Bhakti Shastri (146) – Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18 Text 58 to 61

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Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Welcome back to Bhagavad Gita Bhakti Shastri course now we are coming to the last section of the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna will focus on bhakti so in the previous section we discussed about how Krishna talks about karma yoga within the varanashram framework, then spiritualising that karma yoga by offering, by working for his pleasure, then swakarmana tam abhyarcha, by working for worshipping him, then we discussed about jnana yoga and then Krishna talked about 18.57 how whatever level one may be at, one can practise bhakti yoga and elevate oneself so let’s continue with 18.
58 now so 18.58 we see over here mat chitta sarva durgani mat prasadat tarishyasi, atha chet tvam ahankaran nashrosyasi vinanshyasi so this is one of the most directly indicative verses in the Bhagavad Gita for the for the phrase Krishna consciousness sometimes people ask this question where does this Krishna consciousness term come from it seems to, it doesn’t seem to be like a very directly vedic term consciousness seems to be like a modern concept, but mat chittaha mat is referring to Krishna chittaha is consciousness so mat chitta and Krishna is very directly telling if you become conscious of him, mat chittaha sarva durgani, durga is obstacles all obstacles you will overcome how? mat prasadat, by my mercy what will happen? tarishyasi tarishyasi means you will cross over all obstacles, you will go beyond all obstacles, atha chet tvam ahankaran, if however because of ahankar, because of pride you do not do this then what will happen? nashrosyasi vinanshyasi, vinanshyasi you will be lost if you don’t hear me out of arrogance, you will be lost so here we see that Krishna is demonstrating instructing by contrasting so this is in 18.20 58 is direct reference to what will happen by practise of Krishna consciousness, what will happen by lack of practise of Krishna consciousness this can be phrased as with Krishna we flourish without Krishna we perish so Krishna has done this repeatedly 3.31 32 as well as 4.39 and 4.40 both talk about faith and these are 31, 32 and so then Krishna is contrasting by saying that you will get one result if you have faith in me and you will get another result if you don’t have faith in me and then after that in 9.25 also Krishna is talking, is contrasting where famously he says that so depending on whom we choose to worship we will get a result accordingly so now instructing by contrasting indicates that Krishna is giving us choices the Bhagavad Gita is not so much a book of commandments it is a book of choices choices and consequences choices, ok you can do this, you can do this, you can do this and depending on what you do accordingly you will get a result then choose what you want to do, choices and consequences so here Krishna is telling if you become conscious of me all obstacles so the word has come in the Bhagavad Gita earlier prasada means mercy prasada tarishasi tarishasi means actually float over almost, Krishna has used a similar word when we talk about surrender to him in 7.14 when he says taranti means to float over so material ocean is a dangerous ocean and we can easily sink into this ocean but by Krishna’s mercy we will float over it Krishna has talked about crossing the material ocean also famously in I am the deliverer from the ocean of material existence so what does this actually mean when Krishna says you will pass all obstacles by my grace actually material world is a place of obstacles it is not that when we become devotees suddenly some magic wand is blown and obstacles go away, whether we are devotees or whether we are non devotees obstacles are there for everyone the difference is in attitude the difference is in consciousness in understanding what purpose the problems serve so for a devotee and non devotee the problems serve different purposes so suffering will come to all non devotees get suffering and that suffering simply leads to frustration whereas for a devotee suffering leads to realisation renunciation and devotion so let’s understand the difference between the two what do we mean by problems or suffering, it essentially means that we have certain plans to do things and by that we want to get enjoyment so it’s basically about enjoying and as souls we are anandmaya, we are satchitananda so happiness is a part of the nature of the soul but unfortunately this nature gets distorted when the soul forgets that I am actually a part of Krishna and tries to enjoy at the bodily level because of misidentification with the body so then the enjoying nature becomes limited to the material level and there are many obstacles which come at the material level to our plans for enjoyment so because for a materialistic person material life is the only life, there is nothing beyond material life and therefore material enjoyment is the only enjoyment and if there is no enjoyment possible at the material level then there is no enjoyment at all so when there are problems which obstruct or even destroy material enjoyment, destroy the possibilities for material enjoyment then the end result is complete frustration is disappointment so that’s how a person gets blocked and trapped person gets lost because of not understanding that there is an alternative, better way of enjoyment materialistic people think that material track of enjoyment is the only track available for them and when enjoyment is not possible on that track then there is simply misery so on the other hand for a devotee there is understanding there is material enjoyment but there is a higher richer enjoyment, spiritual enjoyment that is actually when we serve Krishna and please Krishna we automatically get happiness by that so that is the purpose and perfection of life so now for a non devotee because material enjoyment is the only form of enjoyment, when the enjoyment at the material level is frustrated then it leads to frustration frustration