Bhakti Shastri (011) – Sri Isopanisad Mantra 09

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Hare Krishna. So today we start with the third section of the Ishopanishad.
We completed from the introduction to mantra 8. So the invocation to 3. We are talking about to live in harmony with Ishwara. Then mantras 4 to 8 talked about the Ishwara can be understood by spiritual vision. Now how do we develop that spiritual vision? That is through cultivating Vidya and doing the right Upasana.
So 9, 10, 11 we will talk about Vidya and 12, 13, 14 we will talk about Upasana. Now these words 9, 10, 11, if you look at them literally, their meaning seems to be quite confusing. We will look at them in detail, but here a quick overview.
The 9th verse basically says that Andham tamah pravishanti ye vidyam upasate tato bhuya ivate tamo yo vidyayam ratah that those who are in ignorance, they will go into darkness. And those who are in knowledge they will go into greater darkness. And then after that it says that those who are in knowledge and those who are in darkness, actually speaking, there are two different results of this.
And the wise understand this. Then after that, one result is obtained by cultivation of Vidya, another by the cultivation of Avidya. And then the 3rd verse says that actually when one cultivates Vidya and Avidya both together, then one will go beyond the cycle of birth and death and attain liberation.
So now, first it is saying that both Vidya and Avidya are bad. In fact Vidya is worse than Avidya. Then it seems to say that Vidya and Avidya will give two opposite results.
And then it says that Vidya and Avidya both have to be cultivated together to attain liberation. So what is going on over here? So actually here in these 3 mantras as well as similarly in the next 3 mantras 12 to 14, the same words Vidya and Avidya are used. But their meanings are different in each of these mantras.
So we look at the meanings of these mantras through a table and we will see how the same word can have different meanings depending on different contexts. So in the 9th mantra, what does Avidya mean? So there Avidya means the ignorance and the ignorant pursuit of sense gratification. That is Avidya.
So those who live for sense gratification, they are going to enter into darkness. And then So here this is not knowledge, real knowledge in terms of Vidya, but it is so called knowledge. It is the knowledge that promotes sense gratification.
So those people who with knowledge engage in sense gratification, they usually commit far greater sinful activities. And that is how they go deeper into darkness. So here Avidya is ignorant pursuit of sense gratification and Vidya is pursuit of sense gratification with knowledge.
So then the 10th mantra says So it is saying one result is obtained by the pursuit of Avidya and another result is obtained by the pursuit of Vidya. So what is it here? Avidya and Vidya don’t mean the same thing. All the terms are same.
Here basically it is referring to material life and spiritual life. So what was called Avidya and Vidya in the first mantra, both of them are clubbed together as Avidya over here. So here especially it refers to the Vidya, but essentially pursuit of sense gratification is Avidya, whether one is doing it with ignorance or with knowledge.
So what this mantra means is that by pursuing sense gratification, one result is obtained that is classified as worshipping Avidya and another result is obtained by pursuing spiritual life, ultimately Krishna consciousness. So here Vidya refers to the pursuit of spiritual knowledge and pursuit of spiritual goals. Avidya refers to material knowledge and the pursuit of material pleasures.
And then in the last mantra it says that So it says that with Vidya and Avidya one can attain fearlessness and go beyond the cycle of birth and death. So what does this here refer to? Here the same words again with Avidya are used, but here Avidya refers to the knowledge for bodily maintenance. That means here Avidya refers to the basic knowledge by which how we have to keep ourselves healthy, how we have to earn a livelihood, how we have to maintain basic family stability and social harmony at a basic level.
We cannot become happy in this world, but we have to live harmoniously in this world without too much disruption. The knowledge for bodily maintenance here is called as Avidya. So that Avidya is required if one is to practise spiritual life.
And then, so Avidya Amrityum Teerthva, one will be able to navigate through this ocean of material existence if one has some knowledge of the ocean. Now how the waves can become too much, how the waves will become less. But ultimately one has to go to the destination of eternity.
That is the only way out of the ocean. So that destination of eternity will be attained by the practise of spiritual life. So that is why here Vidya refers to the knowledge of pursuit of Krishna Consciousness.
So to repeat here, so what is called as Avidya and Vidya in 9th, that means basically common denominator is pursuing sense gratification in both of them, in 9th mantra. And 10th mantra, both Avidya and Vidya from 9th mantra are called as Avidya because in both cases there is pursuit of sense gratification. And in the 10th and 11th mantras, the meaning of Vidya remains the same.
It is knowledge for the pursuit of Krishna Consciousness. But the meaning of Avidya changes from 10th to 11th again. 10th to 11th it is, the change is that in 11th it is not knowledge for pursuing sense gratification, it is knowledge for bodily maintenance.
