Gita 10.11 – The way to drive out darkness is to turn on the light

And by which we can attain him those who get the intelligence from Krishna was mentioned in the previous verse this verse is continuing the discussion about those people so and then I have Anukampa on them I have special mercy on them Arjuna of Partha I remove the the darkness born of ignorance destroy and situated inside them and I illuminate them with the torch light of knowledge and thus I enable them to come closer to me and to attain me so here Krishna uses the traditional and standard imagery of light and darkness to convey the role of his misery misery is a central motive in the teachings of Lord Chaitanya so he says that Krishna is like the sun maya is like the darkness and where there is the sun of Krishna there will be no darkness so therefore we should simply strive to become devoted to the son of Krishna to the Krishna sun and if we place ourselves in the Krishna sun rather we invoke the presence of Krishna in our heart through the practice of devotional activities then by the practice of such activities we will find that we are moving closer to him that we are attaining him and thus we are actually becoming purified, elevated and liberated gradually now the point of the imagery of light and darkness is not just the familiarity or the contrast between the two the point is to talk about also the the difficulty if not the impossibility to remove darkness by any other means other than lighting other than illumination when we are striving to say we are in a dark room and now we may have different ways of dealing with different problems for example some people say that I have strong muscles I have a big tough body and I will beat whoever comes in my way or whoever troubles me that's fine but when we are in dark at that time we can't punch the darkness away our fists and our muscles are of no use in removing darkness some other people may say that I am stinking rich and I can throw money at whatever problem I face and I can drive the problem away that's fine if one thinks that way and yes some problems can be minimized by some problems can be dealt with by money and when I said that it's fine to think like that means that's a common way of thinking and from the materialistic perspective it is fine but from a more complete perspective say if I am in a dark room then there is just no way that by throwing money at the darkness I can get the darkness to go away what I need at that time is a source of light and a means for activating that source of light there should be say some bulb in the room and I should know where the button is and how to turn on that button so that the light will come so to the extent we understand this formative role of this indispensable need of light dissipating darkness to that extent we can appreciate this metaphor of light and darkness so Gyanadeep is the light of knowledge and Bhaswata Bhaswata is to illumine Bhaskara is the sun which refers to the one who illumines so Gyanadeep refers to the sun which illumines everything and the sun can't illumine anything unless the sun itself is self-luminous so we may have a candle or a torch but if it is not lit then it cannot light anything else so Krishna as the lord Krishna as our lord is all attractive, is all powerful he is self-luminous the theme of Krishna's self-luminosity will be talked in the 15th chapter when it will be said that nothing in the spiritual world requires any external source of light because everything there is self-luminous so to the extent we also focus on Krishna and recognize that the purpose of Maya is not just to torment us Maya's purpose cannot be taught just by the power of our determination so Maya is the person who is trying to seduce us and take us away from Krishna but Krishna is the person who is taking us out of the seduction of Maya and towards that which will bring us lasting fulfillment of course Krishna is much more he is also there as our father for taking care of us and overall Krishna is I am the father, I am the mother I am the friend, I am the brother and in this way Krishna is everything for us to the extent we understand that Krishna is everything to the extent we become wholeheartedly devoted to him and thus we get a lumen from within about how best to make choices that will take us closer and closer to Krishna The Bhagavad Gita is describing usually a more intellectualized, internalized conception of bhakti as compared to the Bhagavatam or the CC The Bhagavad Gita focuses more on inner meditation and outer equilibrium equanimity not so much on exclusive devotion to Krishna in terms of sitting down and hearing and chanting although that is definitely mentioned and definitely the Bhagavad Gita doesn't talk about dancing and singing as is talked about in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition all these are progressive revelations that are given later about the mode of practicing bhakti and the Bhagavad Gita is not so much a book that describes the practice of bhakti as it describes to Arjuna what he should do so the important thing is the important thing would be for us to move onwards in our journey towards Krishna and focus on practicing bhakti steadily and as we keep practicing bhakti steadily Krishna will guide us so here Arjuna doesn't need an elaborate exposition on how bhakti is to be practiced his question is what to do and Krishna tells him to practice bhakti and tells him that in the practice of bhakti Krishna himself helps as the indwelling super soul to make the right choices and to move onwards and even if somebody doesn't have much intelligence Krishna will give them the intelligence and Krishna will enable them to come to him so one needs some basic intelligence to choose Krishna but even if one doesn't have a very sophisticated intelligence that is not a disqualification in the path of bhakti that is something which can be acquired that can be gifted by Krishna whatever is required for one's service to Krishna and for one to attain back to him so that intelligence which is a very prized possession of the jnanis and that intelligence which the jnanis often think that the bhaktas lack bhaktas they say are sentimentalists but Krishna says that the bhaktas don't lack it he has already called those who become devoted to him as buddha but in the case they do lack it at that time the important thing is to move onwards just practicing bhakti with whatever intelligence we have trying to choose Krishna according to our capacities and Krishna will give us the intelligence to move onwards in our spiritual life.