can lead to people may go into alcoholism they may become depressed they may become violent when that violence is directed towards others people become people beat others, shout at others they when their anger, their frustration is expressed externally, it comes out as violence and when their anger is expressed, their frustration is expressed internally then that may lead to self pity, inferiority complex it may lead you into suicide so either way it leads to misery so now for a devotee when there are problems that means on the material track of life, there are obstacles so what does it lead to? it leads to realisation, renunciation and devotion let’s understand these three realisation, realisation means that a devotee understands that actually what the scriptures are telling is true that when the scriptures say this world is a place of misery, I am experiencing it now, so for a devotee that which scriptures are telling is the reality of this world the devotee understands this is the reality so realisation means as we have discussed earlier to understand that to accept as reality, that which the scriptures are telling is the reality so that this world is a place of misery, devotee gets realisation and from the realisation comes renunciation renunciation means devotee understands yes, I cannot go about trying to be the controller and enjoyer I have to be the servant, whatever situation Krishna will put me in, I will serve him in that situation so there is renunciation that comes, renunciation of what? renunciation is not frustration renunciation is actually the understanding that I cannot be the enjoyer or the controller, that doesn’t mean I can’t be the servant and as a servant, I may try to plan and do the best service possible but still I am a servant so that renunciation means giving up the enjoying mentality, controlling mentality and then when you become fixed in the understanding that we are servants then we see that actually through service I get greater happiness if I just focus on the idea that Krishna I am your servant please guide me how I can serve you then that service attitude brings so much peace and even in the long run, pleasure so that’s how we get devotion, we see yes, Krishna is always my master, Krishna is always there to guide and protect me and no matter what happens, Krishna will never leave me, so what happens is our attraction to Krishna increases so in this way, for a devotee and a non-devotee, both problems come but the response is huge, there is a world of difference for a non-devotee the response is simply frustration for a devotee it is renunciation, realisation and devotion and now our realisation, renunciation and devotion in that sequence, now after this further let’s look at it now when we say that we transcend problems so transcending problems means not letting the problems dominate our consciousness but becoming Krishna conscious so transcending problems means what? problems are there but we don’t let the problems fill in our consciousness so as it is said over here if I am next to skyscraper building, then I am very tiny and the building seems to be giant, but if I am in an aeroplane then from the point of view of the aeroplane, where I am the giant skyscraper also appears to be small, so like that when we think that we are alone, then we feel ourselves tiny how will I deal with the situation? but when we become connected with Krishna we understand that Krishna is the greatest and he is in our side he is with us then we don’t feel puny and tiny yes we are puny and tiny in front of Krishna but we don’t feel puny and tiny in front of the problem because we understand that yes the problem is tiny for me but not for Krishna Krishna is with me and he will help me deal with this so transcending the problems means we don’t let the problem dominate our consciousness in the 7th canto, 9th chapter are the prayers of Prahlad Maharaj to Lord Narasimhadev and before that in the 8th chapter towards the end are the prayers by the devatas to Lord Narasimhadev these devatas prayers were unsuccessful in the sense that they didn’t satisfy and pacify the Lord they were successful in the sense that any attempt to glorify the Supreme Lord leads to purification in that sense they were successful but they didn’t satisfy the Supreme Lord they did not pacify him it’s Prahlad’s prayers which pacified the Lord so there when Indra offers prayers in 7.8 then 7th canto, 8th chapter so there he says my dear Lord because of Hiranyakashipu’s power and his cruelty he had started dominating our heart and because of which we couldn’t think of you, worship you or perform sacrifices for your pleasure now that he has been killed now that you have very commercially killed him now our hearts will become free from this domination and we will be able to continue our service to you through sacrifices and other duties so in contrast we see Prahlad Maharaj says that actually whatever happens I am completely fixed in your service my dear Lord so he says that also I am not concerned about the miseries of literal existence I am not concerned about I am not concerned about anything I simply want to glorify you my dear Lord and I want to get others to glorify you also so we don’t see in Prahlad’s life that he because Hiranyakashipu was such a we could say in modern language terrorist, mega terrorist today terrorist may terrorise a city or a country but Hiranyakashipu was terrorising the whole universe and as a terrorist what happened to him what did the Lord do the Lord basically killed him effortlessly and but when he was there and Prahlad was staying in the same house and he had to bear the brunt of the anger of Hiranyakashipu and he was tormented and threatened and insulted and attempted to be assassinated but through it all he remained determined so how could he remain so determined because his consciousness was fixed and absorbed in Krishna Narasimhadev he was worshipping Lord Vishnu so that Lord Vishnu was fixed in his consciousness it was not that Vishnu became displaced and Hiranyakashipu came in and he was fearful so this is the difference