Bhagavatam-daily 259 – 11.12.16 – Deference doesn’t mean settling for ambiguity

Thank you shreemad bhagavatam 11 12 16 so here is continuing to ask questions to krishna and just like arjuna after receiving instruction in second chapter said in third chapter no things are not clear to me more yes eva me i am deluded please clarify things please tell me clearly what one thing that i should do so like that here qudda by stating that i have not yet understood oh lord what i what do you want me to do exactly so please guide me so um you say yes you give me instruction and your instruction is auspicious it is glorious and grateful that it got the that i got the instruction but still things are not clear to me this is significant here that demonstrates sincerity by confessing his lack of clarity sometimes you may think that oh if i ask a question then maybe others will think that i’m a fool i’m i’m not so intelligent but i’m too dumb that’s why i didn’t understand or maybe somebody’s giving class then the teacher may feel that oh this person is so dumb that’s why this person has not been able to understand but uddhava does not have any such reservations his focus is not on how i look but on what i know how i look is not referring here to the dress one wears or the appearance that one portrays to others how i look here refers to how how my question will make me seem to others will people think me foolish because i have asked such a question sometimes when we ask a question also you don’t know whether that question is a sign of intelligence or it is sign of lack of intelligence but the important thing is so that is uh the important thing is that we need to learn and if we are studying something if we are hearing something with the intention of wanting to learn it and if we are not able to understand the subject then without bothering about how it may appear to others we can and should ask the question of course some questions may be asked publicly and some may be asked privately but that’s okay the important thing is to know that whatever we do ultimately we are parts of krishna and it is by his guidance that we can attain ultimate auspiciousness and he may guide us from different sources at different times uh uddhava is fortunate here that he can ask krishna directly and vishnachakra thakur explains the import of uddhava’s question normally people follow the path of karma kanda so krishna has earlier told uddhava that do not consider materially good and bad things but focus on trying to serve me so that means that krishna is telling uddhava that go beyond the path of karma and sorry so at that time when krishna says this just try to recognize your own transcendental nature and focus on the path of jnana and now krishna uddhava is asking krishna now you are telling me that i should there’s no need for me to do all the analysis of the involved in the path of jnana and i should just focus on surrender to you and practice bhakti so now in this way you’re telling me to do one thing and you’re telling me to give that thing up later so how can i be sure how can i know for sure that you won’t tell me to give up the path of bhakti in future how can i know that if you are going on in a progression what is the conclusion what is the highest and how can i how can i have faith that whatever i’m following now is the highest so here uddhava is asking a very candid question vishwanatha thakur explains in his commentary that the candor of this question conveys the intimacy of uddhava’s relationship with krishna sometimes when we have have a question that might be considered as challenging or disrespectful or provocative we may not ask that question sometimes to a very respectable person because we don’t want to that person to be said to be standing misunderstand as arrogant or as disrespectful or anything like that so similarly yeah uddhava could have avoided asking this question but although uddhava is reverential and deferential in his disposition towards krishna still that reverence and deference does not mean that he is ready to settle for ambiguity and ambivalence he wants clear understanding and he wants to know krishna if you teach one level if you tell a higher level to the previous level and then you tell a higher level to that level also how will i know that which is the highest level so of course prior to this krishna has told arjuna quite uddhava quite clearly that just put aside everything else and just follow me surrender to me and by this you will attain the path of fearlessness so that itself is a strong enough endorsement which uddhava has given to which krishna has given to uddhava but still uddhava wants to make sure he wants to double check for himself as well as for us that what exactly is the highest understanding and how can one know what is the highest understanding we see a similar situation in even the discussion between krishna and arjuna not exactly that krishna is telling arjuna says at the start of the third chapter as well as at the start of his chapter krishna i am confused please clarify please give me a one clear instruction of what i should do similarly uddhava is asking over here that oh lord that oh lord i accept your position that you are not just yogeshwar you are yogeshwar so yogeshwar can sometimes be referred to as lord shiva so you are the ishwara of lord shiva hearing your words i have got a and the doubt was there arjuna had said at the end of the bhagavad gita and we’ll see at the end of the uddhava gita uddhava will also say something similar but till then he says right now i have not been clarified out i have not become clarified of doubts so my mind is vibrating it is still bewildered so please clarify there’s no explicit request here please explain but there’s an implicit request that i am confused please clarify