so many people. This is how actually responsibility means that we become aware of the consequences of our actions.
So many times when people become powerful, they may not realise what the power means. So if somebody has a gun, then they can kill so many people with that gun. Somebody is the head of a state, especially if they have a state with weapons of mass destruction, then they can cause the death of thousands and millions of people.
So with power comes responsibility and Arjuna is thinking very carefully about how I should discharge my responsibility. So what is to be feared? So he’s thinking that if I fight this war, then so many people will be killed and that is what is to be feared. So, going back to the earlier point, we could say education or growth is not so much about eradication of fear as redefinition of fear.
It is not that as we grow up, we become free from all fears, rather we become this redefinition of fears. Okay, this is not to be feared, but this is to be feared. So, what is the Gita, Gita is helping Arjuna to educate himself so that he knows what is to be feared.
So he’s thinking in terms of if I fight this war, people will be killed and therefore I should not fight this war. But what Krishna is telling him is that what is fearsome, what is to be feared is not so much the consequence of whether you fight this war or not, but rather whether you do your duty or not. So why is that being talked about over here, what is to be feared is whether you are doing your duty or not.
That is important. Here, Krishna doesn’t say specifically why it is important that better to be destroyed while doing one’s duty. Here, the word dharma is used in the sense of beauty.
The word dharma has many different meanings in different contexts in the Bhagavad Gita and normal context in which we use the word dharma, dharma as innate nature, that which makes a person, like dharma of water is air, dharma of fire is to burn, that is a foundational meaning of the word dharma. But the Bhagavad Gita never uses the word dharma in that sense. The word Bhagavad Gita uses the word dharma either in the sense of beauty or in the sense of order.
When Krishna says dharma samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge, I come to establish dharma. So now if dharma is our innate nature, why is that to be established? What Krishna is talking over here is that dharma refers to the social order that will enable people to function in a way by which they can realise their innate nature. So that sense of innate nature is there, but that is not the primary meaning.
So similarly dharma can refer to social order, dharma can also refer to individual duty. What is one’s duty? So when we do our duty, then social order is maintained and eventually we can realise our innate nature. So here the word dharma is used in the sense of that duty.
So swadharma, your innate duty you should do. Now the Bhagavad Gita also talks about innateness at different levels. Swadharma refers, when the Bhagavad Gita uses the word over here, it is not referring to the atma dharma.
It is not referring to the duty of the soul. It is referring to the duty of Arjuna in his particular society according to his social situation, according to his psychophysical nature. So here Krishna says this is to be feared, that if you, to give up your duty is to be feared.
So normally one will think to be destroyed, to face devastation, that is to be feared. But Krishna says no, destruction is not to be feared. Swadharme nidhanam shreya paradharmo bhayavaha.
That doing one’s duty is more important, it’s preferable that even if that leads to destruction rather than doing someone else’s duty, paradharmo bhayavaha. Now this verse paradharmo bhayavaha is often, because the Gita is a very popular book, many times certain quotes from the Gita are taken out of context and used by different people for different purposes. Now India has an insurance company, or it had one prominent insurance company, so their slogan was Yogakshemam Vahamyaham.
The Gita verse says I will protect what you have and provide what you lack. So they take that as a slogan. There is a prominent labour empowerment organisation which has taken the slogan as Swakarmanatam Abhyarchya, work is worship.
So now it’s okay that at least they are connecting some way with the Gita, but they are not really understanding the meaning of the Gita. So similarly in India there is a lot of concern about say Hindus getting converted to Islam or to Christianity. So there are campaigns against this and the slogans of many campaigners who campaign against the conversion, this is paradharmo bhayavaha.
Other people’s religion is fearful, so therefore you should not convert to Islam or Christianity. Now Krishna is not talking about other religions over here. Krishna is talking about other duties according to one’s psychophysical nature.
So such appropriation of the Gita for one’s purposes, well we can see it in two ways. At one level, Gita is at least coming in the orbit of the consciousness of people, in that sense you could say it’s okay, but in another sense because they are largely or entirely missing the meaning of the Gita, that’s unhealthy. So anyway, in the second verse, so here Krishna just talks about education in terms of what is to be feared and what is not to be feared.
