RAMA NAVAMI SPECIAL: Indrajita’s snake attack & the attack of snake-like desires

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Shanti. Shanti.
Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.
Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.
Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.
Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.
Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.
Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.
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Shanti. My sincere apologies for the delay. I have been delayed many times, but this was too much.
Sorry. At the very least, I’ll make sure that I don’t go over time so that your schedule doesn’t get disrupted. So today we are discussing on the topic of the youth, the kind of the Ramayana and therein I’ll discuss one particular pastime and look at it’s a universal implications.
So in the Yudhkanda, there are many significant battles that happen. The battle, the confrontations between Ram and Ravan, Lord Ram and Kumbhakarna and Hanuman’s rescue attempt after Indrajeet knocks out or he has, there are different pastimes. The confrontation with Indrajeet is actually the most prolonged.
There are multiple conflicts with him and basically Indrajeet knocks out the royal princess from Ayodhya on multiple occasions. In fact, if you consider in the Ramayana, there are three distinct days on which Ram confronts Ravan. It’s interesting in the Ramayana that Ravan has the home advantage, but he never uses the home advantage fully.
What he means is, there are different commentators who commented on this. One major difference between the Kurukshetra war and the Mahabharata war is that the Kurukshetra war happens at one place which is at Kurukshetra and both the armies are there and both the full armies fight on all days with each other. Now generally whenever one force invades another force, say for example, right now there is a war going on between Russia and Ukraine.
So what happens is the forces of Russia have to go to the forces of Ukraine and one aspect of having the home advantage is that all the forces of the defending country are available. Whereas only that part of the attacking army which has actually come to that place is available. So if Russia attacks Ukraine, it is not that entire army of Russia is going to be at Ukraine.
Whereas the entire army of Ukraine can be theoretically available. They may not deploy because they may want to have other parts. So what happens is, in that sense Ravan has the home advantage.
His entire army is available. Whereas Ravan has none of the Ayodhya army, but he has whatever forces he has, he has with him. But Ravan’s arrogance is the cause of his undoing and he can’t believe that this army as he often calls it, this army of mere mortals and monkeys, mere humans and monkeys can even be a challenge for him.
That is why he remains secure inside his fortress. So basically the geography of Lanka as is described in the Mahabharata, in the Ramayana is quite different from the geography of Lanka as we see it today. So the point is that Lanka is described as a huge island and within that island at the centre is a huge fortress.
So when Lord Rama’s army by using the bridge, they come, they are on the island, but they are not inside the fortress. So Ravan stays inside the fortress and the fortress itself is quite impenetrable. Breaking the walls or breaking the doors is not easy at all.
So Ravan could have used two strategies. One is just stay inside and wait for Rama’s forces to break through and come inside. Or he could have opened the fortress doors and brought his full army out.
But he does neither. He has one one of his generals, whether it is his commander or any other, whether Indrajeet comes once, Kumbhakarna comes once, or Atikaya, Mahakaya, all these warriors, they come and they come with an army. But all his generals do not launch a simultaneous attack and they are all available.
So Ravan, Kumbhakarna, Indrajeet, Atikaya, Mahakaya, all of them are never together at one time on the battlefield. So it seems to be like an obvious error. He has the home advantage.
He could have used all the forces that he had and brought them, but he never does that. Now, what is the reason for that? So different commentators have addressed this issue, but basically they boil down to Ravan’s arrogance. He believes that just one of his generals is enough to destroy.
And then as one by one his generals start getting destroyed and defeated and destroyed, he starts becoming desperate that if he sends all his generals out in one go, he himself goes out together with all his generals and if they are all killed, then he will fall in one fell blow. That’s why, so initially it’s out of arrogance and afterwards it’s out of apprehension. So he, in one sense, never uses his full forces.
Of course, we can say Lord Rama also never uses his full forces because he doesn’t have the full forces with him. But whatever he has, they are all available with him. So among all the battles that happen between Lord Rama’s forces and Ravana’s forces who are coming out of the battlefield, the most, you could say, most damaging confrontation is between Indrajeet and Lord Rama’s forces.
So Ravan actually is not as much a threat. In one sense, he does not inflict as much damage on Lord Rama’s forces as does Indrajeet. And in fact, this is the question which comes up in the Uttarakhand.
And there the question is addressed that where the sages are praising, describing the narration of the battle and they say that in many ways Lakshman’s killing of Indrajeet is actually in one sense, not in all the senses, but in one sense far more glorious than even Rama’s killing of Ravan. So Indrajeet was a very powerful warrior and there are multiple occasions when Indrajeet actually seems to defeat and even devastate the army of the forces of Rama. So the most celebrated, the most well-known occasion is when he knocks them unconscious and then Hanuman has to go and get the Sanjeevani, the herb, herbs from Himalayas.
