Gita 18.29 To drive purposefully, we need to know the destination, the path and the vehicle

Transcript

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chapter 29 buddhair bhedam drutesh chaiva gunatastra vidham sruno rochamanam aseshena pruthaktvena dhananjaya here Krishna is going to speak about this is a summary describing what will come in the future verses Krishna is giving us the analysis of action in terms of the various ingredients or components of action by which we can learn to act in a more balanced, holistic way by which we can act in a way that leads to our elevation we can act in a way that leads to us becoming bound, unbound instead of being bound so here he says buddhair bhedam drutesh chaiva gunatastra vidham sruno gunavadas gunatas means there are three modes trividham, so according to three modes there can be three divisions of buddhi and ruti bhedam, bheda is division gunatraya vibhaga yoga sadbhagatraya vibhaga yoga these are the names of the 14th and 17th chapters respectively in the Gita they talk about the principle of how the three modes themselves, how there are three modes in nature that is the 14th chapter and how the three modes shape our faith how there can be three kinds of faith depending on the influence of the modes on people that is the theme of the 17th chapter now Krishna is going to talk about buddhi and ruti buddhair bhedam drutesh chaiva gunatastra vidham sruno now buddhi and ruti Krishna will explain in the next 3-3 verses text 30-32 talks about buddhi in the three modes starting from buddhi in goodness and going towards buddhi in passion and ignorance similarly text 33-35 talks about druti in the three modes again starting from buddhi in goodness starting from druti in goodness and moving towards druti in ignorance in this way by talking about druti in the three modes Krishna buddhi and druti in three modes Krishna is helping us understand how we can function in goodness and ultimately function in transcendence so till now in this chapter Krishna has spoken about jnana, karma and karta in the three modes jnana in the three modes from 20-22 karma in the three modes from 23-25 and then 26-28 was karta now in this 29 text prochyamanam aseshena pruthaktvena dhanjaya pruthaktvena means separately one by one I will speak this to you one verse is devoted to each of these things the foundational idea that we need to get is that everyone of us has to move towards Krishna and everyone has to find out what kind of body and mind we have which will facilitate our movement towards Krishna unless we understand the particular body-mind setup that we have we can’t move towards Krishna it is only when we understand the specific kind of body in which we are situated then we can think of how to take this body forward how to engage this body-mind machine in the service of Krishna and when we act there are various factors involved broadly speaking we interact with the world taking in information through the jnan indriya the knowledge acquiring senses and acting on the world with our karma indriya the working senses when we do thus when we act with the world we are primarily meant to act in a way that helps us function coherently function effectively function constructively for our all-round growth ultimately we have to leave the body and mind behind the body we leave at physical death the mind we leave at the end of our material existence of course the mind stays much longer with us than the body the point is that the body and mind are external to us as souls and therefore we need to recognise that the soul is who we are and as souls we need to function so to function as souls means that we understand the spiritual destination of life and pursue that destination just like sometimes we may rent a car now we may have, if we go to a new place we may have particular preference of what kind of car we want but if we don’t have that kind of car then we will make do with whatever car is available and we familiarise to some extent, familiarise ourselves with the way the car works sometimes a particular car may have power steering a little movement of the steering wheel makes it zoom in the other direction some cars may have more effective speeding and speed controlling mechanisms than others basically we familiarise ourselves with the car and then we learn to work with the car in a way that it helps us go towards our destination so we have the body which is yantra rudhani maya in 1861 Krishna will say that how the body is like a machine and we have to understand how this machine functions so that we can make it function for our well being for our positive growth and for such positive growth of our bodily machine we primarily need the connection of ourselves with Krishna and understanding what is the path to Krishna so buddhi and dhruti are vital components for us to ensure that we stay on the path to the destination when we are driving a vehicle we need to know the destination and we need to know the road to the destination so similarly our destination is Krishna and bhakti is the path how we practice bhakti is how we drive our particular vehicle on the path that we have so buddhi refers to how we integrate the inputs that come in from the senses knowledge acquiring senses how we are able to understand which input is to be processed first which input is to be processed later which is the course of action to follow which is the course of action to not follow this understanding is buddhi Shri Prabhupada explains in the 10th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita that intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective to understand what is more important and to understand what is less important to understand how we can best act in our lives for pursuing our higher purposes how we can act in a way that can help us to grow towards Krishna so while driving what input to neglect and what input to focus on and what path to take all that is buddhi and dhruti is the strength to persevere its determination its strength to persevere in the intended course of action even if there is strong pressure strong force for us to push in the other direction so when our senses and mind impel our bodily vehicle to go in another direction we determinately ensure that the vehicle moves in the right direction that is the function of dhruti we will talk about buddhi and dhruti in terms of the three modes in the next six verses