So we will look at this table once again. If it is a little confusing right now, when we go over the mantras, things will become more clear. But the main point I want to make over here is that we cannot understand scripture just by knowing words.
There is text and there is context. And unless we have a whole picture of the context, just the text is not enough to comprehend things. By the text, we may use a dictionary and by the dictionary we may get some basic understanding.
But we cannot get complete understanding just by dictionary alone. To get a complete understanding, we need to have a broader understanding of the context. So what Vidya means, what Avidya means, one has to carefully study and then understand.
So the Upanishads especially, because they use words that are multivalent, the words can have different meanings in different contexts. That’s why they are even more difficult to understand than the other books in the Vedic library. So the Upanishads are for the Jnanis and this is the kind of speculation that Jnanis like to do.
Why is this statement and this statement contradictory over here? Why is this and this over here like this? And they will try to figure out and come up with their own explanations. But actually if you want a real explanation, we have to come through Guru Sadhu Shastra. Because there the Guru Sadhu Shastra parampara goes directly to Krishna and it’s not just historically going towards Krishna, it is also internally going towards Krishna because the great Acharyas are connected with Krishna in their heart.
And that’s how Dadami Buddhi Yogamtam. Krishna gives them the intelligence to understand things in a proper way. So now let us move to the mantra.
Andham tamah pravishanti ye vidyamupasate tato bhuya ivate tamo yau vidyayamritaha So andham tamah pravishanti. They will enter into the darkness of ignorance. Who? Ye avidyamupasate.
Those who worship avidya. And tato bhuya ivate tamo. That even tato bhuya, again, even more, ivate.
Even greater tamo, greater darkness will be for those who. Yau vidyayamritaha. So here vidyayamritaha means those who are absorbed in knowledge.
But actually this knowledge is not spiritual knowledge. It is so-called knowledge. Those who are in so-called knowledge, they will enter into greater darkness.
Let’s look at this translation. So Prabhupada writes, those who engage in the culture of nascent activities shall enter into the darkest region of ignorance. Worst still are those engaged in the culture of so-called knowledge.
So let’s look at the purport in terms of its flow. So Srila Prabhupada will explain first in the purport, why is it said that vidya is actually worse than avidya? Normally we would say vidya is better than avidya. So he will explain that in the first paragraph.
Then second paragraph to fourth paragraph he will explain what exactly is avidyamupasate? How can one worship avidya? What exactly does that mean? Then he will talk about vidyayamritaha. So those who are in so-called knowledge, what is the so-called knowledge? So halfway through the fourth paragraph he starts that and then he divides this into three categories. The so-called vidya can be godless modern education and there is vedavadrataha.
There are those who study the Vedas but they think the Vedas are meant only to give us material knowledge and they focus on that material knowledge coming from the Vedas without looking at its spiritual side. And mayaparita jnana are those people who have knowledge but maya has stolen away their knowledge. These are the mayavadis, those who claim to be god.
So Srila Prabhupada will elaborate later also about mayavadis. But these are the three kinds of broad categories of people who have knowledge but they attain actually a destination. Their knowledge does not give them an auspicious destination.
So they are the godless materialists, the irreligious materialists, the gross materialists, and they are the religious materialists and then there are the monists. Monists are those who say everything is one. They are the mayavadis.
So let us look at these sections now. So why vidya is worse than avidya? So Srila Prabhupada writes, modern civilisation has advanced considerably in the field of mass education. So where credit is due, we can give credit.
Sometimes we say that Srila Prabhupada used to criticise scientists a lot. It is not that Srila Prabhupada was criticising scientists. He says yes.
Where scientists have done something good, we can give credit over there. But the point is often they go beyond where credit is due and make unwarranted unscientific claims. We say yes.
As compared to the past we can say that mass education is much more. Modern civilisation has advanced considerably in the field of mass education. But the result is that people are more unhappy than ever before because of the stress placed on material advancement to the exclusion of the most important part of life, the spiritual aspect.
People are more unhappy than ever before. Now is this a claim that can be substantiated? We can say that happiness cannot be measured. That is true.
But still we do see that as compared to the past, stress, depression, addiction, suicide, all these are at proportions which were never there in the past. Stress is such a disastrous modern disease which was not there in the past. So now in this century WHO has declared that mental diseases, mental health will be the greatest challenge.
So this is a serious problem. So people are not happy. So this is, although we may say we cannot quantify happiness, but if you look at the statistics of overall well-being of people as compared to even a few decades ago, what to speak of centuries ago, stress, depression, suicide, addiction, these four have increased enormously.
