Gita 11.29 – The natural is not always desirable

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.

Thank you.

How people are getting absorbed, are getting sucked, consumed, devoured by the Vishnu. And he is saying, अथा नदी नाम भहवां भुवेग अथा नदी नाम भहवां भुवेग अथा नदी नाम भहवां भुवेग As, in a river, there are currents of water and they flow towards ocean. समूद्र मेवा मिमुखा अन्रवन्ति Samudra, they enter into the ocean.

अथा तवामि नरमोक विदा Similarly, all living beings are entering into you. विशन्ति वक्त्राओणि अभिवीज्वन्ति They enter into your blazing mouth. It's interesting that a fiery mouth is being compared to an ocean here.

Normally, fire and water are seen as opposites. Whenever there is a fire, water is used as a primary element for extinguishing the fire. So, very rarely will water be compared to fire or fire be compared to water.

So, of course, there is no direct comparison like that here. But still, the two watery bodies, the flow of the river into the ocean is compared with the flow of the human beings, the warriors, into the fiery mouth. So, here the emphasis is not on that there is a fiery mouth which is to be compared with the ocean.

The emphasis is primarily on the naturality of the flow. And that naturality of the flow will be contrasted with the next verse. यथापरदीप्तं जुर्णप्पतं There it is stated how यथापरदीप्तं There is a blazing fire into which a moth flies.

यथापरदीप्तं जुर्णप्पतं जा विशिन्ति राषों में सम्रुद्धवेगा And they go to their destruction in great speed. That comparison is purely to underscore the point that whereas for the souls who were dharmic like Bhishma and Drona they did not desire the war and they did not desire the destruction but the force of circumstances were such that they were propelled in that direction. Whereas in the case of Duryodhana he and those who were in cohorts with him they actually chose to fight but even when others dissuaded them from fighting they refused to listen adamant in their determination to fight and thus they chose destruction just like a moth flies into a moth is not forced by nature it is not the natural movement of a moth towards fire now someone may say that no actually moths have a particular nature by which they are attracted to fire and so isn't that natural there are two levels of answer to this first is that yes at any level the moths are impelled by their nature they get attracted to fire and they run into fire but the point is that when we humans have a lot of nature so we need to see which natural choices are healthy and which natural choices are unhealthy that means we humans have a higher nature and we have a lower nature also and it is significant that both can be referred to as our natures although at one level at the spiritual level it is natural for us to be pure to be godly but at a bodily level we often have various levels of contaminations and these contaminations cause entanglement so if we are to come out of the entanglement we need to deal with the situation in a respectable way so we need to make intelligent choices there is lower nature and higher nature and whichever we choose accordingly we will get a higher destination or a lower destination so the example of the moth that will come in the next verse is to illustrate the point that we all have to make choices and just because something is natural doesn't make it desirable nature teaches us to nature teaches us through the example of a moth of how what is natural can also be not just undesirable but can be fatal so the moth's attraction to the fire is fatal because once the moth gets attracted then there is nothing that can check it from its inevitable destruction so like that if we act according to our lower nature then we will have to bear the consequences for that action and if we don't want to endure those consequences then we need to make healthy choices and healthy choices centre on acting according to our higher nature so Duryodhana acted according to his lower nature he acted in a way that caused great destruction to him as well as his whole dynasty and he even rationalized when he was so obstinate and when his elders told him don't persist in such a suicidal stubbornness he said that he tried to blame nature by saying that I am simply acting according to my nature so all living beings act according to their nature don't blame me the creator has made me this way no we have a nature and that nature is a combination of both our core spiritual goodness and our peripheral we could say badness or contamination which impels us towards bad things and we have been given intelligence internally, conscience internally and guru sadhu shastra externally by which we can choose to act according to our higher nature not our lower nature and by acting thus we can move onwards towards Krishna and ultimately attain him so don't equate the natural with the desirable rather understand from scripture what is the desirable nature in that way we can attain auspiciousness in our life so the moth's nature cannot be changed but by observing the moth we can learn how we should not give in to our lower nature how we can use our intelligence to understand the consequences of emerging in our lower nature and thereby protect ourselves from falling down.