Gita 07.01 – Focus not on evicting temptation – focus on inviting Krishna

In our future sessions, thank you. 7.1 begins the bhakti section of the gita, gita is explained by commentators, today comprising of 3 parts, each of 6 chapters, so in this bipartite division, the first half focuses on karma and how karma culminates in bhakti, the latter half, the latter one third, that is 13th to 18th chapter, focus on how jnana culminates in bhakti, and the middle half, chapters 7 to 12, focus on how bhakti is the easiest and most efficacious way to transcendence, so that emphasis on bhakti is apparent right in the very first line of the first verse of the gita, gita's bhakti section, that is the 7.1A, the mind attached to me, prior to this, the gita's focus is primarily on attachment, and attachment is no doubt important, but in and of itself, attachment does not lead to spiritual growth, because detachment can keep us from material entanglement, detachment can protect us from material degradation, but we want to go much beyond that, we want to not just avoid material degradation, but we want spiritual elevation, it's like a person who finds that, who has come to say occupy a house, and finds that there is already a tenant in that house, so now that tenant is not ready to leave the house, so that person may think that, and person tries various means to get that tenant out, and struggles, sometimes the tenant pushes him out, the owner out, the new owner out, or sometimes the tenant, the present occupier of the house is no longer a tenant, it is just occupying the house now, sometimes the occupier is slightly pulled out, but then pushes back in, and in this struggle, that person may think that the whole primary purpose, if I could just get this occupier of the house out, then my dream would be true, I would have such a wonderful house for myself, now at one level, yes the person is homeless right now, because of not having a house, but even if that person succeeds in pushing out, in pointing out, in evicting the asarpar, what after that, it's not that, just a structure of four walls is a home, after that there are proper furnishings to be got, good painting to be done, a proper decor to be created, and then only after that will the house become a home, so emptying the house of the unwanted resident is not the same as making the house into a home, so similarly just freeing our mind, emptying our mind of unwanted thoughts, of unwanted attachments to material things, freeing our mind of those attachments is in and of itself nothing transcendental, and it's certainly not a big step towards transcendence, it's an important step, but even if we empty the mind, what after that, even if we empty our consciousness of material attachments, after that we have to fill up our consciousness with thoughts of Krishna, otherwise we'll just be left with an empty structure, and we'll be wondering what is to happen over here, so if you take the example further, and suppose it's our own house and we have been staying in that house, but we had allowed a partner to stay over here in the house, and that partner is refusing to go, and we start wrestling or fighting to try to evict that partner, but instead if we focus on just creating the desirable decor, so that person has all noisy music, litter, and stuff like that everywhere, all around, and we just decide that in order to draw that person out, we just start filling the house with positive things, we start putting pictures of Krishna, we start having spiritual music, we start, we make an altar, and we put a little materialistic, just the presence of all these things will make that person uncomfortable, and gradually that person will say, I can't stay in here, I can't stay here, let me just get out, and in that way that person will give up, the house, that person will give up the staying over there, because we recognize that there is nothing that can be done about this, after all we are the owners of the house, that person couldn't have all that much control, and eventually that person will leave, so rather than focusing on trying to drive that person out, we focus on creating the mood in the house, that is conducive for us, and if that is not conducive for the other wrestling, that other wrestling will go away, in the same spirit, if we worry too much about emptying our mind, we will unnecessarily distress ourselves, because it is exhausting to keep saying no, no, no, no, to whatever thoughts are coming in the mind, whatever desires are coming in the mind, you say, actually any proposal that the mind comes up with, if you say no, it is very rarely pleasurable, and if you want to free the mind of its attachments, the best way is to fill the mind with Krishna, His holy name, His service, His message, His glory, the more our consciousness becomes filled with Krishna, the more automatically detachment will reside, and it is this positive process of bhakti, that we can protoform whenever we are doing devotional activities, if we worry too much about where all the mind is going and what all attachments we have to give up, we will feel de-energized, when we fix our mind in Krishna, and meditate on whatever experiences we have had, of the sweetness of Krishna, of the joyfulness of bhakti, then that will inspire us to fill our mind with Krishna, and automatically the un-arthas will get erected from the mind.