Gita 10.10 – Krishna gives us the intelligence to attain him

Bhagavata 10.10 Krishna is speaking here for those people who are these people those who are devoted to Krishna internally and externally those who delight in discussing about Krishna those who are constantly engaging in Krishna like this they devote themselves to Krishna with affection the dhami to them I give buddhi yoga buddhi yoga is the buddhi that enables one to practice yoga means it is the reason that facilitates, that aids that accelerates redirection redirection of the heart from the world to Krishna that is assisted and accelerated through reason buddhi is often translated as intelligence in the western philosophical context the word reason is used to refer to a particular feature of the intelligence the feature of the intelligence being always there for us to connect with the intelligence always being there for us within us as souls to be able to transcend our bodily shackles and to be able to go beyond whatever it is in this world that deludes us towards Krishna Krishna has told earlier that to attain him is to not return to this world when we understand Krishna's divinity we understand that he is the supreme being and that he is transcendental he is the embodiment and fulfillment of all our heart's aspirations for happiness and when we become devoted to him that devotion brings that devotion comprises our life's greatest fulfillment and so we need to move onward straight towards Krishna in a practice of sincere and serious devotion and for that whatever intelligence is required in this world it is not that we simply flatly reject everything of this world rather we take things one at a time and connect them with Krishna and by connecting them with Krishna we find out what is favorable and what is unfavorable and we navigate and negotiate through this temptation and distraction filled world towards Krishna so such a state is called as the state of pure devotion and now that is of course aspiring pure devotion pure devotion means that we don't feel any attraction towards the distractions at all in the sadhaka stage we do feel attraction towards the distractions but we don't let ourselves get distracted using the intelligence and that reason that intelligence is provided by Krishna by his great mercy so what we need in our day to day life is this reason and Krishna says whom does he give it to this is a very interesting point here that now we may wonder that if somebody is always serving Krishna and serving Krishna already with devotion then aren't they anyway coming to him so isn't the practice of debhakti favorably and constantly isn't that itself the guarantee that the person is going to come to Krishna what does it mean to say that then Krishna will give them the intelligence to come to him they already have that intelligence they are already practicing the process by which they can come to him actually that's true at one level but at another level there is also an understanding that we need to be prepared for the tough times quite often our life has a basic routine during which we are able to more or less do the right things now for example we have a job or we have a family we have certain responsibilities and we act according to those responsibilities and as we keep acting according to those responsibilities we more or less stay on track but it is quite often that while we are going through the routines of our life suddenly life brings us brings us face to face with perplexities with complexities wherein we just don't know what I should do and what I should not do the problem in life is that often we are faced with problems which have no obvious solutions so there are always problems but for some problems there are solutions for some problems there are no solutions and for some problems there may be solutions but we don't know about those solutions now in these various situations especially when we don't know what to do so one understanding of intelligence is to know what to do when we don't know what to do to know what to do when we don't know what to do that means we have a normal functional operational intelligence which is there with us in our routine situations but when we are no longer in that routine situation at that time when we are at crossroads in our life at that time how do we keep moving towards Krishna so if we keep our normal disposition towards Krishna devotional if we keep in the normal conduct of our life if we show Krishna through our actions that we want to be devoted to him then when we face difficulties then when we face adversities when we face reversals at that time it is Krishna who will give us the sublime intelligence by which we will know how to come to him so it is not that Krishna wants to keep things away from us rather it is that Krishna wants to give us the very best but to get that very best we need to connect with him and to connect with him we need to have the intelligence at the times when we are most likely to become disconnected you know suppose we have a map with us and the map tells us to go straight now actually speaking if we are on a road and there are no turns on that road and if we know we are on the right road then we just have to keep moving forward on the road so the real challenge is not when we are on a straight road with no forks actually we need the map when we come to a fork of course if a person is really careless then even when they are on the road even if it is a straight road they might steer off the road into some ditch and have an accident but if the person has basic caution then when the road is going on straight at that time one does not really need map so much it is primarily the map is needed when we come to a fork and we don't know which way to go so similarly in the routine course of life we have some basic intelligence with which we can move onwards of course if we mess up with that even the basic intelligence then we can create disaster even in our ordinary situations so for example for example eating and drinking taking food and solids and liquids is a basic need of the body and basically that is not a very difficult thing to do but when we come to a place where vegetarian food is easily available and then we don't know how we are going to take food what are we going to do so at that time we need some special intelligence to be able to find a way ahead of course even when we have normal food available we may over eat and spoil our health that is a different thing but when the normal food is available there is not a lot of deliberation required about the food it is only when normal food is not available that we need to deliberate seriously about what food we are going to eat so similarly we need to recognize that we are at our core souls and we need spiritual nourishment we need the connection with Krishna and in the normal course of life there are processes of bhakti that connect us with him and when we do those processes properly by such actions we show Krishna that we want to be connected with him and then thereafter when we face some difficulties also Krishna will be there to guide us from within so when we do the right thing when we know it is the right thing then Krishna will give us the intelligence to do the right thing when we don't know what is the right thing so that is the meaning of that yes we need certain amount of buddhi to be able to be of course what we need is more it goes beyond buddhi to bhakti but whatever it is we do need a certain level of favorable disposition towards Krishna in our normal course of life but over and beyond that even when life seems to go wrong at that time life brings us towards perplexity at that time if we have earlier been trying to serve Krishna sincerely then Krishna will give us the intelligence by which we can come to him.