Bhakti Shastri (077) – Bhagavad Gita Chapter 05 Text 15 to 18

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And ultimately come out of this material ocean.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Welcome back to the Bhagavad Gita Bhakti Chapter 3 course.
Today we are going to discuss the fifth chapter. We discussed till the middle of the second section of the fifth chapter. Let us look at the section overview.
Then we will move forward and discuss further. So the first section is Karma Yoga is equal to but easier than Gyan Yoga. Then Krishna is elaborating how the Karma Yogi can also attain freedom from bondage.
So then by fixing the mind on Atma, Karma Yogi remains free from bondage. And that’s 7 to 16. So we are in the middle of that right now.
Then next section will be by fixing mind on Paramatma, Karma Yogi attains liberation. So we will discuss that today also. This was a short chapter, 29 verses.
Among all the chapters that we have discussed till now, this is the shortest chapter. First chapter had 46 verses, second had 72, third had 43, fourth had 42. So this has 29 verses.
So some of the chapters are the shortest are the chapters which have 20 verses. So 15th chapter has 20 verses, which is among the shortest chapters. Similarly, 12th chapter also has 20 verses.
Although these two chapters are short, they are by far among the most important chapters of the Gita. 12th chapter is Bhakti Yoga, 15th chapter is Purushottam Yoga, 5th chapter is Karma Sanyasa Yoga. So let’s go on with our discussion of verses.
So we discussed till 14th verse. The 14th verse was saying that the soul is not the doer. Svabhavastu pravartate.
Svabhava is material nature, that was what it was saying. So now somebody said, but Svabhava, actually isn’t there some ultimate cause? You know, is the Supreme Lord responsible? Okay, if I am born as a Shudra, and I act like a Shudra, then is the Supreme Lord has made me as a Shudra. So then is he responsible for the way I am made? So if I act according to the way I am made, then is he responsible? So that is the point which is addressed in this verse.
Adatte means to accept. No, adatte, the Lord doesn’t accept. Kassichit means anyone.
The Lord does not accept anyone’s papa. Nor does he steal anyone’s punya. That means the Lord is not responsible for anybody’s sinful or pious activities.
Then what is making the living entity act in that way? Ajnanen avritam jnanam. So the jnana of the living entity is covered by ajnanavritam. The similar word avritam was used by Krishna with respect to lust, when he was talking about how avritam jnanam etena jnanino nitya vairena.
So he talked about this in response to Arjuna’s question 3.36. So this is 3.39. Now after describing this, ajnanen avritam jnanam. So ajnan is covering the jnan of whom? Tena muhyanti jantavaha. Jantavaha is the living entity, the conditioned soul.
The soul who is covered by the body and the mind is called the conditioned soul. So that soul is referred to as the living entity or the jantavaha. Tena muhyanti.
The muhyanti is the soul who is put into illusion. Now let’s look at these two parts of the verse. First part is saying that the Supreme Lord is not responsible for anyone’s good or bad actions.
He doesn’t accept the reactions. He doesn’t accept the actions. He doesn’t accept the reactions.
Now of course when a devotee surrenders to Krishna, the Lord takes away the sinful reactions, even the pious reactions the Lord takes away. But we are not talking about bhakti over here. Krishna has not taken this chapter to the point of bhakti till now.
So what is he talking about? He is talking about the consciousness of a karma yogi and as contrast to that the consciousness of a karmi. So when an ordinary materialistic person is working or when a karma yogi is working, the focus is not Krishna. So at that time the Lord does not get directly involved.
Lord does not accept anyone’s good or bad activities. Just like a judge. The judge doesn’t accept anyone the criminal’s crime nor the victim’s compensation.
The judge doesn’t accept the criminal’s punishment nor the victim’s compensation, redressal. The judge does whatever is required according to the merits of the case. Same with the Supreme Lord.
Now the question may come up, okay at one level he said the soul is not the doer. Another level it is said that actually the Lord is not the doer. So it’s the nature that is the doer.
When the question comes up, where does this nature come from? What is this nature actually? That is described by ignorance. So by the covering of ignorance the living entity gets deluded and based on that delusion the living entity acts in self-defeating or even self-destructive ways. Self-defeating means they cause harm to oneself.
Self-destruction means if a soul acts in a way that causes the soul to lose its human body, it goes into lower species that is called Atmaha, the killer of the soul. The spiritual prospects of the soul have been lost for a long time by such misdeeds. So self-defeating means the soul is trying to make spiritual advancement but the soul makes wrong choices and defeats oneself.
So both of these can happen, self-defeating and self-destructive activities but they all happen because of Agyanena Vritham. So what is this Agyan? It can be analysed in different ways. We can refer to it as lust.
Lust is one type of Agyan. Ahankar, arrogance is another type of Agyan. These are various, they are called as Anarthas.
Anarthas means those which have no Artha. Artha means value or meaning or value. So they don’t have any value, they don’t have any meaning.
So these are Anarthas and we can also refer to this Agyana in terms of three modes. There is goodness, passion, ignorance. So they also create a kind of ignorance.
These can be seen from different perspectives. The point is the soul forgets who I am and takes on a false sense of identity. So the soul forgets that I am the soul, a part of Krishna, meant to serve Krishna.
The soul starts thinking that I am meant to enjoy in this world. So I am a male, I am a female, I am an Indian, I am an American, I am fair-skinned, I am dark-skinned, whatever. All these misconceptions come based on the body.
