Gita 18.46 – Worship first to make work worship

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. yena sarvam idam tatam svakarmanatam apy arju siddhim vindati mānavah yathah ruddhir bhūtānām From whom all of existence is coming.
yena sarvam idam tatam By whom all of existence is pervaded. svakarmanatam apy arju By your work, worship him. siddhim vindati mānavah By this, one will attain siddhi, perfection.
This verse from the 18th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita emphasizes how all of us can connect with Krishna without having to disconnect from the world. Often it is thought that to attain God, we have to renounce the world. Actually, what we have to renounce is the attachment to the world, not necessarily the connection with the world.
So, connection without obsession is what devotion enables us to do. By practicing bhakti, we learn to see the world as meant not for our enjoyment but for service to Krishna. And rather than just trying to connect the world with ourselves for our enjoyment or disconnect the world from us for our disentanglement, we focus on our connection with Krishna and see the connection of the world with Krishna as the foundation for our using the world to further our connection with Krishna.
Because the world belongs to Krishna, the world needs to be reunited with Krishna. The world’s resources include our own abilities also. So, our abilities are actually not ours.
Their gift is given to us by Krishna and using those abilities in Krishna’s service enables us to go closer to Him. So, by using those abilities to connect with Krishna, we advance in our devotion. That is the whole essence of Varanashram.
Now, the important thing is when we try to work according to our nature and connect with Krishna, we actually end up not just connecting with Him but also connecting others with Him by our example of engaged devotion. But for doing all this, before we can use the world to connect with Krishna, we need to ourselves be connected with Krishna. And our connection with Krishna happens through our sincere devotion.
And that devotion is sustained by our mantra meditation. So, chanting is not just something we do as a ritual. Our directly devotional activities such as chanting, hearing, studying scripture, worshipping the deity, they are the foundation by which the rest of our life becomes spiritualized.
Without a foundation of strong chanting, of intense devotional activities, our attempts to engage the world will end up becoming engaged in the world, entangled in the world. So, during our sadhana, when the mind wanders, we can use the sobering meditation. Now, when Krishna is right available in front of me, if I don’t focus on Him, how will I focus on Him when I have to connect with Him indirectly through other things? And even more importantly, if my consciousness doesn’t become permeated with Krishna when I am exposed to Him directly, how can I conceivably cultivate attraction to Him? My engagement in the world, if it is not an unconsciousness of Krishna, at least at some basic background level of awareness that I am doing it for Krishna, even that is not really there, then my engagement in the world will not really help me grow in bhakti.
And that’s why my engagement in the world has to be preceded and founded by the engagement of my consciousness in Krishna. So, our directly devotional activities are the foundation for all our activities. And whatever effort we put in doing our professional, familial and other responsibilities, we do those activities even when we don’t feel like doing them because we know that they are responsibilities.
And all those responsibilities truly contribute to our all-round growth only when we recognize the gravity of our devotional responsibility to Guru and Krishna when we do our directly devotional activities. By remembering how the Thamma Bhairaja, worshipping him through our work happens only when we have developed a disposition to worship by directly devotional activities. By remembering this, when we have the opportunity for directly devotional activities, we intensely focus on Krishna and thereby connect our heart with him.