Gita 11.36 – Cherish the godly side within to relish God within

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pacify the universal form. Thank you. This is Bhagavad Gita 11.36. Krishna is speaking.

Krishna has revealed his Vishwaroopa and now Arjuna is offering prayers. So he is saying, everything is in its right stand, everything is right. What all is rightly done? Your glories.

The whole universe becomes happy on hearing your glories. But the same glories which the world becomes happy on hearing, out of fear, they run away in fear. Sarve namasyanti cha siddha sanghaha.

Sarve namasyanti, the siddha sangha, the assembly of the siddhas, they namasyanti, they offer obeisances to you. So here, Arjuna's reaction on seeing the Vishwaroopa is instructive. He doesn't consider, he is, as he has expressed earlier, that he is scared.

But then he is offering prayers, his intelligence restored, and he is offering prayers with deep dharmic import. So he is describing the reaction to the perception of the Lord. And this is more or less similar to what Krishna himself says the reaction is in 4.11. There he says that, different people surrender to me differently and I record them accordingly.

So, this is that. Now here those who are devoted, those who are dharmic, those who are of a daivi prakriti, godly minded, they delighted on hearing the glories of the Lord. On the other hand, those who are demoniac, they flee, they can't tolerate the glories of the Lord.

That is unpalatable to them and it also induces fear. Why? Because they are afraid, oh, this person who is god, we are anti-god, so he will destroy us. That's why they flee from him.

So now, the important point to recognize in this discussion is that at one level, these forces are there in our heart also. So, when we hear Krishna's glories, one part of us feels very happy, another part of us wants to flee away, feeling afraid. So there is the selfish enjoying mentality within us which wants to possess, dominate and control.

And we feel that if God comes in, when he is the supreme controller, then I will not be able to be the controller. So, that part doesn't want to let us, let God enter. So, now that part obstructs and otherwise it flees.

So, we see that if we are in a prayerful consciousness, then on hearing the Lord's glories, we become jubilant. Otherwise, now we may not physically run away, usually not, but we sort of emotionally run away. That means, when we are chanting the holy names or when we are hearing Krishna's glories, remembering his glories, trying to remember, the mind just runs away because the mind is affected by ungodly influences and those ungodly influences make us feel as if, what am I doing here? Why am I here? And we feel that there is no need for me to be here.

And the mind just goes away, goes here, goes there, goes anywhere except staying on the holy name. And in this way, we become distracted. So, now both these sides are there within us and the important thing is for us to recognize which side I will join with, which side I will side with.

So, if we side with the reluctant side, then that reluctance will grow and either we will go away or we will put the devotional activity away. And then we will never experience the joy of becoming prashyami, of being jubilant. So, we can also become prashyatya-anurajyatecha.

We can also become jubilant if we hear the Lord's glories with the best sincerity that we have, that we can have. By that, we will be able to move on in our life, getting more and more joy through our devotional reciprocation with Him. And in this way, we move onwards.

So, rather than thinking that, oh, sometimes I feel devotional when I do bhakti and sometimes I don't feel devotional, we should understand that actually sometimes my godly side is active within my consciousness and that's when I feel prashyatya when I'm hearing Krishna's glories. And on other times, when the ungodly side within me is active, then I feel like going away from there. So, recognizing that actually the godly side is the real me, that is connected with the soul.

The ungodly side is coming from the pseudo-me, that is, the coverings of the more that are there on me, the lower modes especially. By thus disidentifying with the pseudo-me which is averse to Krishna and by reinforcing our identification with the real me, that is the soul, that is the side of me which feels happy in hearing Krishna's glories, by intellectually and emotionally choosing our identification like this, we can actually increase our receptivity to hearing Krishna's glories and thereby we'll gradually increase our relish also while hearing those glories. In that way, we can become absorbed more and more joyfully in the remembrance of Krishna.

Thank you.