Gita 17.06 Defying scripture be it for pandering the body or tormenting the body is demonic

Transcript

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Bhagavad Gita 17.6 Bhagavad Gita 17.6 so here Krishna is speaking about the people who reject scripture and act whimsically but whereas earlier he has talked about people who whimsically pander to their body that was in the 16th chapter how they this 16.10 and the sequence went on about how they violate moral boundaries and even become murderous 16.30 and 14 talking about that so there Krishna said that one may reject scripture and pander to the body and that leads to inauspiciousness those who reject scripture thus are called as having a demoniac nature now here Krishna is saying that those who reject scripture and go to the other extreme of tormenting their body they are also demoniac so those who do those who curse into the body those who torment the body Krishna has used the word earlier in the 15th chapter 7th verse that the soul situated in material nature is made to struggle and suffer because of the unrelenting pull of the mind and the senses so there the mind and senses interact give me this enjoy this but actually although they are saying do this and enjoy the person is ending up suffering so so so when this person the soul is situated in the body so so the body is made of material nature but the soul’s consciousness is misdirected it’s away from spiritual reality and away even from considering what is good for the material reality maam chaivaan taha sharurastham bhoot taan vidya sura nishchayaan Krishna says that the person torments one’s body by which naturally in the embodied state there is identification with the body so one subjects oneself to suffering but then the super soul who is present over there Krishna says maam chaivaan I am also situated in that body sharurastham karashayanta I also suffer now Krishna is transcendental it is earlier said Krishna is udaseen udaseenam he is situated as if detached in the body so why is it being said over here maam chaivaan that he is also there in the body along with the soul and he is concerned about us he doesn’t want us to suffer so when people torment their body unnecessarily then that causes distress taan vidya sura nishchayaan such people are considered to be demonic and Krishna is very emphatic about this point they are certainly demonic now we may say if somebody is fasting or doing some physical austerity doesn’t that indicate a strong will power in the vedic context just virtue alone is not enough the purpose for which that virtue is being used is also important will power is good but suppose somebody is a terrorist who uses the will power to to fast for a long long time so that they can stay still and motionless as they creep into enemy territory or somebody whom they perceive as their enemy so that they can blow off a bomb and kill hundreds of innocent people then that that kind of austerity is destructive they have will power which they are using strongly to regulate their bodily urges but they are using that will power for destructive purposes and thus just the self control alone doesn’t make one in goodness necessarily what is the purpose for which one is using self control so one may have self control while the self is under the control of illusion also so for example there are demons who perform severe austerities but say for defying God Hiranyakashipu performed severe austerities in fact greater austerities than what even the great sages had performed but his purpose was that he wanted to get strong enough so that he could kill Vishnu so one may exhibit self control even while the self is under the control of illusion his self was under the control of the illusion that Vishnu was his enemy and that he was going to kill Vishnu that he wanted to kill Vishnu but then while pursuing this deluded goal both of them are huge illusions that Vishnu is our enemy Vishnu is he is the well wisher of all living beings but here he was thinking that no Vishnu is not my friend, he is my enemy so this is a big big illusion and then Vishnu is a supreme being he is a Samurdhva there is no one equal to him and there is no one superior to him and no one can become also superior to him because he is not just the best of all beings he is not there in a hierarchy of beings where he is the best he is the basis of all beings everybody exists because of him everybody gets whatever power they have because of him so he exists in a different category itself and he cannot be killed ever but the thing that he could be killed is a big illusion and that illusion is what Hiranyakashyapu was suffering from thus his self was under the control of illusion but still even in that case he was exhibiting great self control he did incredible austerity so much austerity that his body was eaten up by insects normally if we are saying trying to chant the holy names if a fly starts buzzing near our ear or if a mosquito sits on our arm and starts biting that is unbearable for us we want to at least wave it away if not smash it so that is a natural urge which comes mosquitos just suck some blood but if insects are sucking not just sucking blood but they are consuming the skin so much so that eventually no skin remains on the body that is unbearably scary and even ghastly predicament to be in so how much will power is required to be able to tolerate that and Hiranyakashyapu had that level of will power but that will power was under the control of illusion so Krishna is talking here not just about the action the external action but the underlying intention so our disposition is determined not just by the action that we do but by the intention with which we do it so people who are performing austerities are considered demonic even when they are performing austerity which can be said to be a pious activity and they are called demonic because their underlying intention is demonic so just as defying scripture to pander to the body is considered demonic similarly defying scripture to torment the body is also