Gita 03.39 – The eternal enemy blinds, binds and burns

That will be discussed in the future verses, thank you. this is bhagavad-gita 3.39 covering, jnanam etena, etena refers to the last, that covers, jnanino nitya vairinam, the soul who has knowledge, jnani, the soul also is satchitananda, but here, because lust covers the knowledge, so to emphasize that knowledge is the original feature of the soul, it is said jnanino nitya vairinam, the eternal enemy, that is, who is this eternal enemy? kamarupena, which is lust, kaunteya, dushpurena analena ca, it burns like fire and it is never satisfied, burns like fire, so essentially Krishna is cautioning us here that lust is the enemy and what does it do? avrutam jnanam, it covers us, now this is not just a covering that blinds, it is a covering that misleads, if there is a simple covering, you know, some is a blanket on our face, then somebody puts a blanket, we cannot see anything at all, but the covering of lust is not like a blanket on a face, it is more like a colored glass that distorts what we see, so because of that, firstly, there is a blindness that happens in terms of we cannot see anything spiritual, so we cannot perceive our spiritual identity, we cannot perceive Krishna, we cannot perceive our relationship with him and we cannot even perceive the spiritual dimension of life at all, but this is not just blindness because we get a false vision, now we start seeing the objects of this world and they look enormously attractive to us and that is how we, if we were blinded, we would freeze in our tracks, but lust does not blind us, it also binds us, it binds us to a false picture of reality and that false picture does not freeze us, it actually mobilizes us in a wrong direction, so we start seeking pleasure in temporary material things and those things can never provide us lasting satisfaction, but we keep grappling and struggling for such satisfaction and in that way, we stay trapped in illusion, so the way out of this is by practicing serious spiritual life, we will discuss about that later, but here, Nitya Vairena is because eternal enemies, scary words, now this usage of Nitya is non-literal, like Narake Niyatam Vasa was there in 1.43 or there is the general use of Nitya Bhadda, now no one goes to hell eternally nor is our conditioning eternal, but it is for so long that it appears as if it is eternal, Nitya Vairena, Jnanino Nitya Vairena, Kama Rupena Kaunteya, it is in the form of Kama, Dushpura refers to that which cannot be satisfied, Analena refers to that which burns like fire, so together it conveys the idea that indulgence will not pacify lust, actually indulgence will fuel lust more, just as fire does not get extinguished when fuel is added into it, rather the fire grows bigger, so similarly, actually fire does not go down, so lust does not go down when we indulge, rather it goes up, and if you have to ever become free from lust, we need to stop gratifying it, so Nitya Vairena is such a significant word that normal enemy would maybe hurt us, kill us, but that would be the end of it, but lust follows us lifetime after lifetime, and for so many lifetimes, lust has been following us and it is never going to stop unless we stop it, we stop feeding it, we stop indulging in it, the way the fire will get extinguished when the fuel runs out, so indulgence is the fuel that causes the fire of lust to keep burning, and when we stop indulgence, then gradually the fire will die out, so we need to learn to stop the fueling the fire, Nitya Vairena is a very sobering word, because it also indicates that we cannot expect lust to go away just by doing some cosmetic change, it is not that by wearing a dhoti kurta or putting a bead bag in our hands, lust will go away, it is not even by becoming a brahmachari or sanyasi, lust will go away, it is going to be there, what will happen is, as we keep practicing bhakti more and more, and as we become attracted to Krishna more and more, then our desire to indulge in lust will go down, so the proposals may come, of course the proposals will also become less frequent and less insistent, less frequent means they do not come so often, and less insistent means they do not come so forcefully, but even when those proposals come infrequently and unforcefully, still even at those times, we won't feel inclined to indulge in lust if we have developed an inclination of devoting ourselves to Krishna, and that inclination, that will counter the inclination towards lust, so the previous two verses connected in the sense that 37th said that lust is the enemy, so how lust is an enemy in this world was described in 38th verse, that all living beings are covered by lust to varying degrees, and this 39th verse states that actually not only all living beings are covered, but also that how lust covers, that is by covering our knowledge, by not just blinding us, but distorting our vision, so this is how lust acts as an enemy, so nitya vairena, like Arjuna you are fighting with enemies like Karna and Duryodhana, now they will be there for one lifetime, you will fight them, you will kill them, and that's the end of the enmity, but this is not enmity that is going to end in one lifetime, it has been going on for many lifetimes, and of course, jai jatram mahabahu, Krishna will tell in the last verse in 3.43, so it does indicate that this enemy can also be overcome, and it can be conquered, but it has been there with us for a long time, and it will be there with us for a long time, so we need to take firm measures to counter it, otherwise it will torment us lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, dushpure na nalacharya, burn like an insatiable fire, so Krishna uses two metaphors simultaneously in this verse, one is of a covering, avratham, and another is of a fire, so the similarity is that avratham focuses more on the relationship is that, that actually avratham focuses more on covering the soul's original perception, that is jnana, and anala focuses more on how it burns within, and you know if we feel hot about something, then naturally we want to go to some place where we get some relief, so lust creates a fire within our heart, and that fire impels us towards to go to the coolness of the sense objects, and we imagine that by going to the, by coming in contact with the cooling sense objects, our, the fire of lust will become extinguished, so that is the illusion, in the movies there are songs which say saavan jo aag lagaye, so according to the biological drives that function within nature, then in certain seasons the sexual drive within people gets activated, so they think this is a drive, aag lagaye, so it sets fire, but people think that by indulging in sense objects this fire will get extinguished, but rather the fire will get aggravated, not extinguished, the extinction will happen when we direct our desire towards Krishna, and get higher happiness in that, and stop putting fuel in the fire of sensual desire,.