Now in the next part, that is 1847, Krishna talks about One who acts in this way will not face any sinful reaction, any contamination. One who does one’s duty, such a person will not get any contamination, will not get any sinful reactions. So Arjuna’s concern at one level was, his fear was not that I am going to die.
His fear was also that actually, was not just that all these warriors will die. Yes, that was there, of course all these warriors will die, but if I choose wrongly and I cause the death of all those warriors, I will have to bear the sinful reactions. So in life, sometimes we say, okay, there are choices for us.
There is a good choice and a bad choice, but sometimes the only choice in life is between a bad choice and a worse choice. So life sometimes is just so terrible. So say, for example, we might want to distribute everything fairly.
So suppose there is a ship which is sinking and there are 500 people in that ship and that ship has only boats which can carry about 50 people from there. So now what do we do at that time? What do we do at that time? We could say that nobody should be treated unfairly. So nobody should be treated unfairly, then what do you do? If everybody is to be treated equally, everybody cannot get into the boat because the boat can fit only 50 people.
So the only way to have equality would be to let everybody drown and let nobody board the boat. You would say, that’s stupid. Equality is an important virtue, but survival is an even more important virtue.
So yes, it would be best if all 500 could survive, but if all 500 can’t survive, then let at least some people survive. So this actually happened. This was a famous court case in the British Empire, this is almost in the 17th, 18th century, that there were three people who were stranded on a boat after their ship had sunk.
And this seems quite ghastly, but eventually they decided that there is no way we can survive. They were starving and then they decided to cannibalise one of the persons. Anyway, one person was the weakest, he was going to die and then they said, so we will kill you and we will eat you and that way we will survive.
So now eventually they found a ship, rescued them and they survived. So then the question came up that did they commit murder or not? So the British court eventually found that they decided they had committed murder. So why? Because they had, now the question comes up, if they had made like a toss and they had taken a toss and decided, you know, that among the three of us, whoever loses the toss, that person will fall first, that person will be cannibalised first.
That’s terrible. But at least there is some basis for the decision making. If two stronger people just pounce on the third person and kill, that’s very bad.
But now there is a concept of sacrifice in life. So now I’m not going to get into the ethics of that particular decision, but I’m saying that this is not just hypotheticals, this kind of situations come in real life also. So what Krishna is telling Arjuna is that as long as you do your duty, then the consequences, if you are doing your duty responsibly, then it is, you won’t be contaminated by the consequences of your actions.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that one shouldn’t at all be concerned about the consequences. What it means is that one should not give up the duty just because it is uncomfortable. So should we not consider the consequences? Of course, we have to consider the consequences.
When the Bhagavad Gita says, ma phaleshu kadachana, don’t be attached to the fruits, that doesn’t mean lack of concern for the consequences. That only means that the consequences should not be the sole consideration for deciding what we should do. Because when you talk about consequences also, what each of us may prioritise a particular set of consequences.
So we say these consequences are undesirable or these consequences are undesirable. So which consequences are undesirable? Some people say that the planet is in a big crisis right now. Okay, so what should be done? Actually humanity is the problem.
Humanity has caused the planet to be in crisis. So let’s eliminate all humanity. Well, do we really want to commit mass genocide and kill all human beings? Well, that would be horrendous.
So we may consider, somebody may consider the devastation that we are doing to the planet. That’s a bad consequence. But if we choose this and destroy all of humanity, that’s also a bad consequence.
But that’s also a horrible consequence in fact. So what Krishna tells Arjuna is that you look at the consequence, not just in terms of if you fight this war and these particular warriors are killed, since that you are doing your duty is maintaining the fabric of society. And unless the fabric of society in terms of social order is maintained, what will happen if that is not maintained, then whole society will collapse.
So Krishna expands Arjuna’s vision. Now, this is his saying that everybody has to do their duty according to their subhava. If Arjuna does not do the duty of a Kshatriya, other Kshatriyas may not do their duty, other Brahmanas may not do their duty, other Vaishyas may not do their duty, other Shudras may not do their duty.
And if everybody abandons their duty, then society will collapse much worse than if a particular war is fought and it turns out to be disastrous. So Krishna expands Arjuna’s perspective. So this is one level of the Gita’s comparison.