But before that there is another incident and that is the incident that we will focus on today. So this is the snake attack as it is called. So this is among the first attacks by Indrajeet.
So mainly we could say that there are four main battles with Indrajeet. The final is at Nikumbhavil where Lakshman kills him and this is the first. In between there are two occasions where first he defeats them, he defeats Rama and Lakshman and they are revived by Hanuman and second time when there is a fierce fight and when he realises he is being defeated, he slips away.
So and then Lakshman goes and finds him over there. So this will be discussing these three main topics. How snakes are dangerous literally and metaphorically and then how Indrajeet weaponised snakes.
Weaponised means to use as weapons and then finally countering the snakes, attack of snakes in our life. So why are snakes so dangerous? So multiple reasons. If you consider that among the many predators that are there, if you consider humans living in a more natural or a forest setting, then there are many predators.
But if there are lions and tigers and boars, those kind of predators are very easily visible relatively speaking. Snakes, they slither along the ground. So they are not easy to see.
Another thing is that if you see any other predator, for it to kill, it actually has to rip the human body apart. A snake doesn’t have to do that. Just one bite could be fatal.
So in that sense, snakes are considered among the most dangerous of predators. Another point to identify is that we understand all tigers or lions are threats to human beings. But among snakes, there are some which are poisonous and some which are not poisonous.
And unless one is trained, one may not be able to identify very easily which snakes are poisonous and which are not. And some predators can be easily eliminated. For example, normally in places where there is human inhabitation, we will ensure that there are no lions and tigers or things like that living over there.
But snakes can coexist. They cannot be very easily eliminated. So because of these four factors, snakes are considered among the most dangerous of predators.
If you see from another perspective, the material world philosophically is considered to be a place of danger and the danger is described using many natural metaphors. The most common metaphor is of the ocean. The material world is like a stormy ocean and another is of a forest fire.
But if we consider among the metaphors that are metaphors of animals that are used to personify, to represent, to symbolise the danger of material existence, the most common metaphor is of snakes. That sometimes, for example, in the forest of material existence, there are various animals which are compared to various things. But that is a forest-centric metaphor.
That’s in the fifth chapter of the fifth canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam. But independent of such a forest-centric metaphor, if we consider which predator, which predatory animal, which animal which is a threat to human beings is most commonly depicted in the Bhagavatam or in general in our philosophy, then that is the snake. The snake, in fact, from what I’ve seen, there are at least 31 references in the Bhagavatam itself where the Kaal, the serpent is talked about.
So time as a snake. So now again time is all-powerful, all-devouring. So that indicates how dangerous the snake is.
Another metaphor is that Kama is also considered to be a serpent. Kama is here not just material desire but especially toxic material desire. The way Krishna uses the word Kama in the third chapter, not in the sense of Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha.
So that is also considered to be like a snake. And there are many metaphors. Mukund Mala Stotra has one.
Lakshmi Narasimhaka Ravalambha Stotra also has this metaphor of snake as worldly desire, sensual desire, the snake. And then it’s not just in the Vedic tradition. If you consider outside the Vedic tradition also, in the Christian tradition, Satan is said to come in the form of a snake.
The snake comes and tempts Eve and then Eve tempts Adam and then there is said to be the fall. So the idea of a snake representing darkness, evil, danger, that is widespread. And we see that, that is one of the reasons why in the Bhagavatam also, the Bhagavatam says that, they are against violence, but snakes and scorpions are considered to be so toxic that sometimes their killing is not considered bad.
That comes in the context of Narasimhadeva killing Hiranyakashipu, who is compared again to a snake-like being over there. There is no explicit comparison, but implicit comparison. So we will focus on the second metaphor over here, that of toxic desires, of desires that destroy our spirituality.
So this is the 7th verse from the Lakshmi Narasimha Karavalambha Sutra, that Samsara Sarpa Vishadigdha Mahogra Thevra, Damshtragra Koti Paridashta Vinashtamurte, Nagari Vahane Sudhabdi Nirvasa Shaure, Lakshmi Narasimha Mamadehi Karavalambam. So we will develop this metaphor and see in one sense how this metaphor is played out in the battle between Indrajeet and Lord Rama’s forces. And especially during the snake attack of Indrajeet.
So what is this compared to? Samsara Sarpa Vishadigdha Mahogra Thevra. So this is not Samsara, material existence itself is compared to be a snake, but this is a snake with Damshtragra Koti. There are millions of fangs it has, not just one, but millions of fangs.
And when a snake bites, what happens is, we lose consciousness and we die. So here we lose consciousness, we lose our Krishna consciousness, we lose our spiritual consciousness. So Paridashta Vinashtamurte, our awareness of who we are is Vinashta, it is destroyed.