between mixed devotion and pure devotion so for a devotee when there are problems if the problems start troubling too much then what it indicates is that we are not sheltered in Krishna properly the more we take shelter of Krishna the less the problems will shake us and the less the problems shake us the more we will be able to stay calm and deal with the problems better so we don’t let the problems dominate our consciousness and as it is said over here that don’t tell Krishna don’t tell Krishna how big our problems are tell the problems how big Krishna is Krishna is the biggest and he nothing can stop him, nothing can thwart him so by his mercy we can deal with any situation and our significant point is a devotee, Prabhupada writes this actually a devotee may be perplexed but he is never discouraged so what is the difference between perplexed and discouraged so Prabhupada writes this in a Bhagavatam purport perplexed means indecisive indecisive means oh should I do this, should I not do this maybe I want to do this but probably it is not good for me to do it, I don’t know so perplexed means that ok there is this problem, this problem this problem, how will I deal with the situation how will I move forward so even for a devotee sometimes it may happen that devotee it may not be very clear about how one should go ahead and serve Krishna Srila Prabhupada faced this several times in his life he worked so hard to build a league of devotees and then just when his mission started to seem to be picking up nicely at that time there was a sort of conspiracy against him and he was practically thrown out from the place which was going to be his international headquarters in Jhansi so at that time what was Srila Prabhupada going to do so it is not that just because somebody is a pure devotee means that every single step is completely clear and the road from here to glory is straight and clear, no that road has also been revealed by Krishna to Srila Prabhupada ok, now the situation do this, now the situation do this, Srila Prabhupada also used his intelligence ok, the Indians are not taking this seriously so let me go to America and preach in America also he found that people seem to be satisfied in their own daily pleasures and did not want anything higher so then he went to the people who were rejecting those things and seeking something higher, that were the hippies so in this way Srila Prabhupada went and he struggled also but at point one time Prabhupada was staying in the bowery and then his room partner he took drugs and he went mad so at that time Prabhupada had to practically for his life this person who became, who got a drug induced madness, he came to attack Srila Prabhupada and at that time Prabhupada was, he had to practically leave immediately practically to save his life and then he came out in the streets and the hippies lying on the ground senseless because of having taken drugs overnight and there were some bums lying here and there doing nothing there were birds flittering around in the trees and Prabhupada realised he was just as homeless as all of them in fact more because they were at least homeless and they were that’s how they were habituated to living Prabhupada had come for a purpose so it is not that Prabhupada was without hope or Prabhupada was having some unrealistic hope, no, Prabhupada had realistic hope based on the understanding that Krishna is my protector, so he continued serving, ok then he found out, ok there is some person in my programme who is to come, maybe I can call him and then maybe we can work out some other place for me to stay, so Prabhupada kept moving forward so perplexed means not knowing how to serve discouraged means not feeling like serving so devotee may be perplexed because sometimes life becomes so complicated that we can’t understand how should I serve at this particular point, what should I do, but a devotee never discourage, that means a devotee always understands that Krishna is my well-wisher and the best thing that I can do in any situation is serve Krishna serve Krishna so serve Krishna means that we use all our senses all our resources, all our wealth in serving Krishna nicely and in this way we can move forward in our spiritual life steadily, strongly by my mercy you will cross over all obstacles so if you just become Krishna conscious the problems will come and they will perplex us but they will never discourage us because we know Krishna is with us so ahankara essentially means that I am great, in this context this means that I am big enough to solve any problem that comes to me, I don’t need anyone else that means if a person thinks that I know good enough, I don’t need any help from anyone, so I don’t hear Krishna one will be lost, because what will happen when I don’t hear anyone that means I hear my mind because the mind is already there inside and the mind is already working to drag us down to make our life miserable so the mind is there to drag us down and we desperately need protection so that we are not dragged down by the mind now after talking about this about how Krishna or without Krishna we suffer so it’s not that Krishna is a vengeful God, but rather Krishna gives us as much facility as is possible so for example it may happen that a devotee say is trying to serve Krishna and at that time the devotee faces severe problems and those problems make the devotees hold on the process of Krishna consciousness weak and at that time the devotee starts reading various different different ideas from different different people and trying to make an amalgam that is suited to oneself sometimes devotees have the idea that we should not read any books other than Prabhupada’s books Prabhupada said books are the basis and he said my books are enough there is no need for reading any other books but there are other devotees also who say that actually Prabhupada told his disciples to write and it is the tradition within our tradition to write within our tradition means since the time of the Goswamis and if you look at the Madhva Sampradaya, since the time of Madhavacharya it’s a