So the Gita, when it talks about swadharma, it talks about in terms of Arjuna’s body and mind. So although the Gita begins very categorically by saying that you are not the body, you are actually, you are the soul in the body. In fact, the Bhagavad Gita itself does not contain any direct verse which says that you are not the body.
You are the soul. What it says is that the real soul is inside the body or to think oneself to be the body is an illusion. But the Gita talks about swadharma very much in terms of the body, the body and the mind.
Because it’s like if I have a bicycle and I try to drive it like a motorcycle, it’s not going to work. If I have a tractor and I try to drive it like a sports car, it’s not going to work. If I have a helicopter and I try to drive it like a jumbo jet, it’s not going to work.
So the Gita first talks, basically in life, there are two defining questions. Everybody’s life. There are many, many questions.
One question is, we could say two defining questions is sadhan and sadhya. What am I meant to do and how am I going to do it? So in every situation. So for example, if you are hungry, you say, okay, what am I going to eat? And how am I going to get that to eat? Sadhan and sadhya.
So this is always there in the small term, in big term, in the ultimate terms also. So what is it that is to be achieved in one’s life and how is it that to be achieved? So if we consider in terms of driving, now where do I want to go and how will I get there? So okay, if I have a car, then if I want to get to any destination, I need to understand how the car works. Then if I understand how the car works, then I can drive that car smoothly.
So the first half of the Gita is focussing on this part of understand your car and work according to the nature of your car. The second verse in the second set of verses in the Gita which are repeated are 934 and 1865. So 934 is manmana bhava mad-bhakto, madhyaji mam namaskuru, mam evaiśyasi yuktvayivam ātmānāṁ mat-parāyanaḥ.
So ātmānāṁ mat-parāyanaḥ, Krishna says that if you work in this way, if you are devoted to me, you will come to me. And 1865 is mam evaiśyasi satyam te pratijāne priyauśi me, that is 1865. In this way, if you work, I guarantee you that you will come to me.
So this verse, as I said, if you want to drive, okay, where do I want to go and how do I want to go? So the two verses that are repeated first, we talk about 335 and 1847, they are talking about how to drive, how, what way, understand your vehicle and drive it accordingly. And 934 and 1865 talk about where to go. So sādhan and sādhya, these two are vital for us.
So where to go, we have to attain Krishna. So in one sense, we are not the body, we are the soul, but we are the soul in a particular body. So we have two sense of obligations.
One is, okay, how do I act according to the nature of my body so that I can function effectively? And the second is how I can realise my nature spiritually. So sometimes we talk about potential, in spiritual life, sometimes we say it is, in spiritual life, you do not become somebody, you just realise who you are. So yes, but sometimes you also talk about, you know, you can become a better person, you can become a better human being.
So now what does it, or you can become a better devotee, what does it mean? So there are two aspects to it. At the level of the soul, improvement means just realisation of who we are. At the level of the body and the mind, improvement means becoming someone better.
So we could say there is self-realisation and there is self-improvement. So self-realisation, with respect to the soul, there is no self-improvement. Just I have to realise who I am.
And with respect to the body and the mind, with respect to the functioning of the body and the mind, each of us can improve. Even when we are serving Krishna, we can improve how we share Krishna’s message, how we cook for Krishna, how we sing for Krishna. There are so many services, and even in our day-to-day life, there are so many things we can improve.
So both aspects of life are there. So the first set of repetition talks about, we could say, more of self-manifestation or self-actualisation, self-improvement. Understand your nature and then become the best you can be.
So, you know, some people say that you can be anyone whom you want, anyone you want to be. Well, that’s a lie. We can be the best of who we are gifted to be.
It’s not that everybody has every talent and everybody can become everything. Not everybody can become the world’s top singer or the world’s top speaker or the world’s top dancer. But we all have certain gifts.
We find those gifts and in that area, we can become the best we can be. So in a sense, you know, we don’t choose our interests. Our interests choose us.
We don’t choose our talents. Our talents choose us. So we have certain gifts and we need to use them.