And then what is the way to be saved from this? So what happens is, when this Lakshmi-Nasimha Karavalambam Sutra is composed, so Bhai Shankaracharya, he gives the problem and he gives some hint of the solution within that same problem. So he says that two things are required. Nagari Vahane Sudabdhi Nivasa Shaure.
So he says that from the one who lives on the ocean of nectar, so he says that is Lord Vishnu, he comes on Garuda and he comes on Garuda and when Garuda comes, what happens is Garuda is considered as an eagle, a natural threat to the snake. So the snakes fly away, flee from there. And then after that, he also because he resides in the ocean of nectar, he can give nectar which can act as an antidote.
And in that way, he can be saved from this distress. So Lakshmi-Nasimha Mamadehi Karavalambam. Please give me the shelter of your lotus hands.
Please bless me with your hands. That’s what he’s saying over here. So this is the background of the snake being used as a metaphor.
And with this background, let’s now look at the battle itself. So how did Indrajeet weaponise snakes? See, in general, what happens whenever there is war, we humans are not naturally endowed with great physical prowess. So we resort to something other than our natural ability to increase our strength in fighting.
And that access to something beyond our natural human endowments, that can happen in various ways. That can be simply the tools that we manufacture with our hands. Somebody might use a stone, somebody might use a knife, somebody might use an axe.
Weapons which can be normally easily manufactured. Now beyond that, what does that mean? The things which are easily visible and accessible for us, we use them or reshape them as weapons. But beyond that, we could use more sophisticated means for accessing power.
So that can be done through what we could call as the traditional ways where humans or beings in the world access powers beyond their own. So that could be by praying to the Devata. So just like Ravana performed austerities to get blessings of immortality and other such blessings from Brahma and Shiva.
Or in modern times, it could be through technology. So in technology, what we are doing is, like say there are weapons of mass destruction, whether it be nuclear weapons or biological weapons, what are we doing is, we are accessing subtler forces within nature to weaponise those forces. So chemicals exist in nature, germs exist within nature, but we humans can weaponise them.
So germs are a threat, but when germs are weaponised, then we have biochemical weapons of biological weapons of mass destruction. So there is nuclear power existing within the atom, but when we access and weaponise it, then we have nuclear weapons. So snakes exist within nature, but Indrajit weaponises snakes.
So he uses, now the Sarpastra is not unprecedented. There are other occasions also when the Sarpastra is used, but those usages are significantly different from how Indrajit uses the Sarpastra. So what happens with respect to Indrajit specifically, how is it different that, now in Mahabharata, the Sarpastra comes on multiple occasions.
One is in the battle between Arjuna and Karna, another is between the battle between Iruvan, who is one of the sons of Arjuna who is killed and the demon commander who is on the side of the Kauravas, Alambush and a third occasion is when it comes between Ghatotkach and Karna again. So snakes appear on the Kurukshetra battlefield on multiple occasions and they are a threat, but they are immediately countered. What makes Indrajit’s use of the Sarpastra unprecedented is two main factors.
So what happens is, when he attacks, it is not just he targeting one enemy, but his Sarpastra, because he has been blessed by the Devatas, his Sarpastra expands and attacks the entire army. And he discharges one weapon, that one weapon expands into many many weapons and they all just fall down unconscious. It seems that they have become lifeless, they are dead.
And what makes, so one is the expansion of that one weapon to multiple weapons, not just multiple but almost countless weapons. And the second is that Indrajit also makes himself invisible. So his invisibility makes it even more difficult to detect him.
So the mystical elements play a far greater role in the Ramayana than in the Mahabharata. So there are occasions, a few occasions where the warriors become airborne and they are fighting from the air in the Kurukshetra war. The main occasion is when Ghatotkach is fighting with Karna.
He uses mystical powers to attack from the airways. Once Abhimanyu, when he is circled by everyone else, by all those warriors, he tries to use his mystical powers to go into the air and try to gain that aerial advantage while defending himself after he has lost all his weapons. But eventually both of them are felled.
But what happens is Indrajit has his, he has the aerial advantage. He has a chariot which is floating through the airways and on top of it he makes himself invisible. So what happens is his aerial advantage, it is actually strategically a significant advantage in fighting.
Because somebody at a higher vantage point, what happens is their weapons, multiple, they have greater visibility and then we have gravity which assists in the force with which the weapons can be discharged. There is greater mobility. So he has that advantage.
On top of that, he has the Sarpa Shastra and on top of that, he makes himself invisible. So that triple advantage makes his attack lethal. And Lord Rama and Lakshmana, they are covered with so many arrows.