So by this the living entity becomes bewildered. So now let’s look at this once again. There are three parties involved.
There is soul, there is the Supreme Lord and then there is the material nature. So now Krishna has said, Swabhavastu pravartate, in the previous verse. So now if Swabhavastu pravartate, if nature is doing everything, does that mean that we are helpless and so we are not responsible? No.
Nature is going to make us act in certain ways but even within the natural urges, there are certain urges or certain pushings we can say, which can be dovetailed and certain things which have to be curtailed. So what are the things that have to be dovetailed, which can be dovetailed? So for example, one’s varnic propensities, whether one is Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra. So these are propensities and they can be dovetailed in Krishna’s service.
So on the other hand, there are the inclinations of lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and illusion. They need to be curtailed. So certain things need to be dovetailed, certain things need to be curtailed.
So both of these, we could say they result from our mental identification, from our situation in the body and our identification with the body but some of them can be utilised, some of them have to be controlled. Now in one sense, even a Brahmana, if the person thinks that I am a Brahmana, that is also an Adhyan. That’s why Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says, I am not a Brahmana, I am not a Kshatriya.
Like that he rejects identification with all the Varanas and all the Ashramas. He says I am simply a servant of Krishna, servant of the Lord of the Gopis, he says. So that is true at a pure liberated level.
At the Sadhaka level, we understand intellectually, we accept in principle that I am a soul but then I understand my body has a particular nature. So then I act according to the nature. But when I act according to my bodily nature, I don’t become infatuated or dejected or elated by whatever I do with the body.
So if I am a Brahmana, I can speak very eloquently or I can remember a lot. Then if I become infatuated, oh no, it’s so good, I am so clever and then I become elated and I want to do things and people praise me. Then I become karta hamiti manyati.
On the other hand, if I am a Brahmana but I somehow don’t have such a good memory, I don’t have such a good speaking ability, then I become elated, oh I am good for nothing, I become dejected, oh I am good for nothing. But that is also another form of illusion. So whatever the bodily faculties I have, I will use them in Krishna’s service and that way I will make steady spiritual advancement.
Now when I make spiritual advancement in this way, I will move forward steadily and ultimately return to Krishna once I transcend them all. So this is how every aspirant in the Varanasi system should think. Whether Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisheshudra, they all can engage in the path of transcendence according to their natures and they can eventually attain liberation.
So the Ajnaan, the Ajnaan is definitely there. But the Ajnaan has to be, different aspects of Ajnaan have to be dealt with differently. So whether a person is a Kshatriya or a Vaisheshudra, everybody has lust.
Even Brahmana has lust. Now different people in the different Varanas, different ashramas, they will deal with lust differently. But they all have to regulate lust to some extent.
They have to regulate lust to some extent. So lust, anger, greed, envy, pride, delusion, the extent to which they can be expressed, they will vary. So a Kshatriya can have polygamy also, can have many wives and can live in opulent palaces, can have a lot of wealth also.
That is within the Varanic duties and the Varanic arrangement. Varanic, I am using the adjective for Varana. So in the arrangement of Varana, that is perfectly, that is accepted within the scriptures.
So when Krishna is saying, yes, we are covered by ignorance and that ignorance makes us behave in particular ways. Now when we identify with those ways of behaviour and think that that is our essence and let our desires be caught completely in what we are seeking according to our bodily nature, then we will become entangled. But when we understand, yes, this is my body nature, this is how I will act, but I am different from all this.
I am a soul and as a soul, I am meant to love and serve Krishna. Then the bondage will be not there. In fact, when you work in that way, we will stay free from bondage.
So now Krishna will talk about how to come free, become free from Adhyana. So Prabhupada here contrasts the word Vibhu in this verse with the word Prabhu in the previous verse. Prabhu means the living entity who is thinking I am the lord of this body, but Vibhu is supreme lord.
Vibhu means one who is great. It is full of, Prabhupada talks about the six opulences. And then Prabhupada says that the living entity being in a bewildered condition, therefore the embodied soul identifies himself with the circumstantial material body and becomes subjected to the temporary misery and happiness of life.
Circumstantial material body. Normally we think of circumstantial job or circumstantial meeting, but from the point of view of eternity, the material body is also circumstantial. It is temporarily we have got it.
Certain circumstances, because of certain circumstances, certain desires came up in our mind. Those desires will develop and we become attached to those things. Then we develop a certain kind of thought process at the time of death and accordingly we got this body.
So it is largely circumstantial. Of course, we are not victim to the circumstances. We cooperate to the circumstances.
We also chose desires accordingly. So in that sense, we are also partially responsible. But the use of the word circumstantial emphasises that there is a thing intrinsic that connects us with the body.
We are different from the body. And then Prabhupada now quotes various interesting verses. So one is, let’s look at these verses which Prabhupada quotes over here.
Kaushita Kiyopanishad, Prabhupada is quoting. Now, Esha, Esha is that absolute truth. Prabhupada says there is a lord.
So that lord makes the living entity to do good activities. And Tamyam ebhyo lokebhya unnishyate. Unnishyate can be related with the word unnati, progress.
So unnishyate means to progress, elevates the living entity. Esha u eva sadhu karma karyati. Asadhu karma, that is impious activities.
And then nishyate, unnishyate is lower. The living entity may go to the lower places. So now this verse may raise a question, does the lord engages in good activities or bad activities? Or do we engage ourselves? Both are there.