So that is the self-manifestation or self-actualisation part. So what we can become by improving ourselves. And the second is the self-realisation part, where we realise I am a part of Krishna.
So here Krishna is saying, manmana bhava mad-bhakto madhyaji mam namaskuru. So this actually talks about, we have a physical body. We have a mind.
Then we have, we could say we have the heart and we have the ego. So manmana bhava mad-bhakto madhyaji mam namaskuru. So manmana means offer your mind.
Mind is a part of the inner world. It is the inner world. But we could say mind is a superficial part of the inner world.
The heart is, which is the deeper part of our inner world. Our mind goes to 100 places. It goes here, it goes there.
But you know, our heart goes to where we are prominently invested, prominently attached. So Krishna says, first focus your conscious attention on the manmana. Then that bhava mad-bhakto.
So at the deepest level of your consciousness, you place me over there. And madhyaji mam namaskuru, worship me. That means you offer your ego, your heart, your whole being to me.
And mam namaskuru, offer your obeisances to me. So basically there are different ways of analysing this. But the essence is that we offer our entire being to Krishna.
And then after that, what he says is the important thing. This part is the same in the Gita. The second part is mam evaisyasi yuktvayivam atmanam matparayanah.
That you will come to me if you do this, this, this. If in this way you are devoted completely to me, you will attain me. Whereas the second part is mam evaisyasi satyam te pratijane priyosi me.
If you do this, I promise you, you will do this, you will get this, you will attain this. So it’s like if you consider a parent and a child, the child is not ready to do something which is important for the parent. It’s important for the child also, but the child doesn’t understand it.
Now if you do your homework, then if you get this kind of grades in your class, then I’ll get you this toy or I’ll give you this thing, whatever it is. So now when the parent is telling something like this, if you do this, this, then you can get this. That’s one way of telling it.
That’s simply like information. It’s information about a deal. If you do this, then you can get this.
But if that same parent says, if you can just do this, I promise you, I’ll give that to you. So what that means is the parent is much, much more eager had the child do that particular thing. So one is more like a dispassionate description of a reciprocation.
The other is more like an impassioned call for reciprocation. Let’s do this. So 934 is more like a dispassionate information.
If you do this, you will come to me. There’s a promise over there of reciprocation. But in the second half also, in the first half, there’s a description of what is to be done.
But in the second half, what happens is Krishna says, that is his promise. But after that, again, it’s the emphasis on what he has to do, what Arjuna has to do. In this way, if your whole being is offered to me, is engaged in connection with me, then you will come to me.
So the emphasis is on what Arjuna has to do. But, That is the promise part. But the whole second part is the promise.
I’m speaking the truth. I’m declaring this because you are very dear to me. You are very dear to me.
So that’s the point over there. So if you understand the context of the Gita, then you will understand that, actually here Krishna’s heart is coming out. Krishna’s love is coming out.
And Krishna is eager. Krishna talks at various levels. Yes, we all have to act according to our nature.
And it’s important that we maintain social order. Yes, that’s true. But ultimately, Krishna wants us all to come to him.
And that is where his heart’s longing is. Krishna’s desire, Prabhupada says in the first canto Bhagavatam that, Krishna’s desire that we come to him is far stronger than our desire to go to him. In fact, it is so much stronger that we can’t even conceive it.
That is the nature of Krishna and his love. So we all need to move forward in that direction. And to the extent we do that, to that extent, we all can grow.
So when Arjuna remembers the Gita, say, after Krishna has disappeared, now he has done his duty as a Kshatriya. And now he realises Kshatriyas do their duty as householders and the Kshatriyas take the retired order. They don’t exactly become sannyasis, but they become vanaprasthas.
So he realises the mission that Krishna has given for me now is over in terms of Rajadharma, in terms of administering the duty. And therefore, now let me turn toward the Lord. Let me become exclusively devoted to the Lord.
So both these verses, doing our swadharma and doing our bhakti, both work in harmony and both are emphasised in the Bhagavad Gita. So if we focus only on our body and we forget the soul, this is what harmonises with my body and that’s what I want to do. But then we will get alienated by that.
If we focus only on the soul, then we will get alienated even by that. So we have to balance both. So we could say, we don’t pamper the body, but we don’t torment the body.