considered demonic so the essence of demonic nature is the defiance of scripture and of course it is much more common that the defiance of scripture will take the form of excessive indulgence rather than excessive abstinence but even if that happens excessive abstinence is also a problem so here Krishna out of his concern says that he also feels tormented māṁ caivāntaḥ śarīrastham both in this chapter as well as in the previous chapter Krishna has talked about his indwelling presence in 16.18 he has said that āhāṅkāraṁ balambaraḥ kāmaṁ krodhaṁ ca saṁśvitaḥ māṁ ātma-paradeheṣu pradhviṣanto abhyasūyakaḥ so he is saying that those people who take shelter of all these ungodly qualities āhāṅkāraṁ balambaraḥ kāmaṁ krodhaṁ ca saṁśvitaḥ that those who take shelter of such qualities arrogance, strength show of strength, anger last two they are envious māṁ ātma-paradeheṣu Krishna is present in their hearts Krishna is present in the hearts of others also māṁ ātma-paradeheṣu pradhviṣanto abhyasūyakaḥ those who are demoniac they are envious so Krishna is talking here similarly that those who in a demonic way torment their body, He is present in their hearts also so karṣayantaha that is what the word begins with so sometimes when a sentence is spoken it is said that the most important words can be put right at the beginning or right at the end because in the beginning there is interest what is being said sometimes as the sentence proceeds onwards some interest may go down but then by the time we come to the end of the sentence again what is the concluding point being made that interest has come up so just like when we give a class when the class is about to start people are interested in knowing what the class is about otherwise they would not be there in the class and when the class is about to end they are going to have a carry home message with them which they want to take and for that purpose also they will be interested in the body of the class they may or may not be interested so much so here Krishna starts the words by karṣayantaha the point is that those who torment their body and cause it distress because of their arbitrary austerities and not just arbitrary in terms of not being followed essentially by scripture but it is arbitrary in terms of something which is extreme which causes one distress and the distress is unnecessary and unbeneficial and unscriptural so karṣayantaha is what he begins with and then taan vidya āsura nishchayān that they are demonic this is how he concludes it nishchayān certainly so for us on the path of bhakti sometimes we may get the inclination to do austerities and yes we have some austerities such as fasting on ekadashi and nowadays fasting is catching up in the secular world also as it means for good health and usually some people may fast some people even go on fasting retreats where under medical supervision they fast and their idea is that if we stop letting the body’s energy be diverted to digesting food constantly which is being brought in and the body’s energy can become directed inwards to itself to heal whatever is wrong the body can clean and heal just like if a machine is working continuously in production then there is no time for maintenance work so sometimes when the machine’s production is stopped for some time then maintenance can work so like that for the body if the production is continuously going on processing is continuously going on converting into energy excreting waste matter then in this process the body does not have any time for maintenance so if one does fasting then that may help the body to heal itself because the body also has tremendous potency given to it by nature to repair and heal and to clean and to reorganize itself so now here when one does austerity like this if the intention is good health if it is done under medical supervision and if it is not done to the point where one experiences extreme pain there will definitely be discomfort when one goes through this but if one is able to manage that and usually under medical supervision when fasting is done one is recommended to take water so that circulation of the body happens not just waterless fast so this might be done for health and this might be a purpose different from the purpose for which traditionally fasting was done as religious austerity it is just like yoga, traditionally yoga was done by male ascetics for raising their consciousness towards transcendence now many people do yoga for health it is ok yoga for health itself is not bad it is divorced from the ultimate purpose but in many ways doing yoga for health if it promotes health then that might be a much more harmonious way to promote health than to take in substances in the body which are foreign to the body and which disrupt the body in terms of causing side effects and producing those substances we are talking about medicines over here often for producing those substances and transporting those substances lot of disruption of natural resources takes place so in today’s change circumstances yoga can very well be a much more sattvic way of restoring or maintaining health than taking intrusive surgery for back pain or also doing something like taking medicines with severe antibiotics so just as yoga might be more sattvic relatively speaking as compared to other medicines similarly we can say fasting might also be more sattvic so it is not just that the motive of health is bad so ultimately after getting health what is one going to do if one is going to engage in destructive activities especially not just sensual indulgence but also destroying others for the sake of one’s own sensuality then that is bad so Krishna is here so he is focusing on essence basically tormenting the body causes both the soul and the super soul distress because the super soul is concerned for us and does not want us to suffer unnecessarily because the soul is still identifying with the body as long as the soul is in the body and such torment of the body such misuse of the body in defiance of scripture is considered demonic Thank you