They keep fighting, keep fighting, keep fighting. This is the first attack of Indrajit and Indrajit is still, he is still filled with his arrogance that I will be able to defeat them. So he says that, he thinks that all these remaining Vanaras, they are not worth my fight.
So he thinks that if I can just kill Rama and Lakshmana, then all the Vanaras will just get defeated, they will get discouraged and they will quit. But therefore, he concentrates his attack on Rama and Lakshmana alone and he covers them with so many arrows that they fall. So at this point, when Rama and Lakshmana fall, fighting, might is important, weapons are important, but morale is probably the most important thing.
As long as the enemy is not defeated, as long as they don’t accept defeat. So it is far more important to defeat the spirit of the enemy than just the weapons of the enemy. So what happens is when Rama and Lakshmana fall, it is devastating for the entire army.
At that time, Sugriva, he, so Indrajit, he is invisible and he is laughing and while laughing itself invisibly, he, after Rama and Lakshmana fall, he calls out, he says, I will spare those who flee from the battlefield today. If any of you are found here on the battlefield tomorrow, you will be destroyed. And laughing like that, he returns.
So Sugriva makes a desperate attempt. Finally, what happens is just before he is disappearing, Indrajit just to taunt or flaunt his victory, he makes himself visible. So Sugriva makes a mighty leap into the air and tries to catch Indrajit.
But Indrajit is too fast and Indrajit disappears. Then Sugriva has this triple challenge in front of him. First is that he has to do something.
Are Rama and Lakshmana actually dead? Are they alive? What is to be done about it? Second is he has to rally his forces who are shaken and even shattered by the fall of Rama and Lakshmana. And third is he has to decide whether to continue the attack or what to do after that. So he immediately thinks and he says, then he tells his priests, can you do something about it? And he says that, you know, whatever we are trying, nothing is working.
So he, not his priests, I mean, he tells those in his army who have some medical skills. So then he says, he makes one, he tells Hanuman and a few other warriors, both of you take Rama and Lakshmana right now, immediately back to Kishkindha. And there we will offer him proper care.
And he says, the remaining, we will stay here. We will launch an attack on Ravana’s Lanka and we will destroy Lanka. So now Sugriva is their king and everybody has to follow him.
But his soldiers are torn apart. If with Rama and Lakshmana present, they were not able to defeat, then with their army already split, will they be able to defeat? Should they attack or should they not attack? So Sugriva’s spirit, Sugriva’s courage is seen in his strategic decision. But courage is not a substitute for competence.
So there is some indecision. Should they do this or should they not do this? And at that time, suddenly, it appears as if a gigantic storm is coming on the horizon. And it sounds as if the waves that are coming are so stormy that the waves will, the stormy wind, not waves, winds are coming, they themselves will sweep all of them away.
They are wondering what is this? And some huge creature seems to be coming right from the sky down. And the Vanaras panic and they say, is this Indrajith already returned to finish all of us? And what happens is, as this huge being starts coming down from the sky, and then as he comes down, some of the Vanaras, Hanuman, Hanuman is quite wise and well-versed, he recognises this is actually Garuda. So Garuda comes over there.
So here what happens is that this when force, this principle is demonstrated, when the forces beyond the human attack us, forces beyond the human can also be used for counter-attacking. So counter-attack, forces beyond the human means, snakes are weaponised by Indrajith. So Indrajith is we could say the demoniac side, the anti-god side.
So Lord Ram is on the godly side. So Garuda comes on his own over here. And initially, when some unknown being comes, we don’t know, is that person indifferent or is that person malevolent or is that person benevolent? Basically there are three possibilities.
That person just doesn’t care what is going on over there. That person wants to make things worse or that person wants to make things better. So there is that apprehension.
But Garuda comes over there and he comes and he offers his obeisances to the prostrate bodies of Ram and Lakshman. And then he just extends his touch. And what happens is just as soon as Garuda appears, just seeing his appearance, the snake weapons, these are basically the snakes which have stung Ram and Lakshman, they themselves withdraw from the body and they start fleeing away.
And they start running for their life. And seeing this, the Vanara forces feel, oh, this must be, this was something good for us. This person, this force that has come is actually benevolent.
And then after that, Garuda touches the forms of Ram and Lakshman. And through that touch, they are revived and they are recovered. They become healed and whole immediately.
And after this happens, there is an intriguing twist over there that Lord Ram, he comes back to consciousness and he looks at this being and he folds his hands and says, pray tell me, who are you? Who has blessed us in such a wonderful way? So this again is curious and this Garuda says, oh my Lord, surely you know me. I am your eternal servant. You are Vishnu and I am your carrier Garuda.
And then after that, he says, I am happy that I was able to perform this service for you. And I would like to continue this service. So please give me your blessings.