We harmonise with the body so that we can realise the soul. And that is the essential message of the Gita. So the Gita specifically tells Arjuna to fight the war.
Not because of worrying about the consequences that will happen, specific set of consequences, but because that’s his nature and he should do it. And if he is doing, acting according to his nature in a mood of service to the Lord, then the Lord will bring about auspiciousness. The Lord will ensure victory.
The Lord will ensure that everything auspicious will result from it. Similarly for us, so we understand our, when we say discover yourself, our discovery can refer to realisation. Discovery can also refer to manifestation.
So we manifest who we can be at the level of the body and the mind. We all can become better in every way, in many ways, at the level of our body and mind. And we can realise who we are at the level of the soul.
And the Bhagavad Gita is talking about both these dimensions. And this way, it’s a universal message. The Bhagavad Gita is relevant universally because it talks about both these aspects.
To realise who we are and to manifest who we are. And those two verses which are repeated in the Bhagavad Gita talk about these two manifestations. So self-manifestation or self-actualisation, becoming who we are meant to be at the level of the body and mind, and realising who we are at the level of the soul.
So we learn to love Krishna by understanding our body-mind machine and using this machine to practise bhakti. And thereby the soul’s love for Krishna awakens and ultimately we attain Krishna. And that attaining Krishna is the ultimate purpose of the Gita.
That is the purpose why Krishna speaks the Gita. And that is the focus that Shri Prabhupada has in his Gita. And throughout he again and again says the purpose of the Gita is spoken to help us all become conscious of Krishna, to fix our mind and intelligence on Krishna.
And to love Krishna, to live in Krishna in this world, and to ultimately attain Krishna beyond this world. So I’ll summarise. I spoke today about the Gita in three terms, or in rather two terms, the specific and the universal message of the Gita.
The specific message of the Gita is that each one of us has to, in a particular context to do a particular duty. And Arjuna was told that understand your nature and then do your duty. Don’t look at a particular set of consequences going wrong because you are doing your duty.
But not doing your duty can lead to a bigger set of wrong consequences. And so we talked about how education means we grow out of some fears and we grow into some fears. So we grow out of the fear of say just dark places, but we grow into the fear of going in the middle of traffic.
So like that, Krishna is telling Arjuna, don’t have fear of either the death of your own death or the death of your loved ones. Grow out of that fear. The first fear Arjuna never had.
But the second fear also Krishna tells Arjuna to grow out of it. But what is the fear? That if you function disharmoniously, then that will set off a domino effect by which everybody will function disharmoniously and society will be disrupted. And then I talked about life.
There are two things. Now, how to go and where to go. So sadhan and sadhya, the means and the ends.
So this applies at the immediate level. It applies at the ultimate level also. The Gita talks about things.
Gita’s universality is because it talks about this at the ultimate level. What is immediate and what is ultimate? So what is to be done and how is it to be done? So what is to be done? That is we could say self-manifestation, self-actualisation. We understand our body, mind, machine and use it to the best effect.
And self-realisation is we understand ourselves as soul and that is not something we become, but we already realise who we are. So the Bhagavad Gita offers a balance of both and ultimate message is that Krishna is desperately, intensely calling us to offer our heart to him and to therefore not just attain him in future, but to live in him even in the present. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So are there any questions or comments? Thank you so much, Prabhu. I’m just unmuting everyone.
I’m sure like there must be there’ll be some questions. So please feel free to unmute yourself and ask your questions or comments. How much time do we have, Prabhu? We have as long as you have and all the participants, we have the time, Prabhu.
No problem. You don’t have darshan today? I did not focus on that side because we started late. So it’s happening in the temple hall.
I didn’t I didn’t make it part of this class today. Hare Krishna. Chaitanya Chaiyya Prabhu.
Thanks for the wonderful class. If Krishna’s message in the Gita is ultimate, why? Why do we have to balance it with other messages that are less ultimate or relative? Like what do you mean to say? Surrender to me. Do your dharma.
Ultimate dharma is to serve Krishna. Do we have to reconcile it with our other dharmas that are less ultimate? Like our body, mind and everything like that. OK, good question.
