Essence of Gita 3 – Devotion connects us vertically and horizontally

Hare Krishna welcome back to our discussion on the essence of the Bhagavad Gita so we discussed in the first talk about how love is eternal when it is understood that the subject of love the person who is loving it is his eternal soul and then we talked about other side of an eternal love that is the object of love how the Gita describes God who is not a judge high in the sky nor a saint on a stage but is a guide by the side as he is the charioteer of Arjuna and as he is in his enduring presence as Paramatma in our hearts now we will discuss the essence of the Gita in its four nakshen verses so many great commentators have explicated the mystery of the Bhagavad Gita and one of the great such commentators is Ramanujacharya and he has described the essence of the Gita in verses 10.8 to 11 and subsequent commentators have also recognized the central importance of these verses so let's begin with 10.8 and move through the four verses to understand how the Gita reflects the essence of love in these four verses 10.8 is aham sarvasya prabhavo matah sarvam pravartate iti matva bhajan te mam budha bhava samanyitaha aham sarvasya prabhavo I am the source of everything matah sarvam pravartate everything emanates from me everything is sustained by me iti matva bhajan te mam those who know this bhajan te mam they worship me budha bhava samanyitaha they become wise and they worship me they devote themselves bhava samanyitaha with the emotion of their heart with all the emotion so here the Bhagavad Gita talks about enlightenment in terms of understanding God's position and enlightenment in terms of the resulting transformation of our disposition so understanding God is not just like some other subject that we may know I know about accounts, I know about economics, I know about office management, I know about home keeping, whatever it is I know this and that's it and I may apply it for some practical purposes, I might earn a living I might exhibit my skills whatever but that is not theoretical knowledge and when we apply that application to the external world around us but the Bhagavad Gita knowledge is not theoretical and it is neither theoretical nor external it is transformational and it is internal so understanding God if we consider God simply as a statue that is there in the temple or we think of God as some being that some people believe in that my culture has taught me to believe that is a superficial understanding of God if you understand God as the Bhagavad Gita tells us, the source of everyone source of you, source of me source of all of us that means he is the supreme parent he is our greatest vibration he is our greatest lover there is no one who can, who desires our good more than him there is no one who can do more good for us than him and there is no one loving whom can we do more good than him so when we understand this then naturally the result of that understanding is that our heart gets transformed just as if we tell someone that in your house your father has kept a locker under the second cupboard in your bedroom under the tiles over there and that locker contains 10 billion dollars and what should that knowledge do? a person that has truly understood that knowledge then that person will immediately go there, remove the tile and get the treasure similarly if we truly understand God to be the supreme object of love then the result of that knowledge will be that our heart and life will be transformed if we understand that in loving God we can get the highest fulfillment then naturally we will concentrate our love on him so here it is said that knowledge of God is transformational in terms of that it inspires us to become devoted to him and such devotion is Buddha so here the Bhagavata talks about the harmonization of the head and the heart to understand God's supreme position is the perfection of the head and to offer all of one's devotion to all of one's emotion, all of one's devotion to God is the perfection of the heart and in this way the head and the heart are harmonized when they are directed towards God then next verse 10.9 the Bhagavata states so the Bhagavata says that those whose consciousness is fixed on me that those whose lives are devoted to me they discuss among each other they enlighten each other and they constantly talk about me and they delight in talking about me so here Krishna now moves from the principle of takes the concept of enlightenment from the individual level to the social level where sometimes people think that if you become enlightened then you become disconnected from the world and you are seeking your own pleasure no, Krishna says that our connection with God does not mean the rejection of our connection with others rather our connection with God brings about integration of our connection with others so about here he said that those who are devoted to God they learn to lovingly constantly discuss about the glories of God and delight in Him often when we meet our loved ones we ask how are you, how is your health and then the discussion that we have thereafter depends largely on whether we have shared interests sometimes we may have some relatives and those people if their interests and our interests don't match then we may as a formality meet them but we may not have