Please give me your permission so that I can pursue the snakes before they disappear into the netherworlds. And Lord Ram gives his consent and then he disappears. So what happened is over here, Lord Ram does not, is seeming non-recognition of Garuda.
What is going on over here? How does that to be explained? See in the Ramayana, there is, we could say a constant tension between Lord Ram’s divinity and his humanity. Why is this tension there? Because the purpose of the Ramayana, the driving purpose, the driving question is what are the characteristics of the ideal human being? What is the, who is the ideal human being? What are the characteristics of the ideal human being? So to serve that purpose, the Ramayana in one sense maintains a slight distance from Lord Ram’s divinity. So specifically, there are no prayers to Ram, at least not profuse prayers to Ram, the way there are in the Bhagavatam.
That is there in later retelling of the Ramayana, especially that is the Adhyatma Ramayana, has extensive prayers to Lord Ram the way the Bhagavatam has. But Valmiki Ramayana doesn’t have that. So the Valmiki Ramayana’s purpose is to delineate the characteristics of the ideal human being.
So what happens is, if this ideal human being is told is God, then God can do anything. And for God what is difficult? Doing any duty can be easy for God because he is omnipotent. Doing being dutiful for us humans is difficult because we have so many limitations, but God has no limits, limitations.
So therefore, there are multiple occasions when Lord Ram does not exhibit his divinity. Of course, there are many occasions when Lord Ram exhibits his divinity also. So at the end of the Ramayana also, at the end of the Ramayana war, when the various Devatas appear in the sky, Devatas tell Lord Ram that you have fulfilled our purpose on the earth and it is by your blessings that I have been able to do it.
And then the Devata says, no, not exactly. He says actually you are our Lord and you have descended to this world. You are Vishnu.
So there is some amount of, we could say, puzzlement. Some people say Lord Ram has forgotten his identity, his divinity. What has happened is the idea, Ramayana and Ramayana iconography has become quite a tool of, has become quite politicalised in modern India.
So because of that, there are many theories to try to downplay or even deny Lord Ram’s divinity. So some people say that actually Ram was just a glorious warrior and later on he was made into God by his followers. That’s called as, in theology, it’s called as euhemerism.
That after a person’s death, that person is made into God. And one reason they justify it is by saying that within the Valmiki Ramayana, there is not much mention of Ram’s divinity. But the point is, it is not that there is no mention at all.
There is mention, but every book has a particular purpose and that purpose is what is the focus of the book. So the focus of Ramayana is not proclaiming Ram’s divinity. The focus of the Ramayana is identifying ideal human behaviour and identifying the ideal human being.
So within that narrative, whenever it is required, Lord Ram manifests his divine identity, but otherwise he does not. So in this case, that dynamic is coming apart, coming forward, that Lord Ram acts as if he does not know who Garuda is. Now, of course, we can give a much simpler explanation and say that it is Leela.
It is Lord Ram’s Leela that he doesn’t act as God. But the Leela explanation can seem like an escapist explanation. For those who are sceptical, they say that Leela can be used as justification for it is what is in philosophy, it is called as the explanation, non-explanation.
That means it is an explanation. See, if one answer can be the answer for all questions, then that answer is no longer an answer, it just makes questions irrelevant. So you understand what I’m saying over here? That if we can have one answer, which answers all the questions, then is that actually an answer to a question or is that answer that makes questions itself irrelevant? So that’s why in our tradition, in the specific in the Gaudiya tradition also, the concept of achintya is used actually very conservatively.
Sometimes we use it very liberally that anything which we can’t understand, we say it is achintya. But Jiyugoswami does not use it like that and it has to be in that sense. He uses it specifically for a particular purpose that when there are two scriptural statements which seem contradictory, then the way to reconcile them is by achintya.
So you accept the truth of both of them, but how exactly they are true, that is difficult to understand. And then he applies it in various domains with various examples. But the point is that Leela explanation is itself not always the most satisfactory explanation from the intellectual perspective.
So from the textual perspective, Lord Ram’s divinity is not denied, but it is also not emphasised in the Valmiki Ramayana so that the focus of the book is maintained. Because if somebody is giving a class on, say, does the soul actually exist, say logical reasons for the existence of the soul. And in that, if somebody talks about repeatedly, Krishna is God, Krishna has spoken in the Bhagavad Gita and he says there is a soul, therefore there is a soul.
Okay, that is an explanation. But what is happening is, that is like to explain one unacceptable point or difficult to accept point, we are bringing another difficult to accept point. So to accept that the soul exists, if I start saying, okay, you have to accept that Krishna is the God, that the Bhagavad Gita is his word and because he says it is God, so it is called as a piling assumption upon assumption.
