Gita 18.70 See the sanctity of Gita study in terms of intent, content and result

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you Samvadham means that which is religious, that which is sacred. Gyaana Yagyaanatenaaham, that they are worshipping me.
They are doing Gyaana Yagyaan, and through this Gyaana Yagyaan, Ishta Syaab Iti Mehmat Hi Hoon. My opinion is that they are worshipping me with their intelligence. Because Yagya is a concept that permeates the Bhagavad Gita.
Especially in the fourth chapter, different kinds of Yagyaans are talked about. And there also Gyaana Yagyaan is talked about. Nathra Ugya Yagya refers to offering wealth, sacrifice of wealth.
So Gyaana Yagya refers to the sacrifice of the intelligence. That means, you know, we could use our intelligence for doing various things. But when we choose to use it for something higher, when we use it for a sacred purpose, so if we consider the Bhagavad Gita to be like the sacrificial fire, then in that sacrificial fire, we put in our knowledge acquiring faculty, our intelligence.
And thus we are offering our intelligence to Krishna through the Gita, because Krishna has spoken the Gita. And just as the gods can be worshipped by sacred fires invoked in their name, similarly, Krishna can be worshipped by fires, by the fire of knowledge, by immersing our intelligence in the fire of knowledge that is invoked when we study Krishna’s words given in the Gita. Essentially, Krishna is saying here that studying this is a sacred activity.
Some people think that religious activities are sacred. That means, for example, going to a temple, doing the puja of the deities, this they consider sacred. The other things, they don’t consider that sacred.
They think that other things are just ordinary, that they’re just some things which are, okay, they’re also part of something spiritual. So Krishna is helping us see the sanctity of scriptural study. Here, this is a conversation that happened on the battlefield, but it is dharmam samvadhamavayo.
It is about dharma, because the question that began that conversation in 2.7 was, pruchyamitvam dharmasamudhachetah, that I ask you, what is dharma? And Krishna answers that question at various levels, culminating in sarvadharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja, give up all varieties of religion and just surrender to me. Surrender to me. So this is a conversation about dharma.
In fact, the whole Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata, of which Bhagavad Gita is a part, is a conversation about dharma. And dharma is not some abstruse philosophical concept. Dharma is our defining identity.
Dharma is actually our defining activity. The activity that will define us in a way that agrees, that harmonizes with who we really are. We are all defined by our activities.
Somebody is an engineer, somebody is a doctor, somebody is a carpenter, somebody is a pilot. We are all defined by our activities. However, these definitions are, we could say, circumstantial.
Before the person became a pilot, they were not pilots. After they retire from flying planes, they will no longer be pilots. So it is in between that they are pilots.
And similarly, every one of us, we have certain identities, which may be very important in a functional sense. But who are we essentially? That is our dharma. Now, the Bhagavad Gita tells us that we are Atma, and Atma is an amsa of Bhagavan, Krishna.
And thus, karishye vachinamtao, surrendering to Bhagavan and doing His will, is what we are all meant to do. So, if we consider that every one of us is a soul who is a part of Krishna, and is meant to serve Krishna, then to the extent we harmonize with Him, that will bring us supreme auspiciousness. And using our intelligence to understand the message of loving harmony is also a worship of Krishna.
So, the Bhagavad Gita offers us a vision of spirituality that is inclusive. And in case somebody says that actually, the Sarva-dharman-prithya-yaman-mana-bhava, the two concluding verses of the Bhagavad Gita 18.65 and 66, these are not, these are simply about bhakti. Bhakti is for sentimentalists.
But then we can go deeper and say that, okay, Krishna is saying here that studying the message of bhakti is a jnana-yajna. So, jnanis think that it is studying to understand the illusion of the material world and to understand Brahman, that is actually the real thing to do. But here Krishna is saying, no, studying to understand Brahman, studying to understand the message of bhakti, understand the Gita, that is also a sacred activity.
That is spiritual, that is jnana-yajna. This also indicates the extraordinariness of the Gita, is implicit in the Gita itself. If two people are talking, and one of them says, you know, that our conversation will be studied by people in the future for thousands of years.
Say that self-congratulate is also pompous, may find it pretentious also. Somebody says, you know, studying this conversation will be an act of worship. Might even consider that a little presumptuous.
But Krishna says that because he is God, he is the Supreme, and he is speaking from the position of his supremacy, and these are words which are coming from the all-pure, and those words are also all-pure. And by studying those words, everyone of us can grow in our spirituality, in our devotion, in our self-understanding and God-understanding. That means here we can think of study in three distinct terms.
Study in terms of its intent, in terms of its content, and in terms of its consequence. So in terms of content, this is a conversation coming from the words of Krishna, coming from the lips of Krishna. So that itself makes it sacred.
In terms of consequence, it will also lead us to a similar understanding that Arjuna got, My illusion is expelled, my memory is restored, I am surrendering to you. And now through this verse, Krishna is also giving us intent to see this as studying this as a sacred conversation, understanding that it is nothing ordinary, it is something profoundly special, and appreciating it as such is a matter of great fortune, great privilege, and it is a privilege that each one of us can relish. If we turn towards Krishna and his words in a mood of worshipful sacrifice.