Gita 18.46 See work as an offering the divine’s gifts to the divine

Transcript

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Bhagavad Gita 18.46 Bhagavad Gita 18.46 here Krishna is speaking and he says that Bhagavad Gita 18.46 from whom all of existence all living beings have come about yena sarvam idam tatam, by whom everything is pervaded, svakarmana tam abhyarcha, by your work, svakarmana, siddhim indati manava, abhyarcha, worship him and by this you can attain perfection, siddhim indatu, one can attain perfection.
The previous verses stated that now there will be a description of how one can attain perfection by doing one’s own work, sve sve karmanya abhirata samsiddhim labhate na raha, svakarma nirata siddhim yatha vindati kashrunam, so Krishna had spoken there that he will speak about this and now he is speaking about it in nutshell that the key is svakarmana tam abhyarcha, by your work worship him, who tam that is described is not an ordinary person, it is that person who is the source of everything, yatha pravrttir bhutaanam yena sarvam idam yatha tam, one from whom everything has come and one by whom everything is pervaded and if you do this you will attain perfection. So what is the implication of all this? The fundamental implication is that there is no straight forward or easy way to understand the nature of the material world, if you just look at the world and see that the world exists but where did it come from? That is the question. So yatha ham sarvasya prabhavo mattah sarvam pravartate, Krishna has said in the chatur shloki bhagavad gita first verse that is 10.8 that he the source of everything, so yatha pravrttir bhutaanam, here Krishna uses the same point to serve Krishna but he just uses a third person reference over here because he is talking from the perspective of those who are doing this kind of worship, they may not know who the absolute truth is and they need to understand, know means they need to understand the position of that absolute truth, position is yatha pravrttir bhutaanam, by whom everything has come from, all of us have come from him also, so we have a innate connection with him and it is not that he is far away, yena sarvam idam tatam, he is right now present in the world, everywhere he pervades all of existence and nandarastha paramaan chayantarastham, in the brahma samhita it is said that absolute truth is situated within the universe and within also every atom within the universe, sarvataha, he is present everywhere, so yena sarvam idam tatam, now what is the significance of that? So if we have come from him and he is present everywhere then whatever we are doing, when we do some work, suppose somebody is a writer, now they are writing, so the writer has come from Krishna, the writer’s abilities have come from Krishna, in 7.8 Krishna has said that the ability in people that is his manifestation, so therefore the abilities have come from him, the writer’s abilities also, so basically we are using the gift of the divine to serve the divine and then we know that the divine is very far away, when we write about some aspect of the world, it might be a travelogue where we are writing about our travel experiences, it might be a any kind of writing, it might be news writing where we are writing about some events, ultimately everything happens within the jurisdiction of the lord, there is nothing which is beyond his jurisdiction, so therefore what we need to focus on is that the lord is accessible everywhere, he pervades everything, even a blacksmith while doing iron work, Krishna is present even in the blacksmith’s shop, Krishna is present everywhere, he is present not just in the temple, he is present everywhere, so if we have an attitude of service then we can connect with him, we can do the work in a mood of service to him.
Now it’s by your work worship him, it is not, work is worship, if work itself were worship then everybody would get liberated, everybody is doing some work or the other and they’ll get liberated by that, so Krishna has no reason to speak the Bhagavad Gita at all because he’s already, everybody is going to do something or the other and if their work is worship then they’ll get liberated automatically, so work has to be done in a mood of worship that means we have to understand that there is a worshipable lord and that worshipable lord is the ultimate purpose of our life and that whatever work we are able to do, we are able to do by his grace, whatever abilities we have, whatever experience we have, whatever knowledge we have, all that we’ve got by his grace and of course, if we do the work and get some results, those results will also be given to or offered to the lord, so when basically the idea of worship the lord through your work, that means Krishna is saying that work does not have to be divorced from our spirituality, it can live in a happy marriage with our spirituality, so divorced means that two people have to get separated, two people get separated, that’s when they’re divorced, so work and spirituality being divorced means to be spiritual, we have to give up our work but that’s not what is required, Krishna is saying through your work also you can become spiritual, you can attain, you can attain perfection in life, the whole idea is there is no restriction for accessing the lord, it is of course important that we have that awareness that there is a lord we worship and for developing that awareness, we need to hear about him, we need to pray to him, we need to connect with him to have that consciousness, to have that devotional awareness but once we have got the devotional awareness then whatever work we do, that will take us towards Krishna, so it’s critical for us to be able to move forward steadily in our life, that we recognize that life is not something which we can give up in order to get spiritual life, so in the context of Arjuna, he has already made a life as a warrior, he’s a phenomenal warrior, the best archer of his times and he doesn’t have to give up his archery in order to attain perfection, not at all, he can be where he is, he can practice spiritual life from there and he can attain perfection, so that is the mood of the Bhagavad Gita. That the lord can be worshipped through our work, whatever is our deepest experience is actually our experience of Krishna, we just have to become aware of it, when a painter loses oneself in painting, what is it that they’re experiencing in the patterns of color that are appearing on the canvas, actually they’re experiencing Krishna over there, they just don’t know that they’re experiencing Krishna, if they can come to know about it and if they understand there is a all attractive lord whom they are connecting with, then they will naturally become devoted to him because he is the source of their deepest, sweetest, most meaningful and fulfilling experience. When people have some deep experience about something and if you tell them that is mundane, give it up and now experience Krishna, it’s difficult for them but if they can understand that that deepest experience is a fragment of Krishna’s all attractiveness, whatever is attractive in this world, it manifests the spark of Krishna’s splendor.
So, to the extent we move forwards in experiencing Krishna through the practice of bhakti and then carrying that consciousness of Krishna to our work, to our deepest experiences and connecting those two experiences, then we will understand that oh this lord is so attractive, this lord who is my greatest joy, who is the source of the greatest value in my life, it is him that I want to experience and thus people can use their work as a means to progress towards ultimate perfection. Arjuna is known to be phenomenally absorbed. There is that well-known incident of Indrona’s academy where the various archers, various students were asked to shoot at a target, at a bird’s eye and before that they were told that look at it and tell us, tell what you are seeing.
So, different people said that they are seeing different things but it was Arjuna who said that I see just the bird, I don’t see anything else. So, he had that kind of unpointed focus, he had that kind of absorption and it is that absorption which can be spiritualized and then one can by the spiritualization of work have the spiritualization of our consciousness and thereby attain perfection. Thank you.