Gita 16.09 The ungodly are born for destructive action unless they do drastic course correction

Transcript

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Thank you I adopted this vision श्ट्यात्मानु अल्पबुद्धयः Those soon destroyed their souls अल्पबुद्धयः They are less intelligent having very meager intelligence प्रभवन्त्यूग्रकर्मानः They are born to do उग्रकर्मानम् horrible activities शयाय जगतो हितः which are unbeneficial up to the point of जगत शयाय to the point of destroying the world also Krishna is here describing the demoniac people and he states that these demoniac people actually are not ordinary people who are just ordinary people gone off track yes, ordinary people can also go off track and eventually become demoniac but there are also people who are who have in this life and previous lives repeatedly been accepting ungodly ideas, ungodly world views and now एतां दृष्टिनवश्टभ्या those who accept that there is no God in control there is no foundation to the world what दृष्टि do they accept? that is explained based on the previous verse 16.8 which states that असत्यव पतिष्ठम् ते जगदा हो रणीश्वरम् अपरस्परसं भूतं कि मन्यत् काम है तु कम् that the world is more simply by the desire for sensual enjoyment and there is nothing more than that तु लाइफ कि मन्यत् those who accept something like, accept a world view like this एतां दृष्टिनवश्टभ्या नश्टात् मानो अल्पबुद्धया that they are नश्टात् मानो नश्टात् मानो they have already destroyed their souls of course the soul is indestructible as 2.17 has stated अविनाशितु तद्धिविद्धि but here नश्टात् मानो refers to the idea that the understanding that the soul which cannot be destroyed in principle can in practice in practice engage in activities that are spiritually destructive activities that are damaging the soul’s spiritual evolution the soul’s realization of one’s own spirituality so नश्टात् मानो means those who most people in this world are materialistic but those who intellectually rationalize and aggressively defend and propagate an atheistic world view an anti-spiritual world view they are destroying their souls नश्टात् मानो अल्ब बुद्धया such people do have intelligence no doubt but their intelligence is meager it is अल्ब they can perceive one part of reality and they think that part of the reality is the totality of reality Krishna talks about how in the mode of ignorance when people have knowledge he will say later in 18.22 that such people actually don’t really have knowledge all that they have is just the idea that they have knowledge so they mistake a fraction of reality to be the totality of reality that is knowledge in the mode of ignorance when कुछ नबद एकस्मी when one takes one thing to be everything so अल्ब बुद्धया for example fanatical materialists ideological materialists they may be intelligent in terms of knowing how to manipulate matter to fulfill some of their purposes they may be good at science and technology but because they perceive and they pursue only a fraction of reality so they are अल्ब बुद्धया and प्रभवन्ती they are born Krishna has started at the start of this chapter about how some people are born with divine qualities and some people are born with demoniac qualities such people ungodly they are born in this world for doing disastrous activities उग्र कर्माण we all have the power to do karma but what kind of karma we do that is something which everyone of us has to choose and if we choose to do bad karma then there is eventually the reaction for that bad karma is going to come upon us but even before that प्रभवन्ती कृष्णा has talked earlier about how different people have different natures and they function according to their natures same point he is stating over here when he states that actually all of us can’t but avoid can’t avoid the kind of qualities that we bring with us from our previous life of course by our actions in this life प्रभवन्ती कृष्णा can choose to empower us with his mercy and then we can resist the pull of those qualities and even we with our free will can choose whether to aggravate those qualities or to minimize them to counter them but some people are just born demoniac that doesn’t mean that they are not souls who are parts of Krishna it just means that in their previous lives they have acted in demoniac ways and that’s why in this life they have got a demoniac nature which they bring to fruition in this life so we could even say that Krishna is when he is speaking these verses to Arjuna both of them may well have been thinking about Duryodhana who was born within suspicious signals the brain of jackals who the Mahabharata elsewhere describes was born through the sacrifices performed by the Daityas and the Dhanavas as their agent as an incarnation of Kali to destroy Dharma in this world and thereby to stab the Daityas and Dhanavas to take over the world to make it their stronghold so some souls are born to do demoniac activities they engage in terrible terrible activities so so here Krishna is outlining the nature of the ungodly of the demoniac and he is stressing that such people have to very aggressively counter their tendencies otherwise they will passively succumb to their tendencies and become very aggressive and destructive so at the last verse of this chapter we say how by following Shastra one can become elevated and such ungodly people also to somehow or the other come to the level where they can follow Shastra otherwise their own fate is dark and the path on which they will take the world around them that is also dark when in today’s world we have demoniac rulers who without any compunction kill thousands even millions that is terrible and such people are often not just godless but they are anti-god and we have to recognize that as long as their ungodly tendencies their demoniac nature is at play it will overpower them and it will make them do terrible things it is only when they learn to fight off their demoniac nature that they will be able to rise upwards in their spiritual journey I Krishna in this chapter by depicting such a scary picture of the demoniac cautions us from mistakenly treading on the demoniac path and to pursue in the safe path of living according to Shastra