Gita 02.52 – To decrease distraction, increase conviction through education

Thank you shrotavya sri shrutasya cha second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna is talking about the stage of a person who has attained transcendence yadate moha kalinam moha kalinam, the forest of delusion, and who is lost in that forest of delusion uttel vittarishyate that one's intelligence is lost in that forest of delusion uttel vittarishyate tadagantasi nirvedam once the intelligence goes beyond that forest then what will happen? nirvedam nirvedam means to become detached shrotavya sri shrutasya cha whatever we have heard in the past and whatever we will hear in the future that person becomes detached from that this now, shrotavya sri now this refers to shruti and shruti refers often we use the word shruti to refer to shruti pramana, hearing yes, but the scriptures often use the word shruti to use to refer to the karmakanda scriptures which talk about material gain through the practice of religion so shruti sukha Prahlada Narada also uses this word in his prayers in the 9th, 12th, 7th canto where he says shruti sukha that sukha that we hear about we hear in our social discourse from materialistic people and we hear even in the karmakanda section of the vedic texts so what will happen Krishna is telling in this verse that whatever we have heard in the past whatever we will hear in the future none of that will affect us when we are practicing devotional service or practicing any path to transcendence for that matter we are again and again allured back to sense enjoyment and when we are allured like this at that time what allures us is the promises you can enjoy this, you can enjoy this this pleasure, why do you want to give the pleasure you won't be able to live without that pleasure come on enjoy so when our intelligence has crossed that forest of delusion so forest of delusion refers to the many opportunities for material enjoyment and many opportunities for justifying, rationalizing the pursuit of material enjoyment so when these opportunities when these circumstances are there and when actually the intellect itself is rationalizing justifying, defending or even championing a materialistic world view then there is no hope of coming out of materialism but when intelligence crosses beyond this forest of delusion then, that means once we have given up using our intelligence to justify to rationalize our materialism once we have given that up then when we start practicing serious transcendental life even then the allurements may come internally, externally and the mind speaks and we also hear so at such times what do we do? we pay attention to the mind and often we fall back or we pay attention to the world and by paying attention to the world we fall back into sense enjoyment so we have to dismantle the many intellectual misconceptions that make us feel that materialism is intellectually defensible or intellectually a recommendable way of life if one bad intellectual framework is demolished and the wisdom helps us to demolish that then with the new framework for working and living a framework in which Krishna is the center and we are his part the purpose and perfection of our existence is in serving him then in such a situation we can steadily march towards Krishna without any distractions so when we are trying to chant the holy names we keep having this temptation hearing externally and internally things which will agitate us so by studying scripture seriously and by contemplating on the message of scripture we can firmly guide our intelligence out of the forest of delusion so the more we strengthen our philosophical conviction that nothing in the material world can make us truly happy then the more will become our enthusiasm to go closer to Krishna who is the reservoir of all happiness so certainly we want to increase our attentiveness and our devotion in our chanting at the same time we also have to recognize that chanting is not just a time when we pick up our beads, chanting with simple chanting which is a call to serve Krishna we need to have a service attitude at all times and having a service attitude at all times means that we even study scripture in a mood of service and let ourselves become convinced that loving and serving Krishna is the path I will follow lifelong and by following this path I will return back to him one day by his mercy this sort of meditation and conviction.