Gita 07.28 – Dont expect immediate steady determination – use present determination, even if unsteady
Class. Thank you Esham for those people who are antagatam papam whose papa whose sin has ended chanaanam punyakarmanaam chanaanam such people punyakarmanaam they have performed punya in this chanaanam punyakarmanaam te dangamoha nirmukta such people become freed from the illusions created by duality and they worship me with determination in the previous verse 27th text krishna has explained how in this world people get caught in illusion the attachment and aversion dvandamohena bharata dvandamohena these two are combined sources of moha sarvabhutani sammoham sarvabhutani all living beings are put into sammoha by this sargeyanti parantapa this happens from the birth itself so now after having been told that this is how living beings go into illusion a natural question will come up how can they come out of illusion krishna has addressed this issue earlier when in 7.14 he stated that daiviyesh gunamayimam maya duratyaya mam eva ye prapadyante maya metam tarantite then he stated that by surrendering to him we can go beyond the formidable energy of maya but still that alone while it is enough that is in a different context where krishna has just introduced the three modes of material nature has talked in terms of the three modes of material nature and then he talks about how we can go beyond the energy made of the three modes by by surrendering to him now in this verse krishna says that in this context krishna is speaking and saying that after specifically the illusion of duality which afflicts the souls, how that can be removed krishna says yesham to antagatam papam those who are antagatam those who give up those sinful activity then jananam punya karmanam they should do punya so giving up piety, doing punya take inga mohanir mukta such people being free from the illusion of duality bachante mam iddhra dhavrata bachante mam they worship me, iddhra dhavrata with great determination this can also be taken in another way that the people who seek to do this, people who seek to become purified of sinful activities they worship me with determination and thus they become purified krishna will talk about that theme in towards the end of the 14th chapter 14.26 when he says that mam chalobya vichare na bhakti-yogena sevate sagunan samati yaitan brahma-bhuyaya kalpate, he says that you can go beyond the mode by practicing bhakti this may seem to be like a cycle self-referential cycle, krishna says that you can go beyond the modes by surrendering to me that's what he said in 7.14 and then in 14.26 he says that by being devoted to me and unflinching away you can go beyond the modes so you may wonder where do we begin this, it's like saying that by taking the treatment you can become free from the disease and to become free from the disease take the treatment 7.14 and 14.26 seem to be saying the same thing that to go beyond the modes practice bhakti and unflinchingly surrender to krishna whereas this 7.28 seems to say that you need to become free from sin become situated in fixed in piety to be able to come to the level of becoming fixed in bhakti practicing bhakti determinately so which is the entry point actually we don't have to make things so complicated the simple point is that initially if you are not able to practice bhakti steadily for example if we are too much in tamoguna at that time we may find the principles of bhakti very difficult to practice we may not be able to concentrate while chanting we may not even feel like sitting at one place and studying or hearing our attachments and aversions may be very strongly affecting us at that time but sometimes in the case of ayurvedic treatment it may well happen that some people may not even be able to may be too weak to take some strong treatment and the doctor may give some milder treatment initially so that the patient recovers some basic health by which some stronger treatment can be given so similarly sometimes when people are very much afflicted in the lower modes at that time they may not be able to practice bhakti properly but still they just continue trying to practice bhakti according to their capacity whatever little they can do that little practice will purify them and bring them to a level where they can practice more bhakti so we may feel if somebody is more sick that person requires a stronger dose that is true but whether they can sustain the stronger dose is also a valid question and we need to ask that sometimes the mental existence and people are in the lower modes their attachments and aversions are so strong that they cannot possibly put them aside and focus on the principles of bhakti so then whatever room their attachments and aversions leave for them they will have to practice bhakti within that room and gradually as they become purified then antakatam papam jananam punyakarmanam so when they gradually, by the little practice of bhakti they become purified then they so they give up in piety progressively, they do piety and by that they become free from the illusion of duality and thereafter bhajante maam jagrudabhrata bhajante maam they start worshipping me with devotion so unless they come to that level of practicing bhakti diligently till that time they will have to practice bhakti according to whatever capacity they have so we shouldn't become too disheartened if we need to keep practicing according to whatever is our present capacity right now and by such practice we will move onwards and eventually come to the level of steady practice if we can't beat our conditionings we don't have to beat ourselves for our conditionings we can just beat them according to our capacity right now if we can't beat our conditionings means that if we can't overcome our conditionings and we can't practice bhakti steadily we may just fill ourselves with so much self-pity, remorse guilt and negativity that we become disheartened in practicing whatever bhakti we can and by that we don't practice even whatever bhakti we might have been able to also so we do have standards that we want to aspire towards but if we can't practice those standards we needn't if we can't beat down our conditionings we needn't beat ourselves down because of the conditionings we can just continue on practicing, praying to Krishna, seeking his mercy finding out which are the activities through which we get taste and strength and guide those activities with the steady performance of those activities we can move onwards towards steadiness in the overall performance of bhakti because that steady performance even one limb of bhakti will purify us and that purification will enable us to move onwards in our journey towards Krishna.