So therefore, it is undeniable that people are not happy and they may be more comfortable, but they are comfortably miserable. People may be comfortable physically, but mentally they are suffering. In the past people may have been sweating because of having to work under the sun in the fields.
But now people may have their plush A.C. offices and inside the A.C. offices they sweat. Not because of cold, but because of stress, because of tension. So as far as happiness is concerned, what Shri Prabhupada is saying is just have to look around.
And there are many books which talk about statistically also how the proportion of stress, suicide, addictions, depression, all these are far, far more than before. Then what is the cause of this? Prabhupada is explaining that the result is that people are more unhappy than ever before because of the stress placed on material advancement to the exclusion of the most important part of life, the spiritual aspect. So it’s not that we are specifically against material progress.
What we are against is the exclusion of the material aspect of life. When the material side is neglected and only the spiritual side is focused, sorry, highlighted excessively and the spiritual side is neglected, then that leads to serious imbalance. And people have lots of things, but they don’t have happiness.
As Martin Luther King said, we have guided missiles, but misguided men. Our technological power has outrun our spiritual power. The means have far run ahead, have exceeded the ends for which they are meant to be.
So we have uncontrolled machines and we have uncontrolled minds. So this is the disastrous tragedy of our modern society. Now after this, Vishal Prabhupada explains avidyam upasate.
What exactly is avidyam upasate? So forgetfulness of the ishavasya principle, the principle that the absolute truth, that the Supreme Lord is the owner of everything, He is the controller of everything. The forgetfulness of the ishavasya principle is avidya. So what is the practical implication of the ishavasya principle? That if God is the controller, then that means God is the owner, God is the controller.
That means things are not meant for my enjoyment. Take only what is meant for you, not anything beyond that. But when I forget that God is the controller, then the idea becomes that whatever I can grab and get my hands on, I can enjoy.
So the immediate result of rejection of God is enjoyment. Enjoyment mentality. In the Bhagavad Gita, also in the 16th chapter when Krishna talks about this, asatyam patishtham te jagadahur aneeshwaram aparas parasambhutam kimanyat kama haithukam So he says in 16.8 in the Bhagavad Gita that those who say aneeshwaram, they say no ishvara, they immediately come to the conclusion kimanyat kama haithukam What other purpose of this world is there beyond kama, beyond sensual enjoyment? That is the purpose of life.
That’s how the degeneration of thoughts happens. Reject God and then gross sense gratification becomes the result. So Srila Prabhupada writes that how can one worship avidya? We don’t have to make a deity of avidya and start doing aarti and chappan bhava of avidya.
So avidya means forgetfulness of God and worship of avidya means when we forget God, we pursue sense gratification. Pursue sense gratification and not only pursue sense gratification but we make sense gratification itself as the ultimate reality of life. Now there are some people, so this Prabhupada writes, this is profitless pursuit of sense gratification.
Why profitless pursuit? Because actually in sense gratification the happiness is so little as compared to the effort when we crave for sense pleasure sometimes hours and hours and hours people are dreaming I’ll do this, I’ll do this, I’ll enjoy but the actual pleasure, the body’s capacity is for a few minutes after that it’s over. So it’s profitless pursuit of sense gratification. But this pursuit of sense gratification is itself become like a religious activity for people.
Today the kind of adulation that is offered to movie stars and other such pop icons is actually bordering on religious worship if not exceeding at the times when these people when some movie star comes along thousands of people are there cheering that person and that person there was when George Harrison was at his peak what happened was that he was in a hotel staying and then there was a in the washroom of that hotel there was a towel and he used that towel and then the owner of that hotel took that towel and sold it in auction and they made 16 parts of it and people purchased each part of it at a huge price. So just as people take a DT and the paraphernalia of the DT the small cloth in the DT is considered sacred so here people are considering the cloth that is being used once in a washroom by a music icon as almost sacred. So people go to the place where a film star was born and they consider it to be sacred pilgrimage.
And so in this way basically people make sense gratification into a secular God and they start worshipping those who provide them sense gratification but actually they are temporary Gods because as long as a person is providing sense gratification that person is the object of adulation but as soon as the person becomes old, becomes disfigured is no longer able to provide sense gratification, person is tossed aside and some other person is brought over there and then that person is put on the pedestal, temporarily worshipped and when that person no longer provides sense gratification, that person is tossed off the pedestal and somebody else is placed on the pedestal. So this is actually worship of avidya. So worship of avidya means zealous almost fanatical and irrational pursuit of sense gratification that is what is seen in today’s society.
