Gita 02.65 – Purification makes external intelligence internal

In the next verse. Thank you.

Krishna, speaking here, continuing the answer to the question of Arjuna, Vrajetakim 2.54, Arjuna asks four questions. And the fourth question is being answered now from verse 64 till the end of the chapter verse 72. So the previous verse described how by following a scripture and molding one's life accordingly, putting aside raga and visha, attachment and aversion, and regulating the contact of the senses with the sense objects, one can attain prasad.

Prasad is mercy, prasad is purity, the mercy manifests as purity. That means the impure desires subside. And then, prasade sarva dukkhanam, when the prasad is obtained, sarva dukkhanam, all misery that is there, haanir asyo upajayate, haanir, haanir means destruction, defeat, basically end, asyo upajayate, when such a person, upajayate, that misery ends, prasannachetaso yashum, and that person becomes prasannachetaso, soon, asho, buddhi pariyavatishthate, and the buddhi, the intelligence becomes pariyavatishthate, well situated.

So, it's interesting that at the end of it all, Krishna is saying buddhi pariyavatishthate, that means one has to follow rules and regulations, one has to gain the mercy, and then one's intelligence becomes well situated. This means what? Doesn't one need intelligence first itself to follow scripture, to put aside attachment and aversion? Yes, one does. But we shouldn't think of intelligence like a digital logic, zero or one alternative.

Our intelligence grows in an analog way. So, whatever little intelligence we have, and we study scripture, then our intelligence becomes stronger. So, with our existing intelligence and with our existing understanding of scripture, we start studying, and we start living according to scripture.

And the more we live, the more scriptural intelligence becomes our intelligence. That means, the more we start thinking the way scripture thinks, the more the scriptural intelligence doesn't remain, scriptural wisdom doesn't remain borrowed wisdom, it becomes assimilated wisdom, it becomes internalized wisdom. And when that becomes internalized, when buddhi pariyavatishthate, then we become well situated in intelligence and wisdom.

And for that, for that internalization, there is a process. That process involves application and purification. So, first there is reception, based on vidhayatma.

Reception, that means, one receives scripture and then applies scripture. And after reception is application. After the application, there is purification by Krishna's mercy.

We receive Krishna's mercy, we become purified. And in purification, then there is what we could say, realization, internalization, assimilation. So, scriptural wisdom becomes our own wisdom.

So, that sequence is being described from purification to internalization of wisdom. That is what is described in the sequence. When we get the mercy of the Lord, then all misery, all misery goes away.

Now, the question may come, how can all misery go away? In this world, we always experience misery as long as we are here. Even if somebody is completely pure, a pure devotee, fully in love with Krishna, still, even for such a devotee, there will be the misery, there will be the miseries of old age, disease and death, inevitably. And there will also be misunderstandings with others.

Others will misunderstand. And so, Adhyatmik, Adhibhautika, Deviklesh will also be there. So, what does Sarva Dukkhana Mahane refer to? Actually, when we talk about misery, we need to understand that there is inconvenience and there is misery, or there is pain, there is distress.

So, if you are going by car for some program, then the car getting punctured is an inconvenience. But if somehow, my hand gets fractured, the fracture of a hand is much more than an inconvenience, normally speaking, for most of us. It is a pain.

It is a big pain, actually. So, now, if someone identifies with the car very much and is very attached to the car, then even the puncture to the car might seem like a big thing, or a small scratch on the bumper might seem like a knife running through the heart. So, that is due to attachment.

And others won't experience the same intensity of emotions because others may not be so attached to that car. So, the point here is that it is attachment that determines the extent of our emotion. And even the misery that we get depends on the attachment that we have.

So, when by following scripture, rules, and regulation, and receiving the Lord's mercy, one becomes purified, then the attachment is no longer there, the misidentification is no longer there. And so, the misery is far lesser. So, now, what applies, in our case, to a car? If we are not attached to a car, we won't be too agitated if something happens to the car, if something goes wrong with the car.

Similarly, for an advanced devotee, for a self-realized person, if something goes wrong with the body or something goes wrong at the material level of reality, that doesn't matter too much because there is no attachment or misidentification. The body is meant to be used for Krishna's service. The body is a vehicle.

As Krishna says in 18.61, yantra rudhani mayaya, that the body is like a vehicle on which we souls are situated. So, the vehicle getting damaged is an inconvenience. So, even a self-realized soul will try to take care of the body and if the body gets damaged, will heal the body.

Similarly, if things go wrong at the material level, even a self-realized soul will try to set those things right whenever it is possible. But the point is that those don't comprise misery, don't constitute misery because there is no attachment or misidentification. There is no desire to seek pleasure through it all.

Because of purity, one is delighting in one's spiritual nature. As Krishna told in 2.55, the purified mind finds happiness within the self. So, because of that, because of the absence of external attachment, the misery goes away and eventually, once one gets liberated at that time, all misery will go away and one will attain Vaikuntha, the abode that is free from all misery.

So, here it is described, by mercy, by purity, all misery goes away and then, that's what, the natural joyfulness of the soul starts manifesting. So, the soul is Satchitananda. So, Ananda is the innate characteristic of the soul and further, the soul is connected with Krishna, who is the reservoir of all happiness.

He is Ram. But in him, there is unlimited happiness and the yogi is delight, yogi is fine. So, when we connect with him, then naturally, there is prasade, there is prasannachetaso yashun.

So, here there is an alliteration in the starting letters of the first and third lines, pra and pra, prasadesavadukhanam and prasannachetaso. So, actually, it is pra and two letters are similar, prasade, prasanna. So, prasa, this is all characteristics of poetry and the Bhagavad Gita is a poetic work, Gita, song.

In English, it is often translated as song of God. So, prasannachetaso yashun, one becomes joyfully situated and then, buddhiparyavatishthate, buddhiparyavatishthate, the intelligence becomes firmly situated. So, as long as we are not happily situated, our intelligence is always undermined by our search for pleasure.

And because of our past conditionings, because of the impressions in the mind, the search for pleasure usually directs us in undesirable directions, pushes us in undesirable directions, in materialistic avenues. And that is how we get degraded and become entangled more and more. So, but when once one is happily situated at the spiritual level, then there is nothing to undermine the intelligence.

So, one becomes well situated in intelligence because there are no impurities which will drag the soul towards impure things. And intelligence essentially means the capacity to differentiate between pure and impure, between spiritual and material, between long term and short term. So, that intelligence we initially get from scripture and when we live according to scripture, receive Krishna's mercy, become purified, then that scriptural intelligence becomes our intelligence and we become firmly situated.

At that stage, we are not shaken by temptations and we can be firmly situated happily in this world,.