tradition for some people some scholarly people, some literary people to be writers in the past people would write just for Indian audiences Madhavacharya, Ramacharya, Vishwanath Chakravarti they would write primarily for an Indian audience they didn’t expect the soldiers to leave their profession and come and stay with them they may want to correct whenever some correction is required and they may themselves be willing to accept correction also whenever it is required but overall they would recognise that this is the way they will be able to move forward in life so here Machitta Sarvadurgani this is not a call for social observation or social interaction necessarily but the more we become conscious of Krishna, the more our vertical relationships become strong and the more the vertical relationship becomes strong the more it gives us tolerance and patience and persistence in our vertical relationship and once the vertical relationship is strong enough then we can draw back and become situated calmly, steadily and act intelligently in our material life also on the other hand if our vertical relationship is not strong then we become like a small boat in a giant ocean in a mass impossibly vast ocean with giant killer waves coming from all directions we may be able to survive those waves for a few moments but eventually we will succumb to them so therefore it is important for every person to recognise that I shouldn’t make my consciousness of Krishna conditional to a problem free life that means it is not that when my life will become problem free then I will start becoming conscious of Krishna no, actually when I become conscious of Krishna then my life will become problem free, so it is important it is a very vital difference to understand if we want to become steady in our devotional life machittaha machittaha sarva durgaani mat prasadat rishisi actually mat prasadat by Krishna’s mercy so how does a devotee get all these sweet things all these wonderful gifts a devotee gets these gifts by the mercy of Krishna because a devotee is dedicated to Krishna therefore everything that is emanating as a part of the Mahabharata comes into the ears of Parishad Maharaj who is a devotee and he also becomes enthused to speak more and more on seeing the enthusiasm of the enthusiastic reciprocation of the Supreme Lord the merciful encouragement of the Supreme Lord, so in this way the Lord enables the devotee to transcend all problems and move higher and higher towards Krishna, so now after describing this Krishna will elaborate on the second part, vinankshasi if you do not become conscious of me you will be lost, so how will one be lost, we say there are so many people who are godless, so many people who are not conscious of God and still they are continuing to live quite normally so where is the question of vinankshasi, that Krishna will answer in the next two verses, so let us look at the next two verses now, so before we go there Srila Prabhupada writes in the parpot here that one should note very carefully that one who is not in Krishna consciousness is losing himself in the material whirlpool in the ocean of birth and death, a material whirlpool means that a whirlpool is a body of water, is a part within a river or ocean where once a person goes in, one gets sucked down, similarly in the material world there can be desires come agitations come, frustrations come and one gets completely sucked in by them and they keep us in the cycle of birth and death so now Krishna the same word ahankara was used in the previous line also so Krishna will describe what happens when ahankara is there how vinankshasi takes place so instead of taking ashray of me if you take shelter of ahankara ahankara means I am powerful, I am strong I know what to do and I will do it myself if you think that I will not fight mithyesha means this is all false, somebody considered so vyavasaya is determination, determination will come falsely directed and material nature will engage you so Prabhupada explains that Arjuna was a military man and was born of the nature of Kshatriya so he was going to fight whether it is by Krishna’s will or whether by his own independent nature so we will discuss about that a little bit later so what Krishna is telling in the previous verse he is elaborating here so we will recite this verse and then we will discuss the meaning of both together kartum necchasi anmohad karishasya vasopitad so svabhava jena kaunteya so born of your svabhava, your own nature, nibaddha nibaddha means conditioned or bound sve nakarmana according to our svabhava we are inclined almost bound to do certain kinds of work and kartum necchasi anmohad necchasi means not wanting to do so if you desire now that I will not do it, if you think that I will avoid my svabhava nirakta karma the karma that is there according to my svabhava then what will happen? karishasya avasopitad helplessly you will be forced to act according to your svabhava later on so what does this mean? karishasya avasopitad so Arjuna, you are saying that killing is bad and therefore you will not fight this is what you are thinking but you are a kshatriya and as a kshatriya it is your nature to fight, so if you say that you will become a renunciate prematurely and you will go into the forest and live in the forest and then when you are, you think as a mendicant you will go and beg for alms and when you go and beg for alms at that time you go and ask for alms and somebody says no, go away and what will happen? you will become enraged and you will take out your sword and you will attack that person because for a kshatriya to be rejected like that, refused to be rejected it is it is almost impossibly insulting and that’s why the way the Pandavas were dispossessed and their wife was dishonoured it was an enormous insult for them enormous insult so here again the point which Krishna makes is that we all have to act according to our nature so he says you are not you are thinking that you will not act according to nature, you will not fight now but later on you will be forced to fight kashis karishis avasho pitad