So there are some people who say why do you worship images of Gods? You don’t worship images of Gods. Well, they don’t worship images of Gods but then they put images of movie stars and sports stars all around and people look at them as if they are taking some sacred darshan. So essentially worship of avidya is what is happening in society today.
So actually whatever worship was meant to be directed towards God, now it is directed towards some other people. So this is how sense gratification is pursued by people and this is called by the Isha Upanishad as avidyam upasate because they have nothing against movie stars or sports stars per se but the ignorance because of which they are put on a pedestal as if they are God that is a tragic abuse, misuse, underuse of human intelligence and what is the result of that? Andham tamah pravishanti People stay in the ignorance of material existence. Now, if we are attracted to certain people, we will try to become like them.
If a film star has a particular kind of hairstyle, everybody wants to have that kind of hairstyle and people keep imitating about it people keep thinking about it and if they are thinking of some other materialistic person, a movie star or sports star when they die, then what will happen? Krishna described in the late chapter of the Bhagavad Gita 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th verses, he describes what we think of at the time of death will determine our next destination and what we think of throughout our life will determine what we think of at the time of death so if we are focussing on thinking of those avidyam upasate this worship of movie stars, then the end result will be that we will think about those movie stars at the time of death and then we will again continue on material existence, depending on the kind of consciousness that we have cultivated depending on the kind of desire that we have which will largely be materialistic, sensual immoral, because that is the kind of activity that are glorified by these movie stars many times, so this is avidyam upasate now here andha refers to the darkness of material existence the spiritual world is tamasoma jyotirgama, it is full of light and the Upanishads urge us to go from this darkness towards the light but here, people stay in the darkness of material existence, they don’t come out, now let us look at tatobhuyaivate tamo yauvidyayamrataha those who are in so called knowledge they go into still greater darkness let’s see what this refers to so modern godless education is what is being talked about, now we will have to recognise this, what is so bad about modern education you can understand in three degrees to be in ignorance is bad so if I don’t know, if I am going along am I driving a street and I don’t know the traffic laws, it’s bad I should, it’s my moral responsibility, legal responsibility to know the traffic laws if I am driving on the street, if I don’t know it, that’s bad, but to be in ignorance and to claim to be in knowledge is worse that means I have no knowledge but I think that I know and I claim to others I know suppose I don’t know the way, I don’t know the way along the road and still I say come I will tell you, this is the way come along this way, now that is worse if I don’t know the way that’s bad if I don’t know the way and somebody asks me, I know the way, come with me I am misleading the person I myself mislead, I am misleading others so that is the non-theistic scientist that means the scientist who talk about this material world and completely diverts God from it, they say God doesn’t matter at all so actually the whole of creation ultimately leads us towards God how? because when we look at the world, we see such artistry, such intricacy such harmony in this world that it cannot have come by chance, there may be some mechanism by which it may have happened but ultimately that mechanism itself is not automatic or by chance there is some designer behind it so to just try to divorce God from this world and just focus on studying the world alone, that and say that if we just study this world we try to improve this world and we will become happy there is no need to bring God in so this is like saying that I don’t know the way but I will show you the way because without God when we try to enjoy the kingdom of God it doesn’t work because this world is ultimately meant for the service of God so worse than this is to be in ignorance and to claim to be in knowledge and to condemn real knowledge as ignorance what does this mean? that this is a third level so for example, if I am here right now and going this way is the right way and I don’t know that but I start going this way and somebody is going that way and I tell, that way is nonsense don’t go there, come this way so what is happening, not only am I going in the wrong way, not only am I claiming that I am on the right way but worse still somebody is in the right way I am saying that that person is on the wrong way and I am condemning that person and trying to drag him on the wrong way this is the worst so how does this work out? in today’s society, people who live with faith in God often, there are people who say there are, we often hear about right wing religionists right wing muslims, right wing christians, right wing hindus but there are actually right wing atheists also, right wing atheists are extremely fanatical people who believe that atheism is the solution to the problems of the world because religion is the cause of all problems such people they condemn God at every opportunity and they condemn religion at every opportunity and they try to drag people away from religion towards atheism such people are in, they condemn real knowledge as ignorance so they try to, they may study for example science also but their study of science leads them not towards God but away from God and they claim that actually science takes people away from God so this is the worst of all, this is the greatest ignorance so this is this kind of education which is godless education it keeps people in great ignorance and it keeps them away from God and that is the misfortune of today’s education advancement and we will see this the result of this is people’s moral values are