Actually, unless the lord sanctions, nothing will happen. But it is we who desire. So after we desire, the lord engages accordingly.
The emphasis in this verse is that, again when Prabhupada is quoting this Kaushita Kiyopanishad verse, his emphasis is on the point that the lord is facilitating us. The lord is not per se, prima facie engaging us. The lord is facilitating our desires.
And Prabhupada also quotes here. Sometimes Prabhupada uses verses which are un-referenced. And then the devotees have not been able to find references.
Then the devotees have not put any references over there. So Prabhupada’s editors have left certain verses like that. Agyo jantur anishoyam, atmanah sukhadukhayo.
Ishvara preritogache, svargam vashvabhram evache. So the same point is made over here. Agyo jantur anishoyam, aneesho.
Eesha means controller, aneesho means non-controller. So this jantur is agya and is aneeshoyam, is ignorant and is not in control. And sukhadukhayo, sukhadukhayo means the way the misery and the happiness will come.
We are not in control. It’s like, you know, suppose a soldier is on a battlefield. But soldier is on a battlefield without any weapons.
Weapons have fallen off. And right in the line of fire, soldier is actually helpless. Any moment a bullet may come and knock the person down.
So in many ways we are like that. You know, any time some karmic bullet can come and hit us, the karmic bullet can be in the form of adhyatmik, adhipavitik, adhidaivik issues. And when these happen, they can be very distressing, very debilitating, very devastating.
So this is the way we are completely dependent on aneeshoyam. Now, of course, we may say we have a gun. I have determination.
I have free will. I will, whenever problems come, I will deal with them. Yes, we can and we should deal with them according to our capacity.
But our capacity is also limited. Sometimes if somebody is living a normal life and suddenly the person gets a terrible disease, a terminal disease, and what can the person do? We can go from one end of the globe to the other to check if some treatment is available. But if no treatment is available, then the person has to accept that, yes, what do we accept when we understand that I am not the body and the soul? We say, okay, this ending is over.
There is another ending that is going to come. If I am purified enough, then it will be the spiritual world. Otherwise, I will continue my sadhana, life.
But if I don’t understand I am not the body and the soul, then it can be so crushing. Just like it’s like a candle being extinguished. One blow by one blow.
It’s like you blow a candle and the light gets extinguished like that. One blow by destiny and we just end. That’s what people feel.
It’s actually very helplessness inducing. So when we understand that ultimately we are greater than our body and our life is greater than this lifetime, then that expands and enriches our conception of existence. And that’s the only thing that can bring us hope when one is in such grim situations.
Other times we may have some other hopes. Of course, many of those hopes turn out to be false, but other hopes keep us going on. But when we have no hope in material life, then we need to have spiritual life.
Otherwise, we’ll have no hope at all. So Prabhupada makes this very significant phraseology over here. Therefore, the embodied soul, by his immemorial desire to avoid Krishna consciousness, causes his own bewilderment.
So the immemorial desire. Immemorial means that we just can’t know when it started, how it started. Immemorial.
It’s been a desire that has been going on for a long, long time. And Prabhupada quotes Vedanta Sutra. Now Prabhupada is balancing here.
First he’s saying the Lord engages, but then he quotes from the Vedanta Sutra. Vedanta Sutra is like the conclusion of the Upanishads. And there he says, 2.134, 2.134. There is no paksh that the Lord takes.
The Lord neither hates nor likes anyone. But it appears like that. It appears like that.
It may appear that the Lord has made somebody wealthy. The Lord has made somebody poor. But it’s not like that.
The Lord has done that according to their own karma. According to their own activities in the past. So the Lord is it may appear like that but it is not actually like that.
The Lord is impartial. Lord does not take sides. Now here Krishna in the next verse will tell us how we can become free from this ignorance.
So that refers to that previous verse. So the Gyan has been covered. The Gyan of the living entity has been covered.
But by Gyan, Agyan can be removed. The soul’s ignorance can be destroyed and then when that happens, when that knowledge comes, what is the nature of that knowledge? Aditya means sun. So that knowledge arises like the sun and Prakashyati, that illuminates.
What does it illuminate? Tatparam, that absolute truth. Prabhupada translates that as Krishna consciousness. So now here, this is a very significant verse which is marking the transition from Atma Gyan to Paramatma Gyan.
So when the Karma Yogi keeps practising Karma Yoga with detachment and gradually the knowledge awakens. So when the knowledge awakens, then at that time there is inner illumination. Inner illumination.
And in that inner illumination, the living entity understands not only one’s own spiritual identity, I am not the body and the soul, but also understands the presence of the Supreme Lord. That the Supreme Lord is present in my heart, the Supreme Lord is my greatest well-wisher and it is He who should be the object of my devotion, the object of my sacrifice, the goal of my life. So when that is Prakashyati Tatparam, that is the supreme illumination.
And that knowledge arises like the sun. So when there is darkness, we may use a torch and try to find our way and move forward. With a torch we can see a little bit.
I mean we can move, whichever direction we want to see, we can move the torch and see also. But how much can we see with a torch? But when the sun rises, then everything becomes evident. We can see all directions.
We can see right ahead, in the way to a long, long distance ahead. So like that, when we are practising Sadhana Bhakti, we use our scriptural knowledge, we use our infinite intelligence based on scripture, whatever we have developed, and we try to see. But that is like a torch.