Do we need to reconcile the ultimate dharma with the subordinate dharmas? Well, there is an understanding of the ultimate dharma in a fragmental sense or there is an understanding of the ultimate dharma in an integral sense. In a fragmental sense means that, say, we understand we are souls. This is true.
But does that mean that we have nothing to do with our body and mind? If that were true, then why do we have to eat food? Why do we wear warm clothes in winter? Why does even the Vedic body of knowledge have Ayurveda as a whole branch of knowledge extensively researched for taking care of health? So if you understand that, yes, our ultimate dharma is to serve Krishna and that is the nature of the soul. The soul is in a particular situation right now. So why should we not offer the best that we can to Krishna? But to offer the best we can, we need to know the best that we have.
So suppose the concept of Kshetra is used in the 13th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. Kshetra is the field. So now if somebody does some agriculture, they know that not all kinds of grains grow at all places.
So not all kinds of fruits grow at all places. So if a place is suitable for the growth of rice and we are trying to grow, say, some millets over there, and the only thing that is going to happen is we are going to struggle and we are not going to get much growth over there. So if we know, we understand, okay, this is the place where rice grows and then we help rice to be, we cultivate rice over there, we can offer, we will have a good bounty.
So our purpose is to offer ourselves to Krishna. But how can we offer ourselves unless we understand ourselves? So understanding ourselves doesn’t mean only understanding our soul. Also understanding means our body and mind.
Because to the extent we understand our body and mind, to that extent we can offer the best to Krishna. So we cannot, no matter how much effort we put, it’s very difficult to say, make mangoes grow in a desert area. So we all have particular natures and if we want to offer the best to Krishna, if we understand the field that we have, understand the Kshetra that we have, then we can offer particular fruits, particular grains to Krishna.
So, yes, the ultimate dharma is to offer, is to surrender to Krishna. But each of us is individual and each of us has to surrender on our own. Nobody else can surrender for us.
So how do we surrender? So unless we understand ourselves, unless we understand the field that we have, how will we know what can best grow over here? And if we don’t know what can best grow over here, how can we offer the best that we could have offered? Does it answer your question? Yes, Prabhu. Thank you very much. That makes perfect sense.
Thank you. Thank you, Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna, Prabhuji.
For that three cannibals thing when you said, right? So the British government, the judgement like what verdict it gave and then what was the, what should be the verdict? That is a big question about ethics. So, you know, there are different. I’ll talk about broader perspectives over it.
Then we’ll come to specific perspectives. So there is one perspective, survival of the fittest. And we could say that is the law of the jungle.
The strong prey on the weak. Now we could say human society has another perspective. That is, we could say sacrifice of the fittest.
So when the Twin Towers were collapsing, then many firefighters ran into the Twin Towers so that they could rescue people from there. Now we could reasonably argue that the firefighters were in far better condition than the people who were probably trapped inside the Twin Towers. And while going in, they succumbed.
So some of them succumbed when they went in over there. So now what is, did they do the right thing or did they do the wrong thing? So, well, both principles are valid. Survival of the fittest and sacrifice of the fittest.
So now at one extreme, you could say the human tendency is to sacrifice by the fittest. And the animal tendency is to survival of the fittest. Well, yes and no.
Yes and no means that in general, the humans, if you have to express our humanity, it is to be by, we should be ready to sacrifice. In fact, all of human society is organised based on the principle of sacrifice. And that’s what we call as cultured society.
Now if say a person who can’t see is trying to cross the road. Now if other people assist that person. Now here, that’s not much of a sacrifice.
Just you sacrifice a few minutes of your time to help the other person get to safety. And if nobody does that, then you would say what kind of uncultured society is this? Somebody refuses to do that. So we could say in the normal conduct of human society, sacrifice is vital.
And the whole Gita is centred on the mood of sacrifice. Yajna. Yajna itself means sacrifice.
So Krishna also talks about how for a higher cause, a lower cause has to be sacrificed. So the idea is, yes, it would be best if nobody is killed, if the war can be avoided. And Krishna himself exerts to avoid that war.
Krishna was a Shantidut. But eventually, sacrifice has to be done because otherwise there will be vicious people who are ruling and they will terrorise society. So one principle is in the normal course of society, for a society to be cultured and human, sacrifice by the fittest is what is required.