slid down terribly although people may have lot of technological power they have very little moral power, they have very little will power so this is godless education and essentially if we look at today’s technology what is it being used for in many ways technology in and of itself is not bad but what is it today being used for actually it is basically used to promote sense gratification in many ways so for example television is there so now television, there can be good things shown on television, through internet one can go to good sites and learn useful information, even useful spiritual knowledge one can get, but how many people are actually doing that, very few so most of the technological advancement is being used by people to fuel their sense gratification desires and to make them more and more degraded so because of this when people are provided with more and more knowledge and the result of knowledge is technology technological gadgetry with sense gratification coming through it then they become more and more degraded so this is the misfortune that even children today get unfiltered access many times to obscene content to content on the internet that can be very psychologically damaging for them so they get exposed to such content then it is very damaging, not to speak of there are people who even become addicted when they are older people, youth especially can become addicted to things like pornography so now there is technology and there is advanced technology in computers and internet but what is that being used for that is not being used for anything very laudable so this happens because the whole underlying ethos of today’s society is avidyam upasate that sense gratification is considered to be the goal of life and all of material knowledge and material technology it is considered this is all meant to promote sense gratification so I did my electronics and telecommunication engineering and I was fascinated to understand how the whole field of electronics works but when I came to the 4th year and then I studied one of the main applications of electronics and telecommunication was television and entertainment so then I was quite disappointed I studied 4 years of my life using all my hard work and at the end what am I doing with this do I really want to just spend it all to entertain people to make a better idiot box for people technology again if it is not integrated into a world view that promotes holistic living that gives adequate space for spiritual life then technology can suck a person just like a vacuum cleaner sucks in air so the television that is offered through technology that can just suck in a person so much that person has no time no mental freedom of thought and no practically capacity left to think of anything else there are many people who are so titillated by the multiple variety of sense gratification that are offered that unless something is offered in a hyper stimulated way to them they just can’t respond to it so this is the result of avidyāyāmá¹›taḥ sorry vidyāyāmá¹›taḥ now this is godless education now if you go beyond that there is the vedavādá¹›taḥ so vedavādá¹›taḥ as ÅšrÄ«la Prabhupāda talks about in three paragraphs so they are the karmakāṇḍis the Vedas talk about many things the Vedas talk about material sense gratification for those who want material sense gratification but that is only the beginning topic and after that they take people to higher spiritual knowledge so karmakāṇḍa is the beginning of vedic knowledge but there are some people who mistake the side issue in the Vedas as their ultimate purpose that means they say that actually what are the Vedas teaching? this only so this word vedavādá¹›taḥ comes from 2.42 in the Bhagavad Gita and ÅšrÄ«la Prabhupāda uses in his purport to talk about materialists so first we talk about godless materialists completely atheistic materialists or non-religious materialists now we are talking about religious materialists those who believe in religion those who even believe in God also but they think that the main purpose of God’s existence is to provide a sense gratification and this is the level at which most religions are today whether it is Hinduism or Islam or Christianity people think the purpose of dharma is to get artha and karma that is one purpose but that is not the highest purpose and those who think that this is not just the highest purpose this is the only purpose of religion dharma is to give artha and karma so that is a serious mistake so people who think like this the mistake side issue in the Vedas is the ultimate purpose these people actually reduce religion to just another form of materialism for them religion is just materialism with a good face on it with a pious face on it, that’s all so they don’t have any conception of anything beyond the material and because of not having any conception of anything beyond the material they cannot achieve anything beyond the material so Krishna talks about their mentality first in 2.42-43 and he says they are avipasyutaha, they are non-discriminating they do not understand the difference between matter and spirit and in 9.20-21 Krishna says that such people that even if such people achieve some result by their religious materialism even if they achieve some enjoyment that enjoyment is temporary it will be lost so even if they attain heavenly planets, from the heavenly planets they will have to fall back even if in this world they attain some prosperity that prosperity is not eternal because nothing in the world is eternal that will also end so why they are avipasyutaha the human form can be used to attain something eternal but when they use it to attain something temporary in the name of religion then they are depriving themselves of the gift of religion and that’s how they are also unfortunate so now those who mistake sadashiva and vedas there are many religions also and today we have pious materialists who actually just give nominal lip service to the vedas but do all sorts of things themselves for example we may have we have in many places in India, Chennai visa ganesh temple what is this visa ganesh temple people think that the goal of life is to go to America Indians think like that and for that purpose they say