Gita 6.37-45 – How our spirituality continues beyond our present life
Thank you it's not a journey with a terminus ok it's done it's over it's a destination but within that destination it's a direction which we keep going we want to go from this cloud to that cloud there is definitely a direction, a trajectory in which we are going but when we get there, we discover this cloud is infinite or to use another metaphor which we could use is say somebody is in a desert and they are struggling to get some water and they get a few drops over here and that gives them a lot of sugar it's like nectar, it saves their life, enlivens them but they are looking for an ocean and they keep moving and they get to the ocean so now they dive into the ocean to swim and delight normal ocean water we can't drink but this is a special ocean now they have reached the destination they got to the water but the ocean itself is huge and they can keep diving within the ocean and they can swim they can go deep and they can keep discovering the nectarian ocean more and more so in that sense there is both a destination and there is an eternal progression thank you, good question any other questions, yes please what personal experience can give a sense of this destination and this progression so two things for me among the many things that attracted me to the Bhakti path the Bhagavad Gita itself was primary and the Bhagavad Gita I recited it, I memorised it I keep reciting it regularly so in a sense now I know the Bhagavad Gita I know what is in the 11th chapter, what is in the 7th chapter what is in the 5th chapter, I know most of the verses every time I claim that I have memorised all the verses of the Bhagavad Gita, in the next class I forget a verse so I won't make that claim but overall I do know the Bhagavad Gita by visiting the Bhagavad Gita, layers of meaning I thought about this, so that's the direction is that what you are asking or was it something else ok, ok ok, I got your question we try to see Krishna in everyone but sometimes some people they may be disagreeable or they may agitate our minds and then we can't remember Krishna we try to find them but they distract us from seeing Krishna is that the question agitating is a agitates yeah they agitate us see broadly there is equality of vision which the Bhagavad Gita talks about but equality of vision does not mean equality of action suppose there is a cat somewhere nearby and the cat is going towards the milk and about to sneak in and drink and we don't want the cat to drink the milk we clap loudly and the cat runs away now instead of that cat there is a big cat there is a tiger over there and we clap, we will go away so now I might see both the cat and the tiger as souls as spiritual beings but still I cannot act in the same way because the way they are going to act towards me is different so there can be equality of vision but there has to be individuality in action in vision we see everyone equally but in action we treat everyone individually and some people they may lead us by the hand towards Krishna we see Krishna in them and they channel us they connect us towards Krishna some people take us towards Krishna by the hand some people may kick us towards Krishna they may repel us from them and that's how it is because each one of us is individual and some individuals can get along with each other if some individuals cannot get along with each other then we need to keep a distance some people they intentionally try to agitate us scientists say that there are about 10 billion nerve cells in our brain and everybody has at least one or two people in their lives who seem to have done a PhD in agitating all those 10 billion nerve cells so now that is happening so now that is happening then we need to keep a safe distance of course we can try to resolve the conflicts and get to a better understanding but sometimes things don't work that means some relationships may work best at different distances so sometimes we just keep a respectful distance if we see Krishna in that person also we can see but all that we can do is we can pray for that person from a distance, we don't have to interact with them we see the Krishna connection in everyone we see the Krishna connection in everyone so that we can stay connected with Krishna but in seeing the Krishna connection in someone if we get disconnected from Krishna that is not healthy does that answer your question? thank you, yes please so how do we deal with the doubt that is the Gita the destination what is revealed in a particular tradition the path or what about other paths are they like other clouds which are also attracting us not exactly that they are competing clouds different metaphors serve different purposes so for understanding multiple faiths a very useful metaphor is the metaphor of mountain climbing the top of the mountain is spiritual consciousness characterised by love for the divine the bottom of the mountain is material consciousness and there can be multiple paths up the mountain the paths can be many the purpose is one the purpose is to rise to spiritual consciousness the paths are multiple now for mountain climbing different people based on their background, their interests their strengths, they might find this path is better for me this path is very slippery but I have steady foot this path has steps, maybe I can go by this path so there are people with different dispositions and some religions which are you could say exclusivist so within this mountain climbing metaphor the exclusivist religions are those who say that our way is the only way only this path goes up the mountain and if you are not following this path you are going to go to hell and some extremist versions of these exclusivist religions they say not only are you going to go to hell we will help you get there faster so that is like this is the only way up the mountain now that is exclusivism the other idea could be pluralism pluralism is there are many paths this sounds good however sometimes pluralism can degenerate very easily to relativism what is the difference between pluralism and relativism pluralism is the idea that ok different people can have different paths that's fine but there has to be a common purpose if you want to climb up a mountain you can have different paths but it's not that all paths will lead to the top of the mountain some paths may take you deep into a valley on the opposite side of the mountain some paths may take you completely away from the mountain so pluralism sometimes if it is uncritically embraced it can lead to total relativism it says whatever path anyone wants to follow you follow that path of course everybody has the free will to choose their path but we also need to have some objective parameters to understand what is the result of following a path if somebody says I want to be spiritual and my way of being spiritual is I will drink lots of alcohol everyday and that takes me to a different state well it does take you to a different state but that's not a spiritual state so the point I am making is that there is exclusivism, there is pluralism and you could say there is inclusivism inclusivism is there is rather than talking about one path, there is one purpose which includes many paths and broadly speaking if you consider the various faith traditions of the