Bhagavatam-daily 180 – 11.10.22 – Karma-kanda is a technique that can backfire at minor error

Bhakti and where there is eternal ecstatic love and joy this is krishna speaking to uddhava about the problems with materialistic conceptual religion which ultimately render it futile antara refers to obstacles and difficulties is somehow and doesn’t become affected by them one perceives in spite of the obstacles and if one performs as is told in the scripture even after that one performs and accomplishes the result but even that result that status of attainment of heaven which the person gets that will that will go away that will perish hear about it now in the previous text krishna says how there is so much suffering in trying to do so many difficulties and obstacles in trying to do karmakanda that one may not be able to succeed just as a farmer despite striving to sow the seeds and plow the land may not get the harvest now the dogmatic devotees of materialism will still persevere and demand that but it’s possible that one may get the result also what about that so he states here yes it’s possible that one may get the result and that result even so even if one gets it that is temporary and how that is i’ll explain krishna says so here he says even if one perseveres antaraayair avahito means not being influenced not by the obstacles one continues to practice the process of sacrifice and yadi dharma svanushtita if one’s perform the dharma as is prescribed in scripture and one gets the result so now there are a lot of ifs are involved over there which need to be fulfilled sometimes there are certain results which require the harmonious actualization of multiple prerequisite conditions so even if all of them work out right krishna is saying over here still in spite of that one will not get a lasting result now the problem with doing karma with doing karmakanda is that the karma has to be done meticulously the karmakanda is essentially like a mechanism a person suppose somebody is a software code writer and that person may otherwise be very good very well behaved very gentle very honest but if while writing the software code that person makes a mistake write one code wrong the program won’t run the program is insatiable the program doesn’t care for the character of the programmer it cares primarily for the competence the specific competence of writing the program accurately the program is not exactly written no matter what else the person has done it will not work similarly karmakanda is essentially a technique just like programming is a technique to make a computer do certain things similarly karmakanda is a higher level of arrangement by which nature will do certain things now we may not understand and we may not even believe some of us that some of the karmakanda rituals that I talked about they actually happen but rather than getting caught in the nitty gritties we focus on the principle the principle which Krishna is talking about here is that if one works on trying to elevate oneself by doing karmakanda one has to do it precisely the bhagavatam gives the example of how toshita was a pious, principled brahmana who was already grieving because one of his sons Vishwaroop had been killed ruthlessly by Indra and Vishwaroop to avenge Vishwaroop’s death toshita created another son who was Uttara but unfortunately he is chanting Indra Shatruho the small intonation he did wrong and the result was of that slight error in intonation was catastrophic instead of getting a son who would kill Indra he got a son who would be killed by Indra and in this way he found himself lost so the purpose of the sacrifice was defeated of course Uttara turned out to be a great devotee and he instructed even his uncle Indra and he became an inspiring model for devotees for all time to come but as far as the specific results of that particular sacrifice is concerned then the results were not achieved so when it comes to manipulation of techniques what one needs is not personal character but impersonal competence what is the character of a person what the ethics, what the values are that doesn’t matter so much what matters is what is the precision with which the person is doing something so here Krishna states that even if somebody is so precise, so careful so meticulous as to do all the rituals right so all those ifs have to work out right not just to work out they have to be worked out right that means the person who is writing the code has to write it with precise accuracy and similarly the karmakanta rituals have to be performed with precision and only after such performance can one hope to attain the heavenly destination even after attaining such a destination the essential point is that this text states that the destination is temporary and that attainment will perish and thus the point of the Bhagavatam is that it is not worth our time and energy to make arising materially as the primary or only purpose of our life the mood of the Bhagavatam that we focus on striving to learn how we can do our duties in the best possible way so that they best harmonize with our spiritual purpose and otherwise whatever we do it will all be temporary whatever we attain will be temporary and we will stay caught in the temporary material existence