Having said that, currently with respect to the pandemic coming up, the vaccine for the pandemic coming up, if we presume that the vaccine is safe and it works, then with that presumption, who should be given the vaccine first? Should we give it to the people who are just the wealthiest or should we give it to the people who are the most vulnerable? The most vulnerable are the frontline health care workers or are they the elderly or those with respiratory tract diseases? These are decisions. So now we might say that, OK, now let’s consider sacrifice by the fittest or survival of the fittest. So if you talk survival of the fittest and we say the elderly are anyway, they are toward the end of their life.
So let’s give the vaccines to all the people who are the fittest. Why bother about that? But if you say that, no, no, no, but actually, where is our compassion? We give all the vaccines to the people who are elderly. Then what happens? Then we may say, OK, the elderly may survive, but if in the process all the health care workers suffer and they die or all or many large people die, then who is going to care? Who is going to fight against the pandemic? Who is going to care for the elderly who survive? So we can’t simply presume that survival of the fittest is always the bad principle.
Say the standard example in medicine is given that if there is a doctor who is on a war field and there are, say, 10 people who are wounded, one of them is hopelessly wounded, is very seriously wounded, and the chance of that person surviving is barely maybe 10 or 20 percent. The doctor can battle and save everyone, save that person also. But in trying to save that person, the remaining nine people who have moderate wounds, their wounds will worsen and they will die.
So what should the doctor do at that time? At that time, the doctor has to choose. And the choosing would mean that, you know, for one person’s life, you know, if nine percent people can survive, that should be done. So I would say that from the Bhagavad Gita’s perspective, we don’t… So this is a broad genetic analysis of whether survival is important or sacrifice is important.
So sacrifice is required everywhere. You could say sacrifice is required for survival. Survival is required for sacrifice.
If you don’t survive, what are you going to sacrifice? So that has to be decided. And the key balancing principle would be the ultimate interest, the ultimate purpose of life. So how can life’s ultimate purpose be furthered? So specific ethical dilemmas, there are no quick answers to them.
But so is there any specific answer that the Bhagavad Gita or the Vedic wisdom gives in that situation? I haven’t seen anything like that. dharmasya tattvam nihitam guhāyam mahājano yena gataḥ sapanthā That dharma is not located in just some esoteric scriptural text. If I just find the words, if I find the reference, then all my questions will be solved.
All my problems will be answered. Not like that. dharmasya tattvam nihitam guhāyam Dharma is hidden in the deepest reaches of the heart.
It is hidden in the cave. The cave refers to the heart. And to go into our heart and understand what is dharma, we have to go outward and look at those who have lived according to dharma.
mahājano yena gataḥ sapanthā We look at the activities of the great souls and we look at how they have acted. And not that we imitate them, but we try to understand their consciousness. And then we try to internalise their consciousness and thereby we choose.
Okay. So. Thank you.
Thank you. Any last question or should we stop here? I have one small question. Like generally we speak about like Bhagavad Gita speaks about transcending the mind or transcending the body because basically it speaks about transcending the modes.
But the modes primarily for us like is influenced through the body and the mind. And there is the other concept of like neglecting the body or neglecting the mind. So for someone who is like just beginning to practise, neglecting the body or the mind almost seems like transcending the body or mind.
Okay. How do we understand the difference actually? So what is the difference between say transcending and neglecting? Well, I would say that to say that the Bhagavad Gita asks us to transcend is true. But we have to also consider the fact that say we have to climb up a mountain.
Now one path might be very difficult. One path might be relatively easier. Now you can say another path is easy, but it doesn’t go up the mountain at all.
It goes deep into the valley. Now obviously we don’t want to choose a path which is going down into the valley. But if you have to go up the mountain and if one path is easier and one path is tougher, both are going to the same destination.
Then there is no need to choose the tougher path. The purpose is to get to the destination. So similarly, the idea when we say, we could say there is something about neglecting the body.
And that means with respect to the body and the mind, there are many cravings which come and go. And those need to be neglected. So we might just be walking along the road and we see something.
Okay, this is a nice movie. I want to go and watch a movie. Or I want to eat this food.