We are able to see a little bit. And of course we need the torch, and by that we can see a few steps and keep moving forward. But as we become purified, as we make spiritual advancement, then the sun of spiritual wisdom rises in our heart.
And then things become clearer and clearer and clearer. So that’s how the clarity comes. Tesha Aditya Vajjyanam.
So this knowledge is like the sun. And Prakashyati Tatparam. So darkness is destroyed by this knowledge.
The inner darkness, the inner lack of clarity is removed. And then the inner world becomes clear and comprehensible. We can start seeing and not only seeing, we can start understanding.
If I do like this, this is how my conditioning will increase. If I do like this, this is how I will make advancement. This is the way I should move forward in my spiritual life.
So things will become clear and comprehensible for us. So that’s how we move forward. Prakashyati Tatparam.
That Tat refers to the absolute truth. That refers to, now here Krishna has not told what that Tat is. He will tell in the end of this chapter 5.29, Bhokta Ramya Gita, Sandhya Gnyatvama.
He says, you should know me as that absolute truth. But here he is saying that the Karma Yogi comes to know, understands that knowledge, Tatparam. That Aparam, that absolute truth becomes revealed.
And when that absolute truth becomes revealed, then that absolute truth becomes the focus of one’s practises, becomes the focus of one’s practises. So instead of saying focus on, okay, I am not the body and the soul, therefore I should not get entangled with the material things. Let me work with detachment.
One starts shifting the focus not just from one’s own identity, from one’s own identity to one’s connection with the absolute truth. And once meditation on the absolute truth increases, Tatparam. How that meditation happens, Krishna will explain in the next verse.
So in this purport, Prabhupada explains that one can know God and one’s relationship with God only when one actually meets a representative of God. So what is the point over here? When you say, why do I need the representative of God? The soul is here. The soul is like a small spark of consciousness right now.
The soul is covered by ignorance. So Gyana is there in the soul, but that is covered. Now when the soul comes in contact with another soul who has got Gyana, then that Gyan illuminates.
That Gyan illuminates and then that Gyan starts removing this ignorance of Gyana and then the inner knowledge also gets kindled. Inner knowledge faculty gets kindled and then the person starts becoming more and more self-aware, more and more spiritually aware, devotionally aware. So just like if there is a candle, the candle has the potency to will it and to give out flame.
But that candle will be lit by some other candle. Needs to be lit. So the candle or not a necessary candle, matchstick, something else that is lit.
So like that when there is a Gyana, that Gyana, how is it removed? It requires the help of somebody else. Somebody else who has got Gyan. Now Krishna is talking about the Gyana which will culminate in Bhakti.
Because this Gyan is not just Atma Gyan. Atma Gyan to some extent one can get by in one’s own inner contemplation. So Prabhupada says that Socrates also had understood that I am not the body, I am the soul.
That’s why he was fearless. And we discussed how in Fetris, he consoles his friend who has lost his wife by giving many reasons for the immortality of the soul. Now one can understand Atma, but understanding Paramatma is nearly impossible.
That level of inner illumination happens when one is connected with a spiritual master. That’s why one needs a representative of God. So there is inner darkness and there is outer illumination.
And outer illumination starts activating our inner flame, our inner awareness. And as that flame blazes forward, then the inner illumination increases more and more. And eventually the inner illumination becomes like a sun and everything becomes clear.
And we see the Supreme Lord in our own heart. And Prabhupada concludes by saying, interestingly, the Mayavadis say that oneness is a sign of illumination. Oneness, that means everything you see is one.
Diversity you see, ultimately everything is one. See oneness, don’t see diversity. They want to unify, they want to homogenise.
And they say, see oneness. Now Prabhupada says, actually oneness is a sign not of illumination, but oneness is a sign of darkness. How? Prabhupada says here, at night we see everything as one in the darkness.
But in day, when the sun is up, we see everything in its real identity. Identity with individuality in spiritual life is real knowledge. So if I come to a room and I can’t see anything inside the room because it’s dark, then all that I see is darkness.
It’s oneness. And oneness is darkness. But actually when the light turns on, I say, oh, there’s a chair here.
There’s a table here. There’s a friend sitting over there. There’s a picture of Krishna behind.
I can see so many things in the room like that when light is there. So now, of course, in spiritual illumination, one also see one’s oneness in the sense of seeing everything as connected with Krishna. In the material darkness, one doesn’t see any connection with Krishna.
So initially one sees all varieties and one thinks that they’re all meant for my enjoyment. Then in darkness, everything is one. That means nothing is for my enjoyment.
Everything is illusion. Jagan mithya. But then as we move forward, we see the variety and we see the unity also.
So variety in existence is there, but unity in purpose is there. Everything is meant for service of Krishna. So now Krishna says, once we understand that absolute truth, what do we do after that? Then we start making that absolute truth the focus of our meditation.
So that is what is told about in this verse. So Krishna is telling, we fix four of our faculties, four of our inner faculties on that absolute truth. What are those four faculties? Buddhahas, Atmanas, Nishthas and Parayanahas.
Buddhahas refers to fix the intelligence. Atmanas is fix the mind. Nishthas is put the faith.
And Parayanahas is make that absolute truth the goal. And then when we invest these four faculties, then what happens? Kachchanti apunaravrttim. Kachchanti means move forward.
Towards what? Apunaravrtti is coming back to this material world. Apunaravrtti is never coming back. Kachchanti apunaravrttim.