that oh oh lord ganesh you are the remover of obstacles the biggest obstacle for me to go to America is the the visa department that is not giving me visa so I will do worship to you and you please arrange to give me a visa and long queue there people are looking for visa similarly there may be this worldly enjoyment and other worldly enjoyment there are many in Islam there are many jihadis who are ready to kill other people innocent people become suicide bombers why? because according to one twisted interpretation of the Quran they have been told that those who die in jihad they will be awarded with 71 virgins in Jannat for all of eternity so actually speaking this is a gross misinterpretation of whatever is there in the Quran but the more important point is this is what is alluring people to give up their life they think that in this life I am so poor that I can’t get even one woman to enjoy 71 virgins nothing like it so that’s how they are not attracted to god they are attracted to the virgins so this is religious materialism and this is distorted religious materialism also but it is there in all religions so karmakanda is a feature of religion, that is there in all religions where people use religion to get better material enjoyment now what happens because of this? Prabhupada they misguide people they misinterpret the Vedas and that’s why they go to darker ignorance in what sense? they also stay in material existence because that’s what they want to do but because they are misguiding people that’s why it is said that they are going to go into darker ignorance, misinterpret the Vedas so if somebody doesn’t know, that’s bad but somebody pretends to know, that’s even worse for such people because they say that this is the conclusion, somebody says that we want to study the Vedas we want to know who is god, forget about who is god, Vedas have so much knowledge how you can get better enjoyment how you can do material things better, just focus on that so there are many people who want to divorce the material knowledge in the Vedas from the spiritual knowledge they say that Indians have got so much advanced material knowledge but because it has become mixed up with the spiritual knowledge, so we are rejecting that also so at least value the material knowledge and don’t bother about the spiritual knowledge in one sense even if we recognise the value of the material knowledge that is given in the Vedas, that is valuable but if we think that is all that the Vedas are supposed to give us and the spiritual knowledge is irrelevant then we are depriving ourselves and depriving others of the essential gift of the Vedas so this is Vedavadaratahaparthah these are people, Krishna is telling in the Bhagavad Gita that these are people, they are just absorbed in the rituals of the Vedas meant for material enjoyment so Rataha is the common word between this verse from the Bhagavad Gita 2.42 and Mantra 9 of the Isopanishad, Vidyaya Rataha so now after describing these Karmakandis now the classic example of these Karmakandis are in the 10th canto of Srimad Bhagavatam chapter 23, the Yagi Brahmanas they were so busy doing the rituals that even when Krishna came they did not pay any attention to Krishna, they just kept doing the rituals again and they not only neglected Krishna, they rejected Krishna’s request for help when he sent it through the Gopas so his wives, the wives of these Brahmanas, they didn’t do that, they went immediately, they were not Vedavadarata, their husbands were now worse than that are the Mayaya Apaharita Gyanaha so who are the Mayaya Apaharita Gyanaha, this word Prabhupada is using again in part and this comes from 7.15 in the Bhagavad Gita in 17.15 there is the verse which talks about four categories of people who do not surrender to Krishna namam dashkrati namodha prapadyante naradhama mayaya apaharita gyanaha asurambhavam ashritaha so among the four categories of people there are mudhas, people who are like donkeys naradhama, lowest among human beings mayaya apaharita gyanaha, those who are whose knowledge has been stolen by illusion and asurambhavam ashrita those who are outright demoniac so among these the mayaya apaharita gyanaha are singled out by Shri Prabhupada to explain in this purport because the mayaya apaharita gyanaha they have knowledge and this verse is talking about vidyayam rataha these people have knowledge but that knowledge takes them further deeper into darkness so now the mayaya apaharita gyanaha are basically those here in this context Shri Prabhupada is using tato bhuyaye vate tamo those who go into deeper darkness he is talking about impersonalists especially he is talking about mayavadis so let us first look at the difference between brahmavad and mayavad so vad means argument not just one argument it often refers to school of thought that is meant to make a proposition, advance an argument, establish a system of thought so brahmavad is the idea that brahma is the ultimate truth so generally the brahmavadis they focus on brahman and they don’t know about bhagwan or somehow they are not attracted to bhagwan this is what happened to the kumaras and to shukrini goswami before they were able to contact the lord through the devotees so brahmavadis do not offend the lord, they do not know about the lord they are not attracted to the lord but if they are fortunate enough to meet with devotees who are also advanced and attracted to the lord then they can become attracted so these are talked about by krishna in 12.4 and 5 in the bhagavad gita where he says that such people, their spiritual advancement is very difficult klesho diktaras tesham avyakta sattacetasam krishna says that klesho adhiktaras tesham that for such people the klesho is immensely high why? both in the process and in the destination, for the mind to become detached from everything and you just try to think of something impersonal is very difficult and because there is no higher taste there is no object of thought to contemplate on and relish, therefore krishna says this progress is difficult but he says over a period of time they will attain but then krishna talks about mayavadis as a separate category in 9.11-12 so who are the mayavadis? so their vada is that maya is