​Gita 10.36 The thrill of victory and adventure is an experience of Krishna

Bhagavad Gita 10.36 Krishna speaks here and he states that among the gamblers among cheating he is gambling again this list demonstrates how God's opulence is inclusive how it pervades all of existence normally cheating is bad and if you think that cheating is an ungodly activity and certainly gambling is one of the activities that it is mandated to avoid for those who want to seriously go closer to God then what is being talked about over here that means that actually even for cheating some amount of cleverness is required, some amount of expertise is required and of course again this is demoniac expertise but expertise is required it is clever people who need certain amount of cleverness by which they can cheat others normally when people are cheated they don't understand that they are being cheated but when people gamble they know more or less that actually they are very likely to be cheated simply because they those who are running gambling they are not opening charitable institutions so actually gambling involves people voluntarily staking their own money with a very high probability of losing it in the hope of catching the very low probability of winning through it so now of course when people gamble and they try to win at gambling there is skill also involved over there the point is wherever there is something which is attractive suppose a person earns a lot of money through gambling because that person is very expert at gambling or whatever now you may say maybe I can also do that, maybe I can also earn money like that but the point is that there is no material restriction or bar for how depravity can drag a person down and even a wise person may succumb to the lure of gambling and thus become degraded so normally wise people don't get fooled but we have Yudhishthira Maharaj who is Dharmaraj, gambling and gambling to such a terrible extent that he lost everything among the splendid among the splendid and the splendor so splendor can refer to various things, it can refer to say Kshatriya virility whatever it refers to within a specific context the attractive, whenever we say anything attractive whenever we are captivating as the word splendid itself indicates we should understand that the capacity for it to be splendid manifests from Krishna jaya is victory and avasaya is adventure so often say we nowadays see victory and the ebullience and jubilance of victory much more in sports than in battles of course battles do take place in various parts of the world but what comes in our screens much more is the battles on the sports field and we see that there is a extraordinary sense of elation of exhilaration, of thrill that people experience when they win and when they do so at that time the way they win and the emotions that they experience after that that whole experience becomes an unforgettable experience for them especially if it is a very important victory that has been won the memory of that victory becomes a lifelong treasure memory for them so the thrill that comes at the time of victory that is a manifestation of Krishna that means people when they experience the thrill of victory and when they feel that I can do anything to experience this thrill they are actually experiencing a spark of Krishna over there and that's why that experience is so exhilarating that's why often people are ready to do anything to experience it so of course Prabhupada explains that even when a drunkard drinks if the drunkard thinks that the taste of that wine is Krishna gradually that by that level of preliminary remembrance of Krishna the drunkard will eventually come to an advanced level of God consciousness so in that sense actually we can say that God's glory manifests everywhere and of course Prabhupada does not recommend drinking and here also it is not that people have to go about and unnecessarily compete in sports which become big business and then there are all kinds of things involved over there which are far away from healthy sports but the point is that the exhilaration of victory is an experience of Krishna but that is not an experience of Krishna which will take people closer to Krishna because people are not conscious of Krishna at that time and they are not even conscious that this experience is coming from Krishna so by practicing bhakti we experience Krishna in a way that takes us closer to Krishna yosmi yavasa yosmi yavasa yosmi yavasaya is endeavor, enterprise, adventure so here the thing is victory is the culmination but the process of moving towards victory requires enterprise and often it is adventure so for example say if India wins the cricket world cup then books are written not just about the moment of victory but books are written about how the world cup was won so the whole journey towards the victory is also seen as an adventure it involves say the creativity of the captain the brilliance of some individual players or whatever is involved in all that so people want this sense of I want to do something special I want to do something enterprising something adventurous and when people are doing something like this that is when they feel alive at other times they feel almost as if they are half dead what am I doing? I am simply existing what am I achieving in my life? of course if we are fortunate then we find some meaningful purpose for our lives and it is through that meaningful purpose that we we seek enterprise and adventure in our life otherwise so for example if people find some worthwhile cause to dedicate their lives for and ultimately sharing Krishna's message of love and compassion that is the most worthwhile cause because that helps everyone to move towards the highest happiness and in fact sharing Krishna's message is a great adventure it is exciting it is fulfilling it is adventurous it requires enterprise we see Prabhupada exhibited so much enterprise and had so many adventures in his heroic efforts to share Krishna's message especially in the advanced years of his life so of course sometimes some people they don't find any worthwhile cause and then they try to create adventure for adventure's sake so for example there are sports involving living on the edge so people risk their lives jumping from a helicopter or jumping down from huge mountain cliffs where what they want to get is there is nothing very productive that is achieved by jumping down from a mountain and of course people may have some safety net below or safety rope around their waist or whatever now what they achieve by this is just to get a kick in their life to get a sense of thrill to add on something exciting but this does not lead to any constructive thrill because people want that sense of enterprise and adventure they want the thrill so they are ready to go to any extent to get that so even people who are participating in this living on the edge sports they are actually seeking and experiencing Krishna but they don't know that they are seeking Krishna nor do they understand that they are experiencing Krishna they simply experience something thrilling and because they are not consciously seeking Krishna nor are they understanding that they are experiencing Krishna so such experiences don't really move them in any way closer to Krishna but we as devotees we understand that where people experience acceleration or excitement that is a manifestation of Krishna that they are experiencing so broadly speaking different categories of people are characterized by different strengths so Brahmanas have intellectual strength Kshatriyas have physical strength Vaishyas have martial strength legal strength Vaishyas have financial strength so what is strength for different people can vary according to time, place, circumstance but the principle is whatever be the strength of certain people that is what defines them that is what is their characteristic and others are attracted to them by that that is their striking attribute and when we see such strength such defining quality of existence sattva can broadly mean existence sattvam sattvatamaham means that which sustains the existence of the existent so whatever the defining characteristic of different people or different living beings at large that is what strikes everyone and that is what enables those living beings to survive and flourish also and that represents Krishna so sattvam sattvatamaham thank you.