How will you do that? Jnana nirdhuta kalmashaha. Because when the Jnana comes, then that Jnana what will it do? Nirdhuta. It will cleanse away.
Dhuta is to wash, cleanse. Nirdhuta means completely wash. What will it wash away? Kalmashaha.
So kalmashaha. It will wash away our darkness, our ignorance. Jnana nirdhuta kalmashaha.
Tad buddhahas tad atmanas. Let us look at these four points one by one now. This is very significant.
Our consciousness we can say moves in four lanes. Now these four lanes, if they are going all in four different directions, then we cannot move forward very steadily. Bahu shakha hyanantasya buddhaya vyasanaynam.
Krishna has talked about this in 2.41. So if Krishna has told over there, how we should live is vyavasayaatmika buddhi ekeha kurnandana. Ekeha. Fix yourself on one.
So we want to become one-pointed. So how can we make ourselves one-pointed? These are these four operas, directions about how we can become one-pointed. So if we concentrate all these four on Krishna, then we can become one-pointed.
First is intelligence. Now serious spiritual life begins with the intelligence. When we study, when we contemplate, we understand, then we become intelligent.
Oh yes, there is, there must be some higher happiness than material happiness. Material happiness is after all temporal. There must be some richer, deeper, greater happiness.
I am not the body and the soul. The world has an organiser. The world has a designer.
So like that, that is buddhaya. So our buddhi develops. So we need buddhi.
In this world, sense gratification will tempt us. Come on, enjoy. But we have to turn towards Krishna consciousness.
So when we turn towards Krishna consciousness and turn away from sense gratification, then we can fix ourselves in the absolute truth. And to do this, we need buddhaya. Actually, to learn to doubt the promises of pleasure that the world presents us with, we need intelligence.
And that intelligence comes by studying scripture, tad buddhaya. So we understand Krishna is the absolute truth. Krishna is the ultimate source of enjoyment.
And all other sources of enjoyment are ultimately false. Now we sometimes avoid using the word enjoyment, but because we often equate enjoyment with sensual enjoyment, but that is not necessary. In Bilvamangal Thakur, at the start of one of his poetic compositions, he says that the Supreme Lord Krishna is the only enjoyer and the only source of enjoyment.
So buddhayas will convince, Krishna is the ultimate reality. Whatever is attractive in this world and the sparks, the whole is Krishna. So if I focus my consciousness on Krishna, actually I will get far, far more fulfilment than anything else in the world.
So philosophical contemplation, philosophical understanding is extremely important to initiate our spiritual life and to keep it on a steady ground or footing, tad buddhayas. So now, many people use their buddhi. How do they use their buddhi? They use their buddhi for sensual things.
But their mind is not there in it. Tad buddhayas tadarthmanas. That means, here the mind is referring to emotions are not involved.
A student is studying, suppose somebody started studying quantum physics, because I have to give an exam. Somebody is studying maths. Most students, they are not really emotionally involved in their studies.
They are emotionally involved in the marks that they get, definitely, because they feel that is going to help me to get sense gratification. That is going to determine my future. And the future what they think is primal sense gratification.
But tad buddhayas, what they think is, I have to study. I have to study so that I can get marks. So even when they are studying, they are thinking as soon as the exam is over, I will go and have a party and I will enjoy.
I will watch this movie, I will do this, I will do that. So actually, the emotions are not involved. Tad buddhayas, that alone is not enough.
Then tadarthmanas, so one has to put the buddhi along with that one has to put the mind. The mind, when one gets involved with that, then actually one takes one step forward. Now tadarthmanas, Prabhupada uses the word atma to refer to the mind.
Why? Because the word has multiple meanings and here Krishna is talking about subtle attributes of the soul. So the soul itself cannot be one of the components of the soul’s attributes, soul’s faculties that are to be fixed on the absolute truth. So atma has to have an alternate meaning.
Now atma can have various meanings. It can mean mind, it can mean body, it can mean soul, it can mean intelligence. So now because Krishna is talking about the inner faculties, if you look at all the other three, tad buddhayas, tad nishthas, tad parayanahas, these are all inner conceptions.
They are not talking about a gross body over here. So it is unlikely atma will refer to the body. And an atma, it cannot refer here to the buddhi because buddhi is already being referred to in the previous.
So then atma refers to the mind and atma will be referring to the mind in 6.5 and 6 also, 6.5 especially. We will discuss it at that time when we come to it. So when you fix the mind, that means we get ourselves emotionally involved in things.
So when one gets emotionally involved, what happens by that? Actually, by that the involvement becomes much deeper. So for example, say if a person is sick and is trying to understand how a complicated treatment is to be done. So the person has to take the treatment or say the person has to administer the treatment to a relative.
So there is a person who has always taken allopathic treatment, has never taken say ayurvedic treatment. So at that time, allopathy has told that this person is incurable because this cancer has no cure. All that we can give you is palliative treatment.
The person goes and starts looking for alternative therapies when it comes to Ayurveda, naturopathy, reiki, there are so many other treatments available. So when the person is taking Ayurveda, he is sceptical, doesn’t have much faith. But still, the doctor has told, okay, make this mixture and take this, take this kind of food, stay in this kind of environment, sit in this kind of posture, do this kind of massage.
So all that is being told. The person who is either taking the treatment or is the relative who is administering the treatment. Now, they, the buddhists, they are trying to understand, okay, how does this happen? How does this happen? And what does Ayurveda mean? How does Ayurveda mean? I want to understand this.