So in answering one question, we don’t start with what the audience accepts, but we propose more things which the audience needs to accept so that they can accept this. So that is not considered a very persuasive strategy. So the Leela explanation can be used, but it is not the prominent explanation, especially when we are dealing with people who are sceptical.
So anyway, so the book Ramayana has a purpose, Valmiki Ramayana at least has a purpose. And from that purpose perspective, Lord Ram emphasising his divinity is not the most important thing. That does not mean it is not there.
It is definitely there. Many references are there to it. But Lord Ram does not go about brandishing his divinity constantly.
Whenever he meets, he doesn’t say, I’m God, are you offering obeisances to me or not? That never happens. So that is not his mood at all. So that’s the twist in this pastime.
Now, let’s look at, I started with the metaphor of how snakes are considered dangerous. So how do we counter the snakes in our life? The third part we’ll discuss, we’ll conclude with this. So broadly speaking, when we have to deal with snakes, there are three ways.
One is you could say preventive. That is the, if somebody is using a snake infested area, can we take some substances which will immunise us, which will vaccinate us to snake bites. So even if they happen in the future, we’ll be protected from it.
The second is, if snake bites happen, then what do you do? We minimise the injury. At least a tonic is used or something like that is used to bandage the area where the snake bite is there. So if somebody is bitten on the legs, they stop the blood flow to other parts of the body.
It does not reach the key organs like the brain and then the injury can be minimised. And the third is we have some kind of antidote. So antidote is to counter the effects of the snake.
So in one sense, before the snake attack has happened, while the snake attack has happened to minimise it and then to counter it. So let’s look at this from these three principles. So Sarpa refers to, as I discussed, there are so many toxic desires in the world which can attack us.
In one sense, the world is filled with sense objects and any sense object can inject us with sensual desires. But we also live today in a culture where the natural temptations of the world are weaponised against us. They are weaponised against us.
So to give another metaphor, to illustrate this point, that there is often the classic metaphor of the fish. You know that the fish is caught by a bait. That there is, that if you dangle a bait in front of a ship, not a ship, a fish, then the fish moves towards the bait and gets caught by the bait.
But those who are social scientists, especially those who are social medics, what they say that, I’ll give an example to illustrate how dangerous social media can be, is that suppose there is like a fisherman who knows all the fish inside a particular pond and who knows exactly which food item will attract which fish and then exactly that kind of bait is dangled to catch that fish. So like that, what has happened is, especially people who are very active on the internet, their data is all logged and exactly the kind of ads and promotional material is given to them, which they will be attracted to. So it is like customised bait for each particular fish.
So what has happened is, this is an example of natural temptations that how do we protect ourselves from snake-like desires? So first is, if you consider a preventive perspective, first of all, identify what are the snakes that are lethal to us. We’ll elaborate on each of these points and then we’ll conclude. Second is, once I identify, okay, these are the snakes that are lethal to me, which are deadly for me, then we understand how they attack us and where, when, how they attack us.
Then another preventive measure could be that just keep a distance from them as far as possible. Don’t go into that area. Then if they attack, then once the toxin comes, at least regulate it, prevent it from spreading.
And then finally is counter the toxin by appropriate antidotes. So let’s see what this means, each of these. So if you look at identifying the snakes that are lethal for us.
So while, as I said, snakes can be toxic. There are some things that are poisonous, some things that are not poisonous. But snake-like desires, worldly desires, it is often not so simple.
So depending on the samskaras, the impressions that are there within our consciousness, some desire, we may be particularly vulnerable to some desires. And we may not be so vulnerable to other desires. So a bottle of alcohol may not be a big danger for a person who has never drunk alcohol or with no inclination for drinking alcohol.
But for an alcoholic or even a recovering alcoholic, that can be a major danger. So for somebody who has no interest, not much interest in sports, you know, if there is some cricket match going on, that may not be much of a distraction. But for somebody who is very interested in a particular thing or who was very interested in a particular thing, be it politics or sports or whatever, then that could be a major distraction for them.
So we have to first recognise what are the snakes that are lethal for us. So this whole thing about the things which are natural, they can be a danger. But the natural getting weaponised, that is something which is unprecedented in human history, in terms of addictive desires.
In the past, it happened in some small ways where say warriors, armies may have something like Vishakanya, where they would have women who had immunised themselves to poison by having regular dosages. And then when such a woman would go as a temptation to the opposing forces and the soldier or the commander or the king of that force would unite with that woman, that person would be killed. But that was quite occasional.
But now, this has become extensive, weaponising the things which are in one sense normal in the world. One of the recent books which has become a bestseller in America is called as the Empire of Pain. So what is this empire of pain? It is in America, especially in the West, but in America, addiction to drugs is being declared as a national emergency in many states and the scale of it is huge.