Well, is that really important for you? Does it really matter for you? If it’s not that important, there are cravings which come and go, which have to be neglected. But when you talk about the Swabhava, the nature, where is that nature situated? This is Kshatriya, Brahmana, Vaishya, Shudra. This is not situated in the soul.
This is very much in the mind itself. So that part cannot be neglected. That part has to be harmonised.
So we could say within us, there are some drives that are to be neglected. And gradually as we neglect them, they will become smaller and smaller till we transcend them. Somebody might have a habit of drinking.
They go by a bar and they get the urge to drink. They say, no, I’m not going to drink. I’ve got more important things to do in my life.
And gradually as they keep saying no to drinking, then eventually what happens? They may pass by a bar and they may not feel the urge to drink also. So neglecting means something is present and we are conscious of it. But we don’t indulge in it.
Transcending means we are not even conscious of it. We are so busy in our thought that we don’t even notice that there is a bar over there. Or we might notice it, but it doesn’t tempt us.
So neglecting is a presence of distraction or temptation, but refusal to pander to it. But so we could say neglecting involves a conscious effort. Transcending is almost subconscious.
Our consciousness is attracted elsewhere so that we don’t even notice it. So some of our urges, initially we need to neglect them so that we can transcend them. Some of them we harmonise.
So we harmonise with them. So, for example, our particular psychophysical nature, we harmonise with it. And there are some aspects of our being which we ultimately, which is our soul’s longing for Krishna, that is to be nourished.
And that leads to the ultimate self-expression and that is the perfection of our being. Does it answer the question, Prabhu? Yes, I appreciate how you brought the aspect of, like there are certain things that needs to be neglected, but it can help us transcend eventually. Like the lower tendencies, by neglecting them gradually, one can come to the stage of transcending them, not being disturbed by them.
At the same time, just a small follow up, as long as you have time. Yeah, sure. The follow up is like, we don’t neglect the nature of Kshatriya and all those things that you’re saying, like Kshatriya or Vaishya, these kind of tendencies that we don’t neglect.
When you say that in current society, when we don’t have defined roles or abilities or clarity. So how much it is helpful that Bhagavad Gita is speaking about these things, like because you said there is a specific message in Bhagavad Gita, there is a universal message. But we also almost drew a universal message from that specific message also.
Yeah, that is because of many reasons. First is that sometimes the search for one’s own nature can itself become very obsessive. And even if we want to talk about our material nature, to understand that some amount of sattva guna is required.
Without sattva guna, there is not even material clarity, what to speak of spiritual clarity. So that’s why in today’s world where everybody is so confused, if we focus only on seeking our material nature, without seeking any kind of spiritual purification, then we will never find it. If you ask our mind, you know, what is my natural service? The mind will just give one answer.
Whatever you are doing right now, that is not your natural service. And it will keep saying that even when we are doing a service which is natural to us. Because even when something is natural, it’s not always comfortable.
It’s not always enjoyable. Somebody loves to sing, but do they love to sing all the time? Not necessarily. There are times when they also get tired, things are not working out.
They have to persevere. So we could say that in general, in the early stages, when we are in rajo guna and tamo guna, it is important for us to focus on purification. And Srila Prabhupada did clearly say, when he was singing the markini bhagavad dharma, the song which he composed when he was beholding the American skyline.
So he said that most people today are in the modes of And therefore, the focus is generally on purification. But once there is purification, then there can be greater self-understanding. Prabhupada writes in the introduction of the Nectar of Instruction that once we come to the mode of goodness, then how to advance further will be revealed, will be revealed from within.
So there is that aspect also. I would say again, because of the context, the aspect of transcending and realising the soul has been emphasised. But there are sufficient mentions in the broader structure of Arunashram as well as Prabhupada’s talks where he does talk about serving according to our nature also.
But trying to understand our nature can become self-obsessive and self-indulgent. And that’s why, to some extent at least, pursuing self-realisation as a priority can also help us understand ourselves better. And then we can understand our material nature also.
Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Shrimad Bhagavad Gita Ki Jai.
Shri Prabhupada Ki Jai. Gaur Bhakta Vrinda Ki Jai.