Gita 13.13 Bhakti wisdom frames our knowledge and our need for knowledge within our aspiration for eternity

Transcript

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Bhagavad Gita 13.13 Krishna is telling Arjuna that I speak to you about that knowledge, about the knowable. By which you can attain the immortal.
So the simple fact of life is that we all are struggling against our mind and senses and our consciousness is attached to so many things in so many different ways. I’ll speak to you about the knowable. By which one can attain immortality.
So we all have innate longing to live and to live forever. And the way we can live forever is through purification, is through the steady application in our life of the truth that enable us to rise to a higher level of consciousness, to go beyond the ups and downs that frame us, that frame our life. So normally when we have attractive photo or an important photo or a dear photo, then we put a frame around it.
The purpose of the frame is to protect the photo and to focus attention on the photo. Like that, when we frame a discussion, that means we provide a context, we provide a box within which we want the discussion to fit. Like we use the word frame of reference.
The word frame of reference means that the frame of reference enables us to have a context within which we observe things. We all have our own frames of reference, some of which may be conscious, some of which may not be conscious at all. But the important thing is that these frames of reference, they enable us to put the unlimited variety that we, almost unlimited variety of phenomena and experience that we have within some context that enables us to make sense.
So, in fact, all of education is actually a matter of acquiring a frame of reference. When we study geography, at that time, we study the world map. And within the world map, we understand that, okay, this country is here, that country is there.
And in this way, we get a frame of reference by which to contextualize discussions about the world, by which to explain our travels across the world. Now, in whatever frame of reference we have or whatever knowledge we wish to acquire, we innately pursue some purpose which remains common. So, the different ideologies that people have, they become frames of reference through which people study things.
And those frames of reference, they become the parameters and sometimes even the determiners of what people see, what people say. So, if you want to prevent ourselves from being getting too carried away by externals, we need to be able to properly contextualize whatever it is that we are discussing. By such contextualization, we learn to make sense of whatever we see.
So, Krishna is God. We all seek eternal life. And knowledge of the eternal, especially knowledge of the supreme eternal entity.
So, knowledge of the supreme eternal entity enables us to ourselves attain life eternal. Without attaining life eternal, we cannot be happy. And to attain life eternal, we need knowledge of the eternal.
Knowing this, what is the knowledge that can grant us eternal happiness? We all have innate curiosity within us. And we can study unlimitedly almost about anything in the world today. We have to use our own God-given intelligence to evaluate what is the fruit of such studying.
Is it going to lead me closer to a higher reality? Is it going to lead me to lasting happiness? Krishna is giving us the knowledge here by which we can attain that reality, that lasting happiness. So, knowable, that is just the object of knowledge. It will reveal that the ultimate object of knowledge is Krishna.
And we have many intermediate objects of knowledge. But if we are unable to connect the intermediate objects of knowledge with the ultimate object of knowledge, then whatever knowledge we acquire, that doesn’t fulfill life’s purpose, that is to attain life eternal. So, bhakti is not just another among many branches of knowledge.
Yes, in one way of looking at it, it is just another branch of knowledge. But bhakti-wisdom is the knowledge that frames all other branches of knowledge. It is or gives context to our consciousness, to our capacity for acquiring knowledge, to our ability to acquire knowledge, to our ability to make sense of things.
We are souls, we have been given the capacity to acquire knowledge, so that by our knowing propensity, ultimately we can know the all-attractive supreme. We can know the eternal, we can love the eternal and we can attain the eternal. Krishna will, in this 13th chapter, as it is said in this 13.30 that, Now, oh Arjuna, I will speak to you that which will enable you to attain the eternal, to taste eternal happiness.
So, we can intelligently prioritize among the bewildering arrays of subjects about which we can acquire knowledge, we can prioritize that knowledge which will lead to lasting fulfillment. And that is the knowledge that the Bhagavad Gita provides us with. Thank you.