But this is very different. This particular form of drugs, people have been dealing with drugs for a long time, just like people have been drinking alcohol for a long time. But the modern epidemic of drug addiction has arisen not from people, say, going out of their way to buy some drugs because they wanted to get high.
It has started from basically painkillers. So people may do some surgery. The normal people live their normal lives.
They get into an accident or something like that, their bone is broken and then surgery is done. And before and after the surgery to deal with the pain, the doctor prescribes them some pain medication. Now there are different kinds of pain medication and there are some pain medication which are designed to be addictive.
And so people take that medication and then they become dependent on that medication. And so the statistics vary, but many researchers say that almost 50 to 80 percent of drug addiction in America has come not from people who take drugs because they just want to go high. It has come from people who started off with painkillers and became hooked to painkillers.
So that is, a painkiller is like a part, it could be a part of a normal medication, but that is weaponised. So the idea of weaponization is something which is there. So there are many people now who say had become addicted to painkillers and they somehow break free from that addiction.
But after that, they have to go through a surgery or some other medical procedure. Then they have to factor in that I will have to do the surgery without taking any painkillers. Because once I take the painkiller, I may become hooked on it again.
So that means painkillers could be a snake for some person. For most people, you take painkiller when there is pain and then when the pain goes away, stop it. But for all of us, what is a snake that can vary from person to person? So how do we identify a snake? We compare the effect of ordinary snake poison.
There are basically two things. So generally what happens is, ordinary snakes, when they bite us, they will just make us lifeless, they will make us inactive. But when the snake of worldly desires bite us, samsara sarpa vishadigdha mahogati yura.
So spiritually we become lifeless. But materially, we may not always become lifeless. Materially, somebody may actually become hyperactive or even frantic.
Of course, it depends on to what extent a person has been bitten. So if a person is bitten to the level of tamoguna, then a person may be inactive. But what happens is, even tamasic people are not constantly tamasic.
What happens is, to sustain tamoguna also they have to come out of tamoguna. That means, if a person is hooked on to drugs or hooked on to video games or hooked on to alcohol, I don’t want to do anything, I just want this. But to get that thing, they have to come out of tamoguna to rajoguna or something like that to procure those things also.
But broadly speaking, the material poisons, they just make us inactive. Whereas we could say the weaponization of worldly desires, then that makes us spiritually lifeless, but it makes us materially hyperactive. So to identify what is a poison for us, we have to look at phalena parichayate.
We need to know by the fruit. So for somebody, the toxic desire could be fame. Fame, recognition.
That means that whenever any service will give me visibility, popularity, fame, I am very energetic for that service. And if some service, nobody is going to recognise it, what is the use of doing the service? So we start valuing the service not based on how much it is connecting us with Krishna, but on how much it is giving us visibility and popularity in the world. So if our energy level is determined by that, then that particular service could also become like a toxin for us.
So we need to identify what is a snake for me. That doesn’t mean we stop doing the service immediately. We recognise that this effect can be there and we take appropriate measures to counter that effect.
So now we may say that, oh, from this definition, there are snakes everywhere in the world. The world is filled with temptations. So what do I do? It’s like, I live in a world where snakes are all around.
Yes. Okay. So then what can we do? We need to keep a distance from tempting objects.
That is the objects which degrade our consciousness, which drag our consciousness down. Krishna says that keep a distance from them. And then the best way to keep a distance from them is to actually, because we are talking about subtle things over here.
In our consciousness, it’s not possible for us to empty our consciousness. The best way to empty our consciousness of toxic desires is to fill them with healthy desires. Sroto ganastha maranam bhajavasudevam.
Bhagavatam says that the worldly desires keep coming like waves. So it’s very difficult to empty our consciousness. Rikta matayo.
To make the consciousness empty is not possible, but we can fill it with Krishna. And then more importantly, so the second we need to find our Garuda. Now, what do we mean by our Garuda? See, there are two things.
When the snakes attack, the snakes have to be driven away. Now we can do make our efforts to drive away the snakes. But if a Garuda like influence comes in our life, then Garuda’s power is far greater than our power.
And that Garuda’s power will drive away those desires, those snake-like desires from us. So it is not just a matter of our will. No, I will not do this.
I’ll not do this. We need our Garuda means something or someone that inspires us with uplifting desires, that inspires us with pure and powerful desires, and that will drive out the lower desires. And that is why satsanga is so important.
So for us, our spiritual master, our senior Vaishnavas, those who inspire us, they are like the Garuda for us. So when the Garuda man comes, the snakes automatically go away. So we need to know what is the Garuda for us or who is the Garuda for us and keep that close to us.
