Gita 07.11 – Kama manifests the divine when harmonized with dharma

Thank you Krishna is continuing the description of how he is the essence of everything here and in that he states that he is the strength of the strong one who is free from desire and attachment kama and raga that it is not opposed to I am kama that is not contrary to religious principles vanatarasama so essentially Krishna is speaking over here that actually he is characterizing two important features of life in any society there are guardians required guardians have to have strength the guardians can well become tyrants if they are not properly motivated if they do not have a chivalrous attitude if they have a exploitative attitude then they will become exploiters and they will become tyrants and because they have strength it is difficult for others to oppose them also so therefore all strength is not very attractive it is strength that brutalizes, strength that exploits that is not attractive I am the but which kind of that which is free from kama and raga that which is free from attachment and desire now both kama and raga here essentially signify the desire for selfish gratification this world is it possible to actually have strength that is free from selfish gratification yes if one is trained and if one is cultured then even if one has strength one will not use it for unholy purposes one will not use it for wrong purposes so that is what Krishna is saying I am the essence of that and then he says dharma aviruddho bhuteshu kamosmi dharma aviruddho that which is not contrary to dharma aviruddho bhuteshu kamosmi kamosmi is I am I am desire which is not contrary to dharma now this has multiple levels of meanings if kama we take in the sense of lust then it means I am sex life that is not contrary to religious principles so that means sex life which is within the within within dharmically united partners that which is for the purpose of dharmic purpose of procreating dharmic progeny that Krishna says I am that sex life dharma aviruddho bhuteshu kamosmi bharatarsheva and then now the inclusiveness of the Gita is seen over here wherein it doesn't intrinately say that sexuality and spirituality are opposite now sexuality is a basic bodily function it is what ensures the the continuing of the human race most species their reproduction which is more often than not sexual so now Krishna says here dharma aviruddho bhuteshu that means that kama is something which can usually which can easily drag us down and it usually does drag us down it's remarkable the same Gita earlier was stated as kama esha krodhesha as ajna kama it is maha shanno maha paapma vidhyena mihavairinam so Krishna has declared that this is all devouring sinful enemy of the world kama and now he is saying that I am kama so then is Krishna the all devouring sinful enemy of the world not at all Krishna declared that he is the well wisher of all humans he is talking about in 5.29 then what exactly is going on here when Krishna states that dharma aviruddho bhuteshu dharma aviruddho bhuteshu actually what Krishna is essentially meaning is that kama when he talks the word kama has multiple levels of meanings so kama as a force of self destruction refers to it refers to adharmic lust but kama is a force is a dharmic force at that time that kama can help a person to become purified to become kama doesn't help one exactly to become purified but the engagement in kama within the principles of dharma when one is living a life of dharma then that leads to purification because that also becomes a means for towards realization so the pervasiveness of God's presence in the world is manifested through the principle of kama now actually reproduction is a miracle procreation reproduction is something which even the best man made machines have not been able to replicate we have been able to make machines which in some ways exceed human capacities in their efficient doing of mechanical tasks many machines now have far better information processing capability than what humans have so sometimes it's thought that machines will supersede humans and machines may even eliminate humans and we just have a planet of machines of course these are dystopian predictions which are found in some science fiction books but apart from the dystopian predictions the important point to recognize is that machines we don't even know exactly how what is it that endows living beings with the capacity to reproduce something which we are not able to reduce and replicate in our man made machines so it is a great sense of mystery which underlies this and that which is the essence of the continuation of any race the reproduction which is dharmic Krishna says I am that so in both ways essentially when Krishna says in the previous shloka there what he means is that actually we cannot be the society and its order cannot be maintained unless there are principle driven protectors of society if they are selfish, desire driven they will act as disruptors of society maybe in the position of protectors but they will act as disruptors so similarly they are in one sense the essence and Krishna says I am that and similarly the way reproduction happens the way reproduction happens which perpetuates which continues the race human race existence that happens because of because of God's arrangement for procreation and that Krishna says I am that so both of these are ways by which things are sustained whether it be in one generation or across generations and thus it is that Krishna who is he has given now till 14 examples from verses 8 to 11 about how he is the underlying thread that unifies all of existence just as thread unifies a necklace and for that he has given 5, 4, 3 and 2 examples in the last 4 verses respectively to demonstrate or illustrate how he is the essence of everything thank you.