Bhagavatam-daily 292 – 11.13.25 – Use your capacity to control to connect with the supreme controller

Thank you So what is telling them that actually we are all under material conditioning and the characteristic of material conditioning is that the senses are attracted the sense objects are attracted to the mind and the mind is attracted to the sense objects so gunas the word is used the mode manifest at a gross level in the form of sense objects there are many ways in which the modes affect us but the primary way is through the sense objects that correspond to the modes and Krishna says that beyond this mutual attraction between the sense objects and the mind between the modes which manifest the sense objects in the mind there is the soul and the soul is a part of me so the sages asked the supreme lord, who are you? tell me about your identity, go on so then the lord replied what is the meaning of your question if we are all one, either materially or spiritually and then Krishna said that actually the gradual realization you will understand that nothing exists separate from me that actually everything in existence is connected with me now the kumaras may question that how exactly is their question incoherent because the lord is everything but he is also their mind and their intelligence then even if they have asked a question which is foolish still because the lord is their mind and their intelligence so the lord should kindly answer their question that means Krishna after asserting that nothing exists beyond him he now says that there are still levels of existence so at the material level the mutual attraction between material objects when we say that we are attached to something or people are attached to something that attachment is usually not like attachment that is made by some physical glue sometimes we stick it to a wall or to a dashboard or something like that for us the attachments are much subtler they are the attachments that result because of the subtle impressions that are created in the mind through intelligence and through attraction so just like if water is there on the ground then if in the water there is a if not in the water on the floor where the water is if the floor is inclined in a particular direction the water will actually flow in that direction or if a passageway has been created for the water then also the water will flow along that passageway so similarly here the point is being made that we are at our core souls we are parts of Krishna so at our core we are transcendental but we are caught in a body-mind complex which is subject to illusion which is under the grip of illusion and because of the illusion of this body-mind complex we often end up trapped we often end up deluded so the way to deal the way to counter this kind of illusion is by the situation of the self on the transcendental platform by situating ourselves in connection with Krishna by practicing bhakti yoga we get our grip on the transcendental level and thus we can pull ourselves up to the transcendental level Krishna’s mercy is there which pulls us up much faster so although at one level there is nothing that exists separate from Krishna at another level each one of us has been given a certain kshetra and with that kshetra we can do a certain amount of things so with that kshetra we can move we can make choices with the limited freedom that we have and with that freedom we face consequences in terms of the kind of actions that we do so Krishna talks about the hierarchy, about the sense of the senses above the senses is the mind above the mind is the intelligence and above the intelligence is the soul proper so in this way, in this hierarchy we can all move upwards by making what is higher as the operating agent that means if we are moved by our senses then we stay at the lower level of reality if we are moved by our intelligence then we move to a higher level of reality if we are moved by the understanding that I am Atma and I am a soul and we work for self-realization then we are moved at a higher level our actions are performed with a higher consciousness and they bring more auspicious results and if we connect with the super soul which is the highest reality, param then our actions become increasingly transcendental as our connection with the super soul becomes stronger because by this progressive connection we can bring about a disconnection from the sense objects it’s like a person who is slipping down suppose somebody is climbing up a wall or climbing up a mountain cliff and starts slipping down so the downward pull is the gravity but the hold that the person has fingers, a finger hold, a foot hold, that helps in pulling up so our understanding of the higher aspects of our identity that is what pulls us up suppose on the cliff there is a person who has a rope and that person with the rope has sent the rope down to us and is pulling it up for us so we just need to hold on so actually holding on to the rope is a much quicker process of rising than trying to hold on to the crevices in the cliff wall through finger holds and foot holds so the other process of yoga, jnana, ashtanga they are like finding foot holds and finger holds to pull ourselves up where bhakti yoga is like holding on to the rope of mercy of the lord extended and done it makes our spiritual growth easier and faster