avasho, helplessly so now here you have to be very careful, Krishna is talking about swabhav, he is not talking about vasna vasna has to be regulated what does vasna mean? vasna means passion, so for example when a man and a woman man sees a woman, woman sees a man the natural attraction it is not that just because a man feels attracted to a woman a woman feels attracted to a man they should act on that attraction and they should unite, no there is a system of marriage by which this is regulated so that is different, vasanas have to be regulated and Krishna has talked about that very strongly when he has said repeatedly in the Bhagavad Gita that one has to control one’s senses one has to regulate one’s desires, one has to discipline oneself, in 3.36 to 43 the whole section is talking about conquering lust so this swabhava does not refer to the desires which are induced by lust, anger, greed, envy, pride, illusion actually it refers to more of not vasna but vritti vritti means our innate psychophysical tendencies our nature, so there is a brahmana nature, kshatriya nature, vaisya nature, shudra nature so our nature is one of these and acting according to this nature is indispensable we have to act according to this nature whatever be our nature, we will act according to it so it is now, even while acting according to nature, we have to act in such a way that by higher direction we get purified, so kshatriya has a tendency to be chivalrous, to protect, to fight, so actually a brahmana accepts charity whereas kshatriya takes taxes, the difference so now a kshatriya has to take taxes, a kshatriya has to rule but then all that ruling has to be done according to dharma there is a rajya dharma which is given in the scriptures and which is again reiterated in the instructions by Bhishma to Maharaj Yudhishthira in the 12th and the 13th parvas of the Mahabharata in the Shanti and the so Mahabharata does talk about this rajya dharma and the kshatriya has to also regulate but that regulation is more to direct one’s swabhava, it is not to reject one’s swabhava so there is a direction and there is rejection or there is repression repression means a kshatriya has a nature so vaisya has a nature to be industrious and to earn money so industrious doesn’t mean only hard working it also means working in a way in which one can produce artha artha is not just money, it is holistic prosperity of course it expresses itself as money also primarily but now if a person who is a vaisya nature is told to live like a brahmana, then that person will be miserable as a brahmana who is supposed to study shastra and teach shastra the brahmana while studying shastra will be thinking if I sell this book, how much money will I get well that is not the purpose when we are doing book distribution it is different, but when we are studying scripture the focus is not that sort of thing so we have to recognise that we all have natures and we need to act according to our nature if we want to become purified so Arjuna, you have your sabhav act according to your sabhav then you will become purified even if one says I will not act, but still I will be forced to act, so what is happening over here Krishna is telling Arjuna that as a kshatriya you will have to fight now in one sense, if Krishna is telling Arjuna that you will have to fight and you will fight then what is the point of speaking the bhagavad gita so what would have happened is Arjuna would have said now I will not fight, but then eventually he would have taken up weapons even if he decided to become a mendicant so if Arjuna’s nature was going to fight and he was going to fight surely sooner or later, then why does Krishna have to spoil the whole bhagavad gita it is so that he can fight in the proper time place circumstance, can fight in proper consciousness so a soldier on the war front shoots an enemy, may get a medal for that a soldier gets angry in a petty quarrel back at home with a neighbour and then shoots the neighbour that soldier may be hanged for that so why the difference because a soldier can’t chicken out a soldier may have to fight when required so when soldier has to fight when required but that fighting has the nature to fight but that nature has to be regulated according to higher authority, in this case the governmental rules, so in general for a Kshatriya it is for the scriptural principles, of course the governmental rules ideally should be according to scriptural principles only so in this way whatever is our nature if it is directed properly according to time place circumstance then it will lead to our purification and elevation a Kshatriya fighting a dharma yudha will become elevated by the practise of dharma yudha this is how things work in spiritual life and that is the purpose of the instruction of the Bhagavad Gita, to enable Arjuna to use Kshatriya propensity in a right way according to time place circumstance and thereby get elevated, so now after describing this Prabhupada writes in the purport that everyone is under the spell of a particular combination in the mode of materialism is acting that way but anyone who voluntarily engages himself to act according to the to act under the direction of supreme lord becomes glorious becomes glorious so all of us have this opportunity if we act according to Krishna’s will we can all do wonderful things in his service now Krishna will move on to describing ok, so if we all have our nature and if we simply act according to nature then is nature supreme no, Krishna says actually above nature is the Ishwara is the supreme lord let me describe this verse so Ishwara is the supreme lord, Ishwara, controller Jiva can also be called Ishwara but here Ishwara is being referred to as is situated in all living beings where is it situated? in the region of the heart so it’s a very clear word means that the lord is situated not in the heart but in the region of the heart and the soul similarly situated not in the heart but in the region of the heart because what we talk about as a heart we use the word heart in two senses one is the biological heart and the other is