How Lust Covers Everyone Gita 3.38

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you The previous verse explained that we are all subject to this self destructive desire and it can be deadly and we are in a state of perpetual warfare so everyone is vulnerable that was the theme of the everyone is not just vulnerable everyone is under attack that was the point of enemy in this world now the next verse is talking about how is everyone under attack the key is that this enemy inner enemy that is their karma desire that reaches against boundaries that it covers our it works primarily by covering covering our what it covers Krishna will tell in the next verse but specifically it covers our knowledge and this verse gives three examples of how that covering is there so one is fire is covered by covered by smoke that’s one example second example is that of a mirror covered by dust the third is of infant a child covered by the embryo it’s interesting these three examples what they are essentially saying is that there is a covering and that covering leads to in some ways it’s limiting so now the commentators of the Gita explain that this covering can be understood in various different ways but basically before we go on to the commentaries this is we could say thing in the sense that we just we just stop the fire we just blow the move some air and the smoke will go away and the fire will blaze forth whereas here here it is thick or thicker at least we can say if there is a lot of dust on the mirror we may have to shake we may have to get a cloth to wipe out the mirror and wipe not wipe out the mirror and remove the dust but the child in the embryo this is considered thickest the child in the embryo there is a particular amount of time till which the child is just not going to come out so it is the longevity or the length of the time it will take for the covering to be removed will be much more and the commentators explain that this refers to the fire and smoke metaphor refers to humans I put this as a table maybe we have to read here from the right to the left because metaphor is there then there is the degree of covering and you could say the species to which it is referring to or people who is it referring to so in humans the covering is like smoke covering a fire in animals it is more like a dust being covered by dust covering the mirror and in plants in trees it is an embryo covering a child so the degree of covering is much much greater in some species so now we may wonder what does this metaphor mean in terms of do animals or trees have lust to such a great degree do they have lust more than humans you may say where is exactly the lust in animals in trees at all that when the trees in humans we make such plans and there is such a force by which they are attracted towards each other but trees just live motionless and even when pollination happens the way they reproduce like the wind carries the pollens and it just falls accidentally so normally we would not think of trees to be especially lusty to be driven by desire beyond boundaries but the point here is not so much now it is more in terms of the degree of the covering created by the desire so the point is that indulgence especially unrestricted indulgence where it leads to is a you could say a reinforced covering by lust it’s like the more alcoholic drinks then it’s not only that their drinking becomes strong their craving for drinking becomes stronger but also it’s like their inner alarms become weaker the first time we may just steal some we may just take some money which we have saved for some future emergencies then we may then alcoholic may it’s not exactly stealing it’s their own money but they are taking the money which has been saved for emergencies but then that alcoholic may take money from maybe their parents or friends and that alcoholic may rob from some shop and that alcoholic may even kill someone, it’s not that all alcoholics will do like this but my point is when there is alcoholism there is a greater craving that happens as the alcoholism worsens but there is also a greater covering covering in the sense of covering of consciousness, covering of morality covering of awareness of the consequence of their actions and eventually the more a person indulges the more the person becomes covered so Krishna is talking that if somebody indulges in lust excessively when they are in human form when that soul will go into the next body where their consciousness will be highly covered which will be say a state of freeze now a person who is very alcoholic maybe very active for some time and then they just maybe faint and collapse or just go to sleep and then they are motionless almost like dead because of the extent of alcohol they have taken so like that a person a soul who in a particular human body has indulged a lot will in future be in a state like a tree where there’s practically no mobility so it’s not so much the presence of the craving that Krishna is talking about it’s the presence of the covering that has resulted from indulging in the craving now these metaphors also signify that when this desire is there what can we do about it so in the human form it is relatively easier to deal with the desire just like smoke if we expertly handle the smoke the fire will blaze forward so like that the covering due to such desire that is there that covering can be removed if we just handle things wisely enough judiciously enough so smoke removing relatively it’s easy at the same time some expertise is needed because sometimes we may just spread the smoke and try to remove it also but it’s possible to remove it now the second metaphor of mirror being covered by dust that metaphor is often used to talk about the process of purification so while we are in human bodies but often the cravings within us often if somebody is having just uncivilized behavior that person was like an animal we sometimes use that phrase it’s animalistic what that means is that person has no sense of decency, no sense of boundaries, no sense of property so we may be we may be in human bodies but we might have animalistic cravings so we all need to basically remove whatever is the covering on us and the dust on a mirror the dust on a mirror that is a common example now if there is dust sometimes we cannot see the reflection we may see only a part of the face we don’t see other part one part is clear one part is not clear and if there is too much dust then we may not even know that the mirror is there so if you consider degree of dust on a mirror so we may see our face easily unclearly there is dust then sometimes if say we are in a shower and then there is a mirror over there and we just use hot water that smoke there then when the we look at the mirror the smoke has condensed as some accumulation on the mirror and we can’t see clearly we have to shake maybe move it we see our face only clearly or some unclearly sometimes we only see only part of our face I am only talking about the face the rest body also may be looking at but let’s focus on the face now sometimes we see nothing of our face and sometimes we may see not even the mirror because the dust might be so great that all that we see is dust you don’t even notice that actually there is a mirror over there but it is covered by dust so what is this referring to? that when when this craving covers us maybe there is dim self-awareness so for example somebody is an alcoholic but now they may have a family they may have children and they have responsibility towards their children so their identity as a parent is just forget it there is only dim awareness of that I want to drink what if my children use all the money for drinking they forget also that I have children I have to care for them so like that there is dim self-awareness and then it just goes down down down there is practically no self-awareness at all self-awareness means that I am a self and I am doing some actions and these actions have consequences to others they are consequences to myself that is not there this is where when there is no self-awareness person goes towards becoming a sociopath or a psychopath of course specifically these are people characterized by no conscience at all so when we say we don’t even see the mirror now if we can’t see a mirror or we don’t even know there is something called a mirror then there is no reference point to to even look at ourselves to know how we are looking so when a person has no conscience left that is like that person doesn’t even have a sense that there is a sense of right or wrong that is that you know maybe there are some actions you are right some actions you are wrong but there is it’s one thing to have no sense of right or wrong that’s bad enough such person itself are are scary but what’s even worse is there is no sense that there is there is a sense of right wrong whatever if such a person thinks that you know people who have a sense of right and wrong why are they not enjoying what’s wrong with them they should just be enjoying so we can see this kind of thing as a result of the sexual revolution in the western world and increasingly in other parts of the world including India also where sexuality and natural boundaries for example in the past of marriage when that was rejected there was all kind of unrestricted sexual indulgence and there is sexual predation there is there is basically just a terrible degeneration that is going on and now people just don’t even understand why is there even a need for boundaries so the only boundary is what I am unable to get if I can get it then there is no need for any if I have the money if I have the looks if I have the vials to get people to submit to my desires then there is no need for any boundaries so this can lead to a very dark path for people so that’s the point of the coverings being there and the coverings being dangerous so his soul is uncovered or rather you can say the soul is presently covered you can play around with these words over here the soul is covered the soul needs to be uncovered and when uncovered then it will be recovered recovered means not covered again but it’s a recovery a healing so the covered soul needs to be uncovered and then it will be recovered so it will have a recovery of the soul