So they use their intelligence and they are emotionally also involved in it. They want to get well. But still, there is not much nishtha.
In Ayurveda, okay, let’s try it out. I don’t think it’s going to work. That’s what a person might be thinking inside.
So one can have the buddhi involved, one can have the mana involved, but still one may not have nishtha. So this can happen in spiritual circles also. You know, one may have nishtha, but one may have, one may try to fix the mind, one may fix the emotions also.
Like sometimes people do karmakandavarship. And they say, Oh God, give me this, give me that. Sometimes people come to a temple and they pray.
They pray. Why? Because, not because they have faith, but because they just want to avoid trouble. I mean, some atheist also starts a business and says, I’ll give some donation to God.
Why? If He exists, He should not create some trouble in my business. But tan nishthas is not there. Some kind of residual, negative, fear-based faith is there, traces of faith, but actually that’s not really faith.
So Krishna is telling, not only fix your intellectual faculty, not only fix your emotional faculty, that means when we are chanting Hare Krishna, we intellectually understand. Yes, the potency of the holiness, Krishna Himself manifesting, the holy name is non-different from Krishna, we understand that. Then Pratahatmar, then we fix the mind, we get emotions, Krishna Himself is coming.
Let me try to offer Him the affection of my heart when He comes. Let me receive Him enthusiastically. And in tan nishthas, this holy name will purify me.
It will give me insights by which all my inner naughtiness, naughtiness means, k-n-n-n-o-t-t-i, naughtiness, inner naughts that are there, they’ll get resolved. I’ll be able to see clearly, I’ll be able to act clearly. Krishna will purify me, show me the way.
So nishtha, faith, faith is important. Tan nishthas. This is how, this is third faculty, if we direct inwards towards Krishna, then we can move forward even more.
And then there is Tatparayanaha. What is Tatparayanaha? Tatparayanaha refers to making that absolute truth our goal. Many people, especially those who are worshipping at the level of karmakand, they go to a temple.
For example, there are places where there are visa Ganesh temples. People think that, oh, I want to go to America, and that is the goal of my life. And Lord Ganesh, his goal, his purpose is to remove obstacles.
So the obstacle for me in my life is that I am Indian, I want to go to America, but the visa office, that is the, not getting the visa is the obstacle. So, oh, I go to you and I ask for removal of obstacles. I go to Balaji and ask, please remove the obstacles.
Why? So that I can be happy. So actually, in this case, one is thinking, okay, this is the way I should do the worship. So buddhi might be there, nishtha might be there, my atma might also be there, emotionally, I want to get this done.
But the Lord is not the goal. Tatparayanaha is not there. What is that? Ihaparayanaha is there.
I want to be here only. So we see, in the 11th canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam, in the 9th canto and the 11th canto, both places, the Pururava pastime comes. So actually, Pururava, he gets besotted, infatuated by Urvashi.
And then when she goes away, he tries desperately to get her back and he does a yajna to get her back. And when he does a yajna, Lord Vishnu himself appears. He does a yajna for satisfying Lord Vishnu.
Now Lord Vishnu is all attractive. Now when one gets the saksha darshan of Lord Vishnu, one’s infatuation with everything in this world should be forgotten. But does that happen to him? No, it doesn’t happen immediately.
Lord Vishnu darshan is definitely going to have its effect. But it can take time. If one is too infatuated, bhogaishwarya prasaktanam, if one is too attached to one’s desires, then it may take time.
So what happens is, he has a darshan and he does say, oh my dear Lord, you are so attractive. Thank you very much for beholding me. Please purify me.
Please grant me shuddha bhakti, pure devotion. He doesn’t say that. He says, please give me urvashi.
So what happens? His goal was urvashi parayana. He wanted urvashi. That was all that he wanted.
So that way, he was entangled. So actually, if you want to make spiritual advancement, Krishna should not just be the object of meditation so that we can do things better in life. Krishna should be the goal of meditation and not just the goal of meditation, he should be the goal of our life also.
Many people practise spirituality nowadays because they say spirituality will offer some stress relief. You know, I do some singing, I do some dancing, I do some meditation. Yeah, it relaxes me.
That’s good. Anyway, we connect with spiritual dimension of life, that’s good. But if you stay at that level itself, then we don’t really benefit fully.
We miss out on the actual gift that spirituality is offering us. Spirituality is not just meant to be a stress reliever. Spirituality is meant to be the complete distress remover.
Complete distress remover is we are in a distress state in material existence and all distresses can be removed when we redirect our life from material to spiritual. So yes, we do need, we get stress and we need relief from stress and we can use spirituality for that. It’s not wrong.
But as we become purified, as we become illumined with spiritual wisdom, then we understand Krishna is not just meant to be a stress reliever. Krishna is Krishna. The word Krishna has many meanings.
One of the meanings of the word Krishna is Sarva Karshateeti Krishna. One who attracts everyone. Another meaning is that Krishna, one who ends the repetition of birth and death.
One who ends that is called Krishna. So the goal of spiritual life is to make spiritual life our goal. The goal of spiritual life is to make spiritual life our goal.
That spiritual life is our ultimate destination when we want to purify ourselves and return back to Krishna. So initially we may have some such motivations of trying to improve our material life, but eventually we purify ourselves and turn towards Krishna. So Krishna says what will happen when you do all this? That we move on the path from which there is no return.
And how will this happen? By Jnana, nirdhuta means we become completely cleansed. We become completely purified. All contaminations will go away.
