Gita 16.16 – The more we are spiritually deprived, the more become materialy depraved

Transcript

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becomes supremely fulfilling 16th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna is describing the qualities of the ungodly, the demoniac and he states here such people their consciousness is it is it is dragged towards various things innumerable things and they are covered in in the net of illusion it is completely covered there to be attached to to gratification to gratification of their lower desires such people fall into hell they are unclean now Krishna here is comparing moha to a net and for that it is their consciousness is directed dragged in fact in a fragmented sort of way it is in various directions in the Bhagavatam the example is given of bhavya sapatnya eva geha patyam dilu nandi Prahlad Maharaj in his prayers to Narasimhadeva says that my various senses my various senses are dragging me in different directions the tongue in one direction the ears in another direction the situation of a person who is dragged by the senses is like a person having many wives all of whom are dragging that person in different directions so we all have various desires various temptations and these often drag us in different directions and I want that and I want that too the craving that is created by these various desires that just pulls us here and there this pulling metaphor is talked about by Lord Chaitanya also when he talks about jivhera lalasa iti uttidhai krishnodar barayana krishna nahi pai jivhera lalasa for the fulfilling the tongue’s lalasa greed iti uttidhai one who runs here and there such a person krishnodar barayana krishna says, jivhera lalasa says both here such a person is dragged by the senses but then that person becomes devoted barayana barayana krishnodar barayana one who is devoted to hearing in 13.26 in the Bhagavad Gita so here krishnodar barayana krishnodar means belly and genitals so such a person becomes the more we eat delicious things the more the belly becomes bigger and then that causes sexual desire also to get triggered so such a person becomes devoted to the senses and krishna nahi pai one cannot attain krishna now this verse goes much further leave alone attaining krishna the Bhagavad Gita says such a person falls to hell very far away from krishna and this verse calls him asucho unclean now our mind is filled with impressions some of them may be biased and many of them are impious and they impel us towards fulfilling our lower desires and as we get dragged more and more and we let ourselves be dragged then sense gratification does not satisfy us but rather than realizing the futility of sense gratification we seek pleasure in greater depravity that means people for example they may eat one foodstuff and that does not satisfy then they may go from prasad to non-prasad and from non-prasad one may go to forbidden food like non-vegetarian food or to take another example a person while drinking initially mild forms of intoxication and then later on usually they take some mild forms of drugs but when they get hooked up they want more and more worse forms of drugs or when people watch obscene images on the net now to some extent some sort of sensually titillating imagery is there almost everywhere whatever sites we visit many sites it is there and while reading news or something like that we may see such imagery and there might be little pleasure in that but that pleasure is little if I see more explicit image then I will get more pleasure but actually the pleasure remains the same but the more we give in to the craving the craving becomes stronger and therefore we start seeking pleasure in more depraved things because as the craving increases more and more we feel more deprived the sense feeling of deprivation is because of the illusion of the availability of gratification and the distance from Krishna that we have gone that means firstly as souls when we are connected with Krishna like a fish in water we get satisfaction but when we become disconnected from Krishna or we let ourselves become disconnected because of the hope for pleasure in sensory pleasures then we go away from Krishna and just as the fish outside water becomes restless the more similarly we also start feeling deprived when we are deprived of happiness, deprived of fulfillment when we are disconnected with Krishna but unfortunately instead of returning to Krishna becoming absorbed in Krishna once again our infatuation with worldly things makes us believe that sense objects, if I just get them then I will get pleasure so because of this we start seeking the sense objects and when they give a little pleasure but they don’t satisfy our craving for happiness because they just offer a drop where we need a huge drink we need a large pot of water so a drop cannot satisfy in a desert so like that we are not satisfied with the drop but again instead of realizing this drop will never satisfy we think that more grosser pot of indulgence so with respect to seeing images more explicit images they will satisfy me and that way will increase the craving because once we have indulged in a particular desire that desire becomes stronger and its pull creates a sense of dissatisfaction within us the greater the craving the more we have indulged in something the more we feel unsatisfied despite having not become satisfied by indulgence a person who is not alcoholic feels no pull on seeing alcohol and does not feel dissatisfied because of not having drunk alcohol a person who is alcoholic that person feels a craving for alcohol and that causes a sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction because I don’t have that alcohol or I have not seen this kind of porn or whatever so then now at one level whatever indulgence one has done that does not satisfy one but one thinks that more grosser form of indulgence will satisfy me and in that way one goes so on one side we feel deprived because of being discredited with Krishna and we also feel deprived on the other side because of a greater or intensified illusion that the sense object will provide gratification and this double deprivation it drags us beyond whatever moral ethical barriers you might have and that’s how Ashutosh one engages in unclean impure, contaminated depraved activities and one indulges in depraved activities becomes more and more and more and then Krishna says that one becomes completely covered by the net of illusion just as a fish who is trapped in the net whichever direction that fish goes still the net is there in that direction and there appears to be no relief from the no way to get out of the net for the fish similarly for us we are completely covered by illusion in the sense that our consciousness becomes completely filled with desires that this object if I just get this form of gratification if I just get then I will become happy and that way we get so entangled that we just feel that there is no way out the great danger of temptation is that the very object that is causing the suffering the very object that is causing the dissatisfaction we imagine it to be the source of satisfaction and thus unlike a prisoner who will try to move towards freedom we actually move deeper into the prison because we feel that the ropes that are shackling us they are actually not the causes of bondage but they are the pathways to pleasure and thus we become more and more entangled so we need scriptural knowledge we need to carefully and diligently study scriptural knowledge and by seriously studying and understanding scriptural wisdom we can break free from illusion and move onwards towards transcendental liberation