much discussion and sometimes some people may be externally very dissimilar but if they have a shared interest then their friendship also not only develops quickly but also grows strongly so here when we talk about relationships and today in today's world relationships are source of great anguish and all of us we are social beings and we need relationships but in today's world the very relationships that we hope and dream and aspire will bring us fulfillment love, protection, joy those same relationships often bring heartbreak, frustration anguish and misery so quite often the problem in the relationship comes because there are no substantial shared interests so people shared interest doesn't mean financial interest but where people can talk of something satisfying without constantly crossing each other and without voicing their differences and getting frustrated over those differences we are all individuals and as individuals all of us are not just different, we are unique you are unique there is no one like you and yet everyone is like you how is that? we are each unique like everyone else so this is the beauty of individuality that there is no one like you and everyone is like you everyone is like us in the sense that no one is like us so now the point is if we are all unique then how can we have relationships, we need to have shared interests and the one interest that we can all share is God, because God is related to all of us we may or may not realize right now how God is related to us but the Bhagavad Gita gives a very inclusive conception of God in the Bhagavad Gita 10th chapter later part Bhagavan Krishna says that so whatever is opulent whatever is attractive whatever is glorious in this world whatever catches our attention is actually a spark of Krishna's splendor so a beautiful sunset a magnificent waterfall, a brilliant player a superb artist anybody who does anything special that speciality which attracts us to them that is a spark of God's attractiveness so if we understand this connectedness of everything with God then we can connect our interests whatever subject's interest, whatever attracts us, we can connect that with the supreme all attractive principle that is God so the celebrated Beatle George Harrison was often called a spiritual Beatle because he had a lot of spiritual interest he was very interested in the Bhagavad Gita, he was interested in Srila Prabhupada who wrote the commentary in the Bhagavad Gita as it is Srila Prabhupada was founder Acharya Vishwananda and we met Srila Prabhupada and learned about Krishna more and more we became intensely devoted to Krishna and he wrote very beautiful songs wherein he introduced the names of Krishna to millions and millions of people all over the world one of his most celebrated songs is My Sweet Lord and it is one of the most starry devotional renditions of a heart's call for God, fervently and desperately that is phrased in the English language in contemporary music at that time and it was phenomenally popular introducing millions and millions of people to the principle of devotion to God the same George Harrison was asked by Srila Prabhupada to write an introduction to the Krishna book which Srila Prabhupada translated in the 10th Canto and there he wrote that everyone is attracted to Krishna, some people know it and some don't so actually whatever we are attracted to that is a manifestation of Krishna so in that sense whatever we are attracted to we are attracted to Krishna so when we spiritualize our relationships by relating our interests to Krishna then we can stabilize those relationships in a truly sustainable way we have a vertical relationship with God and we have a horizontal relationship with others now the Bhagavad Gita enables us to harmonize those two relationships the vertical and the horizontal by explaining that whatever each of us is attracted to as we are all individuals we all have our own interests and when we are to relate with each other often our individual interests they may not intersect so much and that causes conflict they may not overlap so much, they may not agree so much but when we understand that whatever interests us is coming from God and when we bring God in the center of our lives and see our relationships not just as our relationships but we understand God as a third partner in our relationship and we understand that the way we treat our loved ones that reflects on our connection with God and then that when we gain satisfaction and strength from our relationship with God then even if there are small ups and downs, small tussles, small differences in our relationships with others that does not upset us so much when we are filled internally then we can tolerate externally but when we are agitated internally we are unfulfilled internally there is some small problem some small misdemeanor from someone and that causes an explosion so when we have a connection with God then tushyanti charamanti cha that connection with God brings about harmony and joy in our relationship with others the Bhagavad Gita describes devotion not just as a connection with God but as a connection with others in this way the Bhagavad Gita stabilizes and spiritualizes our relationships we continue our discussion about the essence of the Gita in four verses in our next talk thank you Hare Krishna.