So earlier we discussed about how spiritual knowledge, when we seek knowledge about Krishna, knowledge about the Absolute Truth, that is not meant to be theoretical. That is meant to be transformational. So that transformation is nirdhuta kalmashaha, is washing away of everything.
How will that washing away happen? When we invest our consciousness. So what we have to do is tad buddhah sadaatmanas tad nishthas tad parayanah. All these four faculties we try to, these are four lanes of our consciousness.
They all may be going in different directions right now. We sometimes, we like the philosophy of Krishna consciousness, but sometimes we think with buddhi. Science has also made so much advancement.
Science is also quite impressive. And tad buddhah sadaatmanas, sometimes we feel yes, when I come and chant and dance in kirtan, that’s very nice. But then, when India wins a cricket match, oh that’s also very nice.
Her mind gets emotionally caught up there also. Then tad nishthas, we have faith in, some faith in Krishna, but her life is also not so bad. But her life is also enjoyable.
So tad nishthas, like that our faiths are currently splayed. So tad parayanah, our goal is, Krishna parayanah, no, no, no, not so much. Yeah, I want to go back to spiritual world, but I want to have a good time here also.
Then afterwards we think about going back to spiritual world. Right now, I want to be here and I want to make it big over here. So what happens is, our billions of our consciousness are all splayed in different directions.
As we make spiritual advancement, our spiritual conception, our conceptions of spiritual life will evolve. So let’s understand how they evolve. Yeah, so spiritual evolution of our concepts.
We discussed about sadhya and sadhana. Sadhya is that which is to be achieved and sadhana is the means by which it is to be achieved. Sadhya, say if I want to go to Mayapur, that is a sadhya.
Then how will I go? I can go by car, I can go by train, I can go by plane, that is sadhana. So now, initially for most people, their sadhya is something temporary in this world. I want a house, I want a spouse, I want a job, I want fame, whatever, things like that.
Then gradually when one starts understanding that I am not the body and the soul, then one’s sadhya becomes both temporary and eternal. One thinks that, yeah, I want something in this world, but I want something beyond this world also. So this is the stage where most of us probably are right, we are right now.
Then eventually the sadhya becomes only eternal. Now I am ready to give up this world for the sake of eternal destination. Of course, we may not have to give up this world entirely.
We can still be in this world and act in this world, but our heart’s goal becomes fixed in the next world, eternal. And then eternal also, there also our conception of what the eternal reality is can evolve. Initially we may think that eternal reality is Brahman.
I just want shanti, shanti, shanti. But then gradually I understand what I want is not a shanti, I want the supreme lord, I want Bhagawan. So I want to surrender myself to Krishna, love Krishna, make Krishna my be-all and end-all.
This is how our conceptual sadhya will evolve. And similarly, as our conceptual sadhya evolves, then our conceptual sadhana will also evolve. We will look at the precise correlation between each of them later.
But initially when my sadhya is in this world, it’s temporary, I will be doing karmakanda. Of course, most people today don’t even do karmakanda, they do vikarma. Vikarma is one level below.
That means there is no conception of religiousness, religiosity or piety. Just whatever I want, I get it whichever way I want. But karmakanda means dharma to get artha and kama.
So initially when I want artha and kama, when I want artha and kama, at that time I do dharma and that level of dharma is karmakanda. And after that, from there, as I start identifying a spiritual goal, an eternal goal, then the yoga aspect comes in, the connection with that eternal goal. And that’s how one evolves from sakam karma yoga to nishkam karma yoga.
Sakam karma yoga means yes, one has some desires also, but one wants eternal also. That’s like going to a second eternal. In nishkam karma yoga, one focusses more on the eternal.
In jnana yoga, one’s conception is brahman, of the eternal truth. Then in jnana yoga, as one advances in jnana yoga, one’s conception usually is the paramatma, as the goal of the eternal truth. And then in bhakti yoga.
And then finally we come to kevala bhakti. In kevala bhakti, we simply want the pleasure of Krishna, and we want to love Krishna and return back to Him. So in this way, our conception, the tad buddhaya, so what is that tad? That conception will evolve as we move forward in spiritual life.
As we move forward, the conception of tad will evolve gradually. So let’s look at the paraport of Shri Prabhupada. Prabhupada explains.
First point in the paraport, he says is, what is that tad? Krishna has not explained it right now. He will make it very clear in the later chapters. There’s nothing except me as the highest truth.
But Prabhupada makes it categorical in the paraport. Supreme transcendental truth is Lord Krishna. And then Prabhupada makes that a Krishna conscious person can thoroughly understand that there is duality, simultaneous identity and individuality in Krishna, and equipped with such knowledge, one can make steady progress on the path of liberation.
So what is the duality Prabhupada is talking about? Identity and individuality. Identity here is not in the sense of identification. Identity is in the sense of similarity over here.
Identity, the word can have two meanings. One can be, what is your identity? Means who are you? Can you show me your identity card? So that refers to who I am. And that means I am a person separate from somebody else.
That’s how identity can be used. But the word identity can also mean identical. Now there is tremendous identity between the two of you.
Are the two of you twins? That identity means similarity, connection. So Prabhupada says there is simultaneous identity and individuality. Identity means there is sameness, there is oneness between us and Supreme Lord.
At the same time there is individuality. The Lord is individual and we are individuals. So in Krishna, there is duality in Krishna in the sense that actually that same absolute truth is one, but it is manifested in many forms.