So it’s actually in one sense much easier to do this than to keep the snakes away or to drive the snakes away ourselves. That’s why prasangam jarampasam. The Bhagavatam says that attachment is ajaram.
Jara is old age. Ajaram means that which never grows old. So our bodies grow old, but the desires never grow old.
They don’t become so easily. But if we can become attracted to the saintly people, if we can become attached to saintly people, we become filled with the desire to serve them. And those desires, we can actually open the doors for liberation.
They will drive away the toxic desires from our heart and our lives. Now, in one sense, this is not a hypothetical situation. We are already bitten by some snakes.
So what do we do? We have to limit the spreading of the snakes. This is where discipline and regulation comes in. So we may have some weaknesses, we may have some vulnerabilities, but we regulate the indulgence.
We don’t let it become excessive. And that is why dharma, the principles of dharma come in. So there are various civilised, cultured, sanctified ways in which a person can have indulgence.
But that has to be kept within limitation. So that’s like, this part of the body is bitten, but I’ll make sure that the blood doesn’t, from there, doesn’t go to the remaining body. That’s why there may be an indulgence, but that can be regulated.
And then ultimately, there are a few more slides. I don’t think I can complete all of them. Actually, there are six more slides, but I’ll focus on one last point before I conclude it.
Essentially, what happens is, when Garuda comes, then the snakes flee. And similarly for us, to the extent we can bring the Garuda of the spiritual master, of the deities, of Shastra, that which infuses us, that which injects us with spiritual desires, to that extent we are safe. We may be knocked down.
So this point of focus on the in-between, what does it mean? That our future is determined not so much by our falls, but by what we do in between the falls. That means, it is, we live in a world where we will all be sooner or later infected by worldly desires. We will fall.
But okay, we fall, what do we do after that? We just stay fallen, or do we try to rise? Snake bites, snake bites means we succumb to some desires, some desires come inside us and we succumb to them. But do we just quit after that? Or do we try to do something after that? So yes, the snakes will bite, but do we just cave in or do we try to connect with our Garuda? Do we try to invoke the presence of Garuda? Do we try to get the nectar? The Garuda is just one for whoever dries away the snakes. But Garuda, on the back of Garuda is Vishnu.
And Vishnu is Nagari Vahane, Sudabdhi Nivasa Shaure. That he comes from the ocean of nectar. He resides in the ocean of nectar.
So the ultimate antidote is not just invoking the presence of Garuda who will drive out the snakes, on Garuda is Vishnu. And it is Vishnu who is the source of ultimate nectar. So if we can connect with the Lord, if we can invoke the presence of the Lord in our hearts, if the Lord becomes an enduring presence, then that is the supreme protection.
That protection can protect us from not only past infections or present infections, but even future infections. And that is what Shila Prabhupada wanted when he started the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. That we become conscious of Krishna.
We invoke Krishna’s presence in our consciousness, not just invoke it, but make that the central reality of our consciousness. And in that way, we will be protected even while being in this world where the snake and the poison of toxic desires can come upon us in many different ways. We may fall, but if we rise from the fall, okay, I did something terrible.
But instead of simply beating myself up because I did something terrible, because see that, okay, I did something terrible, that means I was bitten by the snake at that time. And I was knocked off, I was knocked down. But okay, it’s not that these toxic desires are tormenting us with the same intensity all the time.
That intensity rises at sometimes, and that time we may be powerless. But after that what happens? Do we try to reconnect, re-strengthen ourselves, reconnect ourselves with Krishna? If we do that, then eventually we will overcome these temptations and we will be able to ultimately become safe by spiritualising, by Krishna-izing our consciousness. So quickly summarise, I spoke on three main points.
Today we talked about how snakes are so dangerous that among all predators in nature, the snakes are most commonly used to signify the dangerousness of material existence, that they are equated with death, they are equated with worldly desires and they are also equated in the Abrahamic tradition with the source of all worldly desires, with the Satan as compared to a snake. And then we talked about how Indrajeet weaponised snakes, how he had aerial advantage, he had a Sarpastra which could multiply into manifesting thousands and millions of snakes, and then he made himself invisible also. So at that time when Garuda came to the rescue and saved, and Lord Ram’s not recognising Garuda, it reflects the tension between Lord Ram’s divinity and humanity that comes from the purpose of the Valmiki Ramayana.
The purpose is not to focus on Lord Ram’s divinity, but to focus on depicting the character of an ideal human being. And the last part we discussed is how to deal with the snake-like desires and their attack in our lives. So first is identify what are the snakes for us, then try to keep a safe distance from them, and most importantly is try to bring close the Garuda within us and the gift that the Garuda brings.
So those things which bring uplifting desires for us, those people, those places, those stimuli, and ultimately the supreme gift from all of these is the manifestation of Krishna in our hearts. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.