the ultimate reality that actually there is nothing but maya, in the sense that even the lord’s form is maya, even the lord’s pastimes are maya so this world is maya and even the lord’s pastimes are maya, they imagine bhagwan to be a temporary manifestation of brahman they say actually the formless brahman is the ultimate reality and from that formless brahman sometimes the formless brahman takes a form and that form is bhagwan so because they imagine bhagwan to be temporary they imagine that we have to go beyond bhagwan also and krishna strongly condemns this those who think that i have taken a temporary human form they are they do not know they do not know they do not know my transcendental nature and then after that in the next verse krishna says that how such people are completely frustrated this is mogha, mogha means waste, so their knowledge their desires for liberation their fruitive activities everything becomes mogha because they defy krishna they offend krishna’s form now now some people say what is so wrong with the mayavadis they have their philosophy, we have our philosophy why did shila prabhupada have to criticise mayavadis so strongly can’t we just tolerate, yes this idea seems to be good but actually there is a fundamental misunderstanding that is happening about the nature of mayavad mayavad is not just another philosophy it is another philosophy in the sense that it is one among many philosophies but the problem is it is giving a totally disastrous misunderstanding of the vedic literature so let’s see how you know among all the great religious traditions of the world the only place where the personal activities of the lord are delineated are the vedic literature apart from the vedic literature in the other literature the abrahamic religions you guys in christianity, islam there is little positive description about god what he looks like what he does and is about what are his likes and dislikes at a personal level that is not talked about at all so god’s personal descent so many times the lord descends and performs pastimes so god’s personal descent is the unique boon of the vedic literature the unique boon and what has happened to it it is made into a unique bane by imposters how is that? you will understand this bane is like a curse boon is a blessing so how is the boon made into a bane by imposters by the mayavadis let’s see materialism and monism are the two schools of thought which are classified by Shri Prabhupada in this so called knowledge and both have misconceptions so imagine that if i was given a 100 rupee note or a 500 rupee note and then i look at it i thought it was authentic when i go to some bank or some shop and they tell this note doesn’t work why have you brought this note it’s a counterfeit note so actually to mistake a counterfeit note to be real is foolish it is unintelligent so that is what materialism does materialism mistakes the counterfeit note to be real materialism mistakes the counterfeit note to be real it tells us that this is enjoyable there are movie stars who are enjoying you can also have your romance you can also have a very happy life here just make all your dreams possible be happy it mistakes the counterfeit note to be real what is the idea temporary material activities are the essence of life now if you say temporary material activities are the essence of life then the result of that is that people forget everything spiritually they don’t believe in it or they don’t consider it to be important but monists they have a further more complex misunderstanding if i am given a false note and i mistake it to be real that’s bad enough but if i am given a real note this note is bogus no no it’s real it’s bogus so to mistake the real note to be counterfeit is even worse is even worse so because i had experience of some bad notes so i am very sceptical about the notes but when i get a real note to reject that note is much worse so what happens with mayavadis they have seen all activities in the world as leading to bondage as leading to the karma bandhana so then they think that when they see the lord’s pastimes they think these are also mundane and these also have to be rejected this also one has to go beyond them and when one thinks like this then one cheats oneself of the greatest gift of the vedic literature that is the personal revelation of god by which we can become so wonderfully attracted to him so to consider the lord’s activities to be maya or a product of maya is a disastrous blunder so they say that actually we have to go beyond even the lord’s forms for example there is a famous mayavadi or infamous mayavadi whichever you want to look at it a person said you know why do you think that god would have a black complexion so i write many articles and books, i write articles in various newspapers so the times of india is the number one of india so i was writing in a spiritual column so one time the editor of times of india wrote to me and said can you write an article about why krishna is black don’t tell the usual story stuff tell something new so then i had a strange enquiry then i investigated what is the reason for this enquiry this request and then i found that there are different people who advance their own theories about why krishna is black and all those theories are quite intellectually titillating if they are coming from non devotees because devotees get devotional rasa but when people are not devotees then there is no devotional rasa then they need some taste so they get intellectual titillating so there was this famous mayavadi who said that just think why would anyone ascribe a black form to god black is not considered beautiful and god is supposed to be beautiful so actually there is a deep reason for this now black indicates darkness and white is light so by ascribing a black form to god the saints are telling us that we have to go beyond this black form to the white formless light that is brahman so the form is only temporary the formless light is eternal so go beyond the black form to the white light now most people wow i never thought of that is that so people will get impressed by this but actually this is sheer nonsense its not told in the scriptures anywhere nor is it told by the