And many forms are also his parts and some of the forms are his parts and parcels also. So we are one with Krishna, but we are different from Krishna also. In this way there is duality in Krishna.
Now Krishna will describe in the next verse here about how is a when we fix all our faculties on Krishna, then how do we see this world? How do we see the things of the people of this world? That is what is talked about in the next verse. It is a well-known verse which Prabhupada would quote quite often. So here he is talking about Brahmana.
The Brahmana is a person who is a member of the highest among the Varanas. And what kind of Brahmana? So now this can refer to the Vidya and Vinaya referring to the qualities of the Brahmana. The Brahmana is learned and the Brahmana is Vinaya, that is humility or gentleness.
And then Gavi Hastini. Gavi is a cow, Hastini is an elephant. Shuni is a dog and Shvapaka is a dog-eater.
The Pandita, the learned person sees all of them equally. Samadarsinha. Now that means in this number of living beings that are talked about, there is a gamut of living beings.
The Brahmana is considered the highest among the four Varanas. And Shvapaka, the dog-eater is considered to be not just highest, not just, the person is so low that he is not even among the lowest lower caste, lowest caste, that is Chudra. The person is outcaste.
That is a dog-eater. So all these persons see equally. Now in the conventional Vedic culture, the difference between all of them is very significant.
This is a Brahmana, this is Chudra. And now there has to be separation among them. Why? That is what people think, that there has to be separation, we have to stay, we have to maintain our purity.
But Krishna is saying, okay, there has to be separation. That separation is okay in terms of we understand that everybody should stick to their duties so that they will become pure, they will engage properly and they will gradually become purified. But at the same time, that should not mean that we should reject others entirely.
We should see their diversity as externally, but internally we should see their similarity also. Samadha, Rishi, Naha and see all of them as equal ultimately. And then in the animal species also Krishna is giving three.
He is talking about an elephant, a cow, an elephant and a dog. So now these three refer respectively to the three modes of material nature. The cow is in goodness, the elephant is in passion and the dog is in the mode of ignorance.
So Krishna is talking about that whatever situation one might be in among the three modes. Similarly, the Brahmana is in goodness and the Chopacha is in ignorance. But whatever situation a person might be in, that does not matter.
We should be able to see them spiritually. When one has a Tad vision, what is that Tad vision? One sees both the Atma and the Paramatma. One sees that all of them are souls and also sees that actually the Supreme Lord accompanies all of them.
And because the Supreme Lord accompanies all of them, they are all equal, they are all to be seen equally. So Prabhupada explains that these differences of body are meaningless from the viewpoint of a learned transcendentalist. So learned transcendentalist is Pandita Samdarshina.
Prabhupada talks further about the difference between the soul and the Supersoul. There is equal vision towards the full spectrum of everything in the three modes. So goodness, passion, ignorance, all of them there is equal vision.
But at the same time, we have to understand equal vision does not mean equal reciprocation. There has to be appropriate reciprocation. One can go and embrace a cow, but one cannot go and embrace a tiger.
If we embrace a tiger, then we will have to wear a brace afterwards. We may knock down, we may be fractured, and if at all we survive, we may be devoured completely. But if somebody comes and survives us, helps us survive, still, there cannot be equal reciprocation.
There has to be appropriate reciprocation. But the point is there has to be equal vision. This equality of vision comes when we see the Atma Tattva.
When we see the Atma Tattva. So this is what is talked about. This vision is so important in today’s society.
When the world is fractured with prejudices, there are many verses of the Bhagavad Gita, which we can talk and talk, which we can tell new people. And certainly we would like to talk about how you are not the body or the soul. And that is important.
But people also want to know what is the practical help that can come by understanding Bhagavad Gita. And the world is caught up in so much sectarian conflict. So the Bhagavad Gita helps us to bring about unification.
By unification, not just among different human beings, but among all living beings, beyond the human beings also. How does that happen? Through spiritual vision. These are the verses which are very important, which we can appropriately present to people who are concerned about the conflicts in the world.
And if we start understanding that we are all souls and everybody is connected with Krishna, then once we understand we are all a part of one family, then the conflicts will decrease substantially. So Prabhupada would often quote this verse too. And we practically see this also within our Krishna Consciousness Movement, that there will be devotees from different parts of the world and they will be from different backgrounds.
But when kirtans start, they all chant and dance and sing and they are all happy. Prabhupada was doing a big pandal programme in Mumbai. So at that time, he arranged that on the pandal itself, on one of the last day, one of the concluding days of the pandal, he arranged that he had two of his disciples getting married.
So the boy was, the prabhuji was from America, the girl was from Australia, the mother was from Australia and they were going to a third country, Europe somewhere to preach after that. So Prabhupada was so happy and so proud. And then he said, this is the real United Nations.
So actually speaking, the point is that people from all over the world can come together and glorify Krishna once we understand that spiritual vision. Actually Prabhupada wanted the same. Bhaktivinoda Thakura had the same vision when he talked about the fortunate day, when people from all over the world, from Russia, Germany, Russia, Prussia, Germany, all these countries, England, America, they all come and they chant the holy names in Navadvip.
So to some extent, Prabhupada fulfilled that prophecy. And the more we internalise this spiritual vision and the more we share the spiritual wisdom with others, that vision will become more and more manifest and we can have more and more equality and unity in the world. That will bring peace and harmony.
Thank you very much.