the metaphorical heart biological heart is the heart which pumps blood now we say when two people are in love on valentine’s day or something like that or when cupid is being depicted so at that time they show an arrow being shot and the arrow piercing into the heart so at that time that arrow which pierces into the heart there is no hole being created in the biological heart so that refers to the metaphorical heart and the metaphorical heart refers to the seat of emotions so when we are saying that Krishna is situated in the heart what does it mean? it doesn’t refer necessarily to the biological heart it refers to the in the region of the heart so the soul and supersoul are situated next to each other in the region of the heart and when they are situated in the region of the heart at that time sometimes a heart transplant may happen when a heart transplant happens it’s like a king sitting on a crown or is sitting on a throne like a throne if one of the foot of the throne gets broken or gets weakened then what happens is the attendants come and bring another throne and then the king just gets up, that throne is moved away another throne is brought and the king sits on that throne so similarly the soul is in the region of the heart it’s not the soul is attached or bound to the heart so when the heart is damaged the soul is moved aside and the soul and supersoul that heart is removed another heart is brought in and thereafter the person continues on the person continues to function normally the soul gets re-situated in the region of the heart then brahmayan sarva-bhutani brahmayan brahmayan means directing sorry, brahmayan is wandering brahm brahman means wandering brahmayan sarva-bhutani so all the living entities are wandering in material existence so the word brahmayan can also be related with the famous verse which Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu uses in his instructions to the Goswamis brahmanda brahmite ko na bhagya ba na jeev guru krishna prasade pae bhaktila tabeej so brahmanda brahmite and all over the universe brahman was the same word over here and all of the living entities are wandering the word travelling and wandering wandering is the difference travelling literally means purposeful ok, I am travelling from here to Mayapur to go to the yatra over there but wandering means it is aimless so the living entities wandering is large journey is largely a wandering because when a person wanders thinks ok let me just get a mood to go in this direction get a mood to go in that direction so like that the living entity wanders here and there and there similarly the lord similarly the soul wanders in material existence that means soul comes in particular set of circumstances and based on that certain desires come in the mind and when those desires come up then the soul starts thinking oh let me enjoy this so the soul is born in Punjab and soul thinks oh parathas are very nice the soul is born in south India, soul thinks that oh dosa is very nice the soul is born in some other part of the world, some other things are nice, like that what happens is the soul gets directed according to desires and all those desires are circumstantial, they have nothing to do with the intrinsic nature of the soul and accordingly according to one’s external soul gets injected with certain desires and those desires direct the wandering of the soul, largely speaking those desires shape the wandering of the soul soul starts going this way, that way brahman sarva bhutani so all the living beings are wandering and how are they wandering yantra rudhani mayaya so yantra rudhani mayaya mayaya refers to material nature, the word maya can refer to illusion, maya can also refer to material nature in general so maya yantra rudha, arudha means to be situated on Krishna has used the word yoga rudha yoga aruruksha, in the 6th chapter he uses in verses 4 and 5 when he is talking about the various stages of yoga arudha means to be situated on so it is said lord Vishnu is garuda arudha he is situated in garuda so here what is the word yantra rudhani is situated on the yantra which is made of maya which is made of matter or material nature, so that refers to our body so Krishna is indicating that this body is like a machine so it is a yantra it is a machine now what is the characteristic of a yantra a yantra in and of itself is not conscious it is mechanistic, it is made up of certain components, those components are brought together and they work serve a particular function and they generally work according to particular laws so our legs say if we have a house and then we have some supporting structure, say walls or pillars for the house now if what comes above becomes too heavy then the pillars will collapse and the whole house may collapse, similarly we have legs and if a person carries too much weight, then either the legs or the back or something may sprain or even break so there are laws of how much capacity of weight can be borne and like that there are different laws so according to science the universe is entirely mechanistic mechanistic means that it is simply a mechanism and it works according to laws so yes, the universe is not mechanistic, but Krishna does refer to the body as mechanistic in terms of the machine but it is not only mechanistic in the sense that there is an interaction of a mechanism and a we could say, the supreme mechanic the person who is overseeing Krishna has already earlier told mayadakshina prakriti in 9.10 so yantra Krishna accepts this body as yantra and the soul is using that yantra it’s like sometimes, if a child is given if a young person is given a bike then what the young person does is just for the fun of it, you drive the bike and drive it very fast and then you move very fast and the bike makes a loud noise and people turn around, who is travelling and people get a kick out of it oh, I am getting heads to turn and people, so often this travelling is just aimless go here, go there, just to show off that I have got a bike and I can ride fast or somebody has a car, then people use the car to do the same thing