We Have Snakes Inside Us But We Are Not One Of Them Gita 04 36

Transcript

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Hare Krishna we have snakes inside us but we are not one of them we all have dark desires within us these desires are like snakes they can bite us and through us they can bite others therefore it’s vital that we protect ourselves carefully it’s vital that we guard ourselves now sometimes despite our attempts to protect ourselves from our dark desires say such as anger or lust or envy or whatever sometimes because of these dark desires we may hurt ourselves terribly and we may act in such a way that we may hurt others also and this can dishearten others sometimes when we act in hurtful ways sometimes we may even act in evil ways and people may label us as evil and we may also start thinking of ourselves as evil so at such times we need to be very careful to understand ourselves clearly that actually we may that there are snake like desires within us there are snakes inside us but we are not one of them that we are not another snake there are snakes inside us and those snakes can bite us and bite others through us but we are pure, we are souls we are always parts of the divine as the Bhagavad Gita says mamai vamsho jiva loke jiva bhutah sanatana that we are eternally the parts of the divine and no matter what misdeeds we may have done that doesn’t change sanatana means no matter how grievous be the wrongs that we may have done still we remain the parts of the divine and by understanding this we can avoid getting discouraged now not getting discouraged is good one extreme is to get so discouraged that we are irredeemable the Bhagavad Gita assures that nobody is irredeemable no matter how grievously somebody has messed up things it says that if we understand our true identity and act at the level of the true identity then we can become free apichedasi papebhya sarvebhya paapakrittamaha sarvam jnanaplavenaiva vrjinam santareshyasi just as somebody who is drowning in an ocean if they get a good boat they can cross over that ocean similarly we may be drowning in the evil within us but if we get the boat of spiritual knowledge of proper understanding of who we are that we are parts of the divine that we are parts of all pure all powerful Krishna and then when we connect with him through devotion then we can rise above the snakes within us we can protect ourselves the remembrance of Krishna becomes like a antidote that he protects us from the poison of the snakes within us and in fact this remembrance of Krishna can actually poison the snakes within us Krishna says this elsewhere in the Gita that apichetsuduracharo bhajate mamanyabhak sadhurevasamantavya samyagyavasitohisa he says that even if somebody has done grievous wrongs if they stay devoted to me then they are well situated and if they stay devoted to me kshiprambhavati dharmatma shashvachantim nigachyati kaunteya pratijanihi name bhaktah pranasyati that if we stay devoted then we can become pure and free from these impurities of course if we keep giving those snakes free access free control over us then we can also become snake like there are demonic people who don’t try to fight the snakes within them rather they completely hand over the control of themselves to become to those snakes within and thus they become snake like and they need to be punished but even they may become snake like but they are not snakes but for purifying them sometimes they may have to be strongly punished and maybe it’s in a fresh body that they will become purified but if we are not becoming a willing servant of those snakes if we are trying to resist those snakes and if we take shelter of the divine who can protect us within and without then we all can become purified so by remembering that we are the parts of divinity and that we can access the supreme divinity we can protect ourselves from the snakes within and we can purge ourselves of those snakes within and thus manifest the divinity within. Thank you. Hare Krishna