Gita 16.06 Knowing the inclination of the road where our car is is education not condemnation

Transcript

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thank you 16.6 dvabhuta sargau loke smin daiva asura evacha daivo vistarasa propta asuram parthameshvano Krishna is again speaking over here that there are two categories of people dvabhuta sargau loke smin the divine and the demoniac dvabhuta sargau sargau means creation loke smin in this world dvabhuta sargau there are two categories of people who are created in this world daiva asura evacha and after naming these two daivo vistarasa propta that the divine have been described in detail and asuram parthameshvano asuram parthameshvano means arjuna please hear from me the characteristics of the demoniac when we recognize that every one of us is a soul on our own spiritual journey and we all travel at particular points so now if we consider a long road then different points on that journey on that road may have the roads inclined in different ways so say if we are on a road that is sloping upwards and say we get a new car at that particular point then as soon as we start the car as soon as we release the clutch and the brake the default tendency of that car will be to move backwards on the other hand if we are on a slope on a road that is sloping downwards then as soon as we release the clutch the car will move forwards so in this particular context we can say that the strategy required for ensuring that the car moves forward and effort required for ensuring that the car moves forward will be different for different people for those who are at the upward sloping area they need caution to prevent backward movement and they will need effort to move forwards for those who are in downward sloping area naturally they will move forwards so similarly we could say that the divine and the demonic natures when we get this bodily car so that means along the multi-lifetime journey of spiritual evolution of the soul we appear at a particular time that we get a car on a particular road at a particular position which comes with a particular inclination so for the ungodly as soon as they release some control as soon as they let themselves go free their consciousness will gravitate backwards towards sensuality and even perversity on the other hand for the godly their consciousness will naturally move towards piety and morality and spirituality so Krishna says that that there are these two categories of living beings so this categorization is is just a a description of reality it’s a description it’s an objective description based on a factual observation it is not a value judgment to say that to tell a particular driver that your car will go backwards if you are not careful that is not a value judgment at all that is simply a factual observation similarly for us it is not that we need to have any particular situation in which we work that is we don’t need to necessarily be bound to our situation it’s not that the person who is on the downward slope road will have to forever stay on that road but they have to recognize the reality of the road that they are in and then they can take steps forward to correct that reality correct that situation if there is no acknowledgement of the situation then there is no possibility for correction of that situation so for us it’s vital that we take things seriously in terms of acknowledging the reality of our situation to the extent we do that to that extent we can move forward taking the appropriate measures now it’s interesting that Krishna gives this as a distinct system of classification daiva and asura and he has given another system of classification earlier which is varanashram so now there is no necessary correlation between whether a person has daiva or asuri pravrtti and which varna a person belongs to there can be people like Ravana who were born in a brahminical family but they may but Ravana was a rakshasa Duryodhana was born in a kshatriya family but he was asuri so by acknowledging that in different situations different people require different levels of assistance for moving onwards so this is so we can have shudras who may be godly and we can have brahmanas who may be ungodly who may be asuri so of course here we are talking about people who are born in those families if they are proper shudras and if they are proper brahmanas then they will obviously be godly although the level of godliness of a brahmana may well be much more than the level of godliness of a kshatriya and way downwards up to the up to a shudra but everyone has the everyone is essentially a part of god and everyone has the potential to be godly and how that potential is developed how much effort will be required for developing that potential that will vary from person to person from situation to situation from the inclination that the soul in that situation has got and how that inclination can be dealt with so for us as pure spiritual beings it is important that we take steps to move forward in our spirituality and know what are the appropriate steps at our level Krishna also says in this verse that daivo vistarashah prokta asuram parthameshrnu the godly qualities Krishna has described repeatedly throughout the Gita in this chapter itself 16.1 to 3 before that in the 13th chapter when he describes the characteristics of those in knowledge 8 to 12 before that in the 12th chapter from 13 to 20 when he describes those who are those who are dear to him before that in the 5th in the especially in the 2nd chapter when he describes the characteristics sitaprajna so the qualities the dispositions that foster liberation are already described and now Krishna says in this section he will stress on the on describing the demoniac so that description will start from 16.7 and will go on till almost the end of the chapter with the end giving both the default destination and the potential for correcting that destination through following of shastra thank you