of course people who are wealthy, they may use their own flight, and especially if somebody can drive a plane, then that person thinks that, you know, now I only developed wings, I am able to fly now, and then people try to attract the members of the opposite sex thinking that I am something special so anyway, the point is that for pleasure often people wander around yantra rudhanimaya so like that the soul is situated on the body and the soul is wandering here and there and everywhere so the body is like a machine and the body does function mechanistically but beyond the body, the body is not alone beyond the body there is a soul and the soul is conscious and the soul as a conscious being affects the functioning of the body, how does the soul affect the functioning of the body? through its desires just like if somebody is playing a video game, then the virtual reality that is in the video game, the person who is playing doesn’t have any direct connection with that so that means say there is some police and there are some thieves and they are all, the police are chasing the thieves and thieves are trying to elude so at that time, all that is in virtual game only, but the person who is playing, say he is playing police and the person is in the middle, person has to say arrest the thief or shoot the thief or whatever, so then the person through the mechanism of the video game by pressing a button here, by pulling a lever here or by moving the cursor here, this way, that way they can get the policeman to move and then accordingly the thief gets caught or thief runs away, so the point is the connection is through the mechanism there is an arrangement made the arrangement is not made by the video game player only actually there is a person who has developed the video game and that person’s intelligence is involved in making the whole setup and through that setup this person who is playing the video game, the player identifies with the character in the video game and then plays the game so similarly Krishna is telling he is the Eshwara he is the Eshwara and he is he is present in the hearts of all living beings and this world material world is like a virtual reality one of Shri Prabhupada’s scholarly disciples Sadaput Prabhu have a Richard Thomson he is a mathematician mathematics PhD from Cornell so he has written a very good book called Maya the world as a virtual reality it’s a quite a intricate scientific book which explains many of the puzzles and enigmas of modern science from the perspective of from the perspective of Vedic science Vedic Vedic philosophy, Vedic insights and it shows how the concept of virtual reality when it is correlated with the concept of Maya can give you a lot of insights which can help us understand even the scientific world view better not only that devotees can understand the scientific world view devotees can understand scripture but even scientists can understand what are the implications of the scientific world view better so coming back to our verse we will not go into too much of the technicalities here but each of us depending on our swabhava within this video game we have been allocated a particular role so you know the thief cannot suddenly become a police and the police cannot become a thief so like that the Kshatriya has to act as Kshatriya, the Brahmana acts as a Brahmana, the Vaishya acts as a Vaishya, so like that according to our varna we act and while acting according to our varna if we act properly then we will become purified this whole system is supervised by the supreme lord and under his supervision he is situated in the heart, he has set up the whole system and he is directing the wanderings so Prabhupada uses the word directing actually there is no direct correlation with the word directing in the Sanskrit of the verse, the Sanskrit of the verse has two basic parts the first A and B it says that the lord is situated in the hearts of all living beings in the region of the heart the second part says these living beings so brahman refers to so actually the word brahman is very deep, it is the word brahman refers to wandering and brahman refers to causing to wander or causing to travel so now is it that the lord is causing the living entity to travel is it that the lord is say sending a living entity to this kind of enjoyment or that kind of enjoyment or that kind of suffering, you would normally think no, we all have free will and the lord doesn’t cause so then what is the implication of this verse actually brahman indicates that the lord is the supervisor we have discussed earlier about how things happen the soul is the desirer the lord is the sanctioner and material nature is the executor so for example if I raise my hand now when I raise my hand how does this happen, if I go into the scientific analysis of this it’s very complex it’s just people just don’t know how it happens so there was a Nobel laureate neurosurgeon who did a lot of research into how the body functions and he for example what he did was he had some patients and now we know scientists know that the body’s motor nervous system when a hand raises, this function of raising is done through the motor nervous system and this is connected to a certain area of the brain so when when I’m raising my hand, it is that part of the brain gets activated and through that the hand gets raised so now what he did was he activated that part of the brain externally that means using sensors probes and sensors and other such instrumentation he activated that part and immediately what happened the hand got raised and when the hand gets raised like this so he asked the patient the subject over there did you raise your hand he asked the subject what happened my hand went up, did you raise your hand he said no, I didn’t raise my hand you raised the hand then he deactivated that that particular signal and the hand fell down he said what happened, he said my hand fell down he said did you put it down, he said no, you put it down I didn’t put it down so then afterwards, without any activation he asked, ok raise your hand he said raise the hand, ok