acharyas so actually speaking Krishna has a dark complexion and that is his personal choice but even through his dark complexion he illustrates how even a dark complexion can also be beautiful in fact can be supremely beautiful so Krishna is shama but he is not just shama he is shama sundara he is supremely beautiful as shama so people may think a fair complexion to be beautiful and a dark complexion to not be beautiful but Krishna shows that his form doesn’t limit itself to our normal conventions of beauty or lack of beauty Krishna can be dark and still he can be beautiful not just beautiful but supremely beautiful so people come up with these kind of ideas they say we have to go beyond Krishna to something else so Krishna’s pastimes which are meant to be the shelter of the soul by thinking about pastimes we can become purified we can become elevated and eventually liberated but those pastimes are rejected as illusory as false that is the great danger of mayavada so they mistake the real coin to be counterfeit the real pastimes they say they are temporary the true form of Krishna which is the shelter of the conditioned souls hankering for beauty though that form is rejected by the mayavadis as false now what happens is once there is no person God to worship, God is just a formless light and that formless light can take many forms and it has taken many forms at different times so what happens is I also become a form temporarily taken by that formless light so if I am also the form taken by the formless light and if I can do some word jugglery then I also become worshipped, people will come and worship me and in this way people start coming and worshipping me, I get lost I get deluded I get overwhelmed by ignorance further so many mayavadis they claim to be God they say ultimately God has no form and all the devatas that are there which are worshipped in the literature they are all temporary forms of their absolute truth so you can worship those forms or you don’t know those devatas you know me well, I am also Brahman realised so you worship me only and people start worshipping their gurus as if it’s God, as if they are God so in this way mayavad not only discourages people in the worship of the Supreme Lord but also provides them a false God to worship and that’s how it can be very detrimental to the spiritual health of people, so now as devotees we have to remember that Krishna’s form is eternal and Krishna’s pastimes are also eternal, they are the shelter for us, but the more we become absorbed in those pastimes the more we become liberated from material existence so this is the vision that we need to have when we hear Krishna’s pastimes that’s why the bhavita uses in 4.9 the word tattvataha, we have to know in truth we just know superficially for the entertainment value or even superficially at intellectual level then we will not be able to mine the gift of the Lord’s revelation that has been given in the Vedic literature to its full potential we will be only able to taste it a little bit if you want to mine it fully then we have to get rid of the mayavad conception to understand that Krishna’s form is real Krishna’s activities are real and Krishna is my Lord, I am eternally meant to serve and love him and whatever I am doing right now it is simply meant to contribute to his service in the future so in this way, by recognising mayavad for what it is by recognising how it is detrimental and dangerous, we can save ourselves from it, we will look at mayavad more in the future Sushila Prabhupada writes in this purport that if mayavadis are asked how can, they say I am God you are God, everyone is God, how can God come under illusion, Prabhupada writes quite sarcastically over here that in the last paragraph they say that the self-made Gods cannot answer all these questions very clearly what are all these questions, how can God come under illusion they are simply satisfied to have become Gods themselves don’t ask questions, I am God be happy, worship me, serve me they don’t want to have questions asked that they can’t give answer, they are simply satisfied to have become God themselves Sushila Prabhupada also writes many good sentences in the purport, solid sentences he refers to how the Vedic literature are meant to raise the forgetful soul and people say forget this then they suffer in material existence so these are Ved, Vada and Taha and they enter deeper into darkness not necessarily because they do greater sinful karma but simply because they shut themselves off thinking that they already know and therefore they don’t need to know anything, that’s why they don’t come to know anything more and that’s how their knowledge keeps them in ignorance their knowledge keeps them pursuing sense gratification, knowledge makes them think they are still knowledgeable and that doesn’t allow them to pursue alternate lifestyles that can elevate them to goodness so to summarise in this section the Lord is talking about Yashopanishad is talking about Vidya and Avidya we discussed how Vidya and Avidya have different meanings in different contexts in this verse we discussed about Yau Vidya Yamrata is worship of ignorance, that means ignorance leads to sense gratification so those people and things that provide sense gratification people get caught in that and when they get caught in that they suffer so that is Vidya Yamrata, get caught in sense gratification and there is knowledge that further promotes sense gratification, that is in three categories godless modern education, the religious materialism of the Vedas and the impersonalism, especially Mayavad so now Mayavad in one sense is spiritual because the Mayavads identify themselves with the Brahman but they have to act on the material level and when they have to act on the material level they interact with the material energy and that can cause suffering to them also so by understanding these categories we understand why those who are irresponsible those who are haven’t been given intelligence but don’t use their intelligence they abuse it and that’s why they suffer and others also suffer because of that so we will continue in the next verse talking about how Vidya and Avidya lead to two different results thank you very much