what happened he said my hand my hand went up, I raised my hand and similarly, put your hand down I put my hand down, that’s how he described it so now this seems to be a fairly straight forward experiment but what exactly does it mean, now what he tried is ok when this part of the brain is activated then the hand goes up but who is the person who is actually activating the hand in the first case so to explain this say sometimes a computer may have a printer attached to it and the printer has a printing hand printing hand, different words are used for it so now suppose it’s my computer so normally say if I give the print command then the printer hand will start moving but sometimes say if I am say immobilised paralysed or my hands are tied up literally or figuratively because I am doing some other work, so I tell somebody somebody else comes and presses the print command, then what happens the printer starts moving it starts moving, moving, moving and now I may wonder so in one case somebody else is pressing the print command and then the printer hand is moving in another case I am pressing the print command and the hand is moving but either case actually the person who is pressing the print command the initiator of the action is different from the machine so it’s different from the hand the printer hand is getting moved and it’s also different from the machine which is causing the printing hand to move, so like that when my hand is moving up and down the machine, the mechanical activation is happening in the particular part of the brain but who is the activator in the first case it is the neurosurgeon, but in the second case who is it so what he tried to do this neurosurgeon is, he tried to activate different parts of the brain and to see if there is some other part of the brain which when activated then the person starts feeling that I am the activator I am the activator but whichever part of the brain is activated, it doesn’t lead to the feeling that I am the activator so eventually there are actually several Rogers, Perry and Eccles and several other neurosurgeons like that, they all they are Nobel laureates or they are among the top neurosurgeons and they feel that actually the brain cannot be consciousness and the entire functioning of the human person cannot be explained only in terms of neurobiology, so they say so the conclusion of these neurosurgeons is that the brain is like a computer but the it’s like a computer but the programmer the user of the computer is outside the brain is extra cerebral extra cerebral, so why are we going into all this science right now the simple point which we are discussing is that the soul is actually not the activator so certainly the brain is not the activator if the brain is not the activator then who is the activator, so we have discussed earlier the soul desires, the super soul sanctions and the material nature executes so when I raise my hand, how does it happen it is I am the desirer now science will tell us ok the hand is raised because of the motor nervous system functioning and everything in the brain but that is all the execution part only but before the execution part there is the desiring part the sanctioning part, there is the executing part so science only sees the executing part, it doesn’t understand the role of the super soul because super soul is spiritual and science largely reduces itself to study of matter only and then further it doesn’t understand the soul who is the initiator through the desire so when we say the lord causes the living entity to wander that means that the lord sanctions the desires and provides the facilities for the soul to move according to its desires so just like a video game is set up, within the video game the the player can play in such a way that the player wins or the player can win in such a way that the player loses so now overall what we will say if there is a gambling casino or there is a video game to play or something like that, there is a place where people can play and they can earn or lose points or even money or whatever, then the whole thing is set up by a particular institution or particular person or whatever and within that everybody else is playing so when we say Krishna is brahmayan sarva bhutan, he is causing to wander, that means that Krishna is providing the overall framework and within that the living entity is working so different living entities work in different ways so Prabhupada makes the point clear, brahmayan he doesn’t translate, in word to word translation he says causes to wander but then the sentence translation he explains it as directs the wanderings, why directs the wanderings? because if you see in a movie there is a director the director is invisible but the director plays a very important role so similarly the living entities are directed by the supreme lord so of course this doesn’t mean that the living entities are merely like puppets they have their free will and they act according to their free will but the overall framework in which the action takes place that is supervised by the supreme lord, so if I am a human body I can’t start flying like a bird or barking like a dog, if our soul is in a dog’s body, the soul cannot suddenly start chirping like a bird so there is a overall supervision is there we all have been given akshetra, jurisdiction and the lord causes the wandering of the living entities like this, directs the wanderings, so what is the significance of this, that will be mentioned in the next verse, that the idea is ok, we are to some extent controlled by our nature that was the conclusion of 59 and 60 that we will have to act according to our nature prakriti niyokshati prakriti sthom niyokshati, material nature will engage you cannot give up your nature but now in this verse Krishna is telling that actually you and the nature is controlled by the supreme lord and the next verse he will tell in 62 that therefore surrender to the supreme lord and then you will be able to actually attain auspiciousness, that we will discuss in our next class, thank you very much Srimad Bhagavad Gita Ki Jai.