world they all talk about raising one's consciousness and they all give resources and reasons for people to raise their consciousness so now we have to consider each path whether it is taking us all the way up the mountain and what is the ease or what is the difficulty in going along that path so it's not that these are all different clouds which are pulling us there is one purpose but there can be different paths and that's how we can respect diversity because there can be different paths up the mountain but at the same time we can also respect spirituality itself because diversity doesn't mean you take any path which is anti-spiritual and that won't make you spiritual so there is a common purpose but there can be multiple paths you had a question? also further exploring in my understanding realisation self realisation we lose our self everything of our identity is to God so in that there is no there is no meaning so how is there exploration if we are merged then the divine is all knowing of everything and has experienced everything how is there exploration so if we merge with the divine then we have offered ourselves entirely then how can there be any further exploration because the divine is omniscient there are words in different context which have different meanings with respect to the absorption in God or union with God or sometimes the word merging might be used we have to look at the context to see what it means broadly right now if you are perceiving me I am perceiving you you are the subject of consciousness and I am the object of consciousness and in between us is the stream of consciousness so now for any conscious experience to be there these three have to be there the subject, the object and the stream now impure consciousness is where this stream of consciousness goes to any object other than God that when anyone sees anything meaningful anything attractive, anything captivating but disconnected from God that is Maya to see things in disconnection from God is illusion so in the state of absorption of oneness whatever word we want to use basically what happens is the pure consciousness goes toward God and nowhere apart from God that doesn't mean we don't see other people but we see everyone connected with God we are absorbed in God so this absorption is figuratively speaking we lose ourselves because we are not conscious of anything else but even for absorption to be there there has to be someone to be absorbed for liberation to be there there has to be someone to be liberated so some schools of thought conceive that pure consciousness means that there is no object and there is no subject there is only the stream of consciousness in the Bhagavad Gita when it talks about pure consciousness say for example 630 which you probably discussed a few sessions ago there what does Krishna say it is talking about increasing levels of consciousness higher and higher so one who sees me everywhere one who sees me in everything and everything in me that person is never lost to me nor am I lost to them I will come to that let me just complete this thread of thought that so he is saying one who sees me in everything and everything in me that means there is I, there is God and there is vision so in the state of spiritual perfection the Bhagavad Gita what it describes is that there is yes as you rightly said there is complete giving of oneself to God, losing of oneself in God but that losing is in terms of our consciousness completely going in we also use this in our day to day sense oh I was lost in thought somebody called me and we didn't listen to him so we were lost, we are still physically there but we are not there in terms of consciousness so in the pure state, the pure consciousness is where there is an observer, there is a subject, there is an object but the stream doesn't go to anywhere except the divine object and that is the personal understanding of liberation now there are other schools of thought which also talk about the impersonal understanding and the Bhagavad Gita also acknowledges that there is also a state however this state, the Bhagavad Gita says brahmano hi pratishtham the absolute truth is reciprocal if somebody wants that oneness they can get that but whether that will bring satisfaction of course in some ways it is better than the material world but we all long for love and there is no one to love and no one to be loved then love becomes more of a mere idea than the experienced reality so the personal understanding is that the subject and object are both there and pure consciousness is that the stream of consciousness doesn't go anywhere except the divine object so in that sense we lose ourselves in the divine I won't use the word is that dualism yes and no because the word dualism normally how it is used is that we see some reality disconnected from God so that dualism is illusion but in this case both the personalist and impersonalist traditions both accept that there is oneness but the question is only what is the nature of that oneness the nature of that oneness is what is the matter of discussion and from one perspective that means let's consider if somebody is eating some delicious food say like a gulab jamun so say now his programme is getting over and they have brought food outside and then at that time the fragrance of the gulab jamun comes so now we have experienced the gulab jamun at this stage but only through the nose then we go out and see this delicious spherical balls oh that looks attractive we experience through the eyes and then we get it in our plate and eat it that's when we experience it fully so basically in general on the spiritual path oneness is the first level of realisation why? because the duality in this world causes illusion I see this person is attractive, this person is not attractive I see this is wealthy, this is wealth, this is poverty I see this is heat, this is cold so the duality distracts us from reality and that's why the first step on the spiritual path is to see beyond duality so the see side of oneness where one doesn't see any differentiation just oneness that is like the first experience of the gulab jamun it's like the fragrance that comes into our nose but as we come closer we understand that ok there is an unchanging eternal reality beyond this world but that unchanging eternal reality also has personality and then as we come that's like oh we see the side of gulab jamun and when you come closer and say oh not only that unchanging reality of personality I also have personality so the oneness in this case is seen in in our nature our purpose it is like say if some country attacks say if Iran attacks America and all of America will become united in defending so there is a unity of purpose there is a unity of nature so there is we often talk about this hierarchy that there is diversity and there is unity we want unity in diversity that's true but what the Bhagavad Gita says is yes we have from diversity to unity so that we have unity in diversity but then we also have diversity in unity which is at a spiritual level and that's why in the 15th chapter there is a verse which talks about how upside down banyan tree this world is like a reflection now unless there is a reality there cannot be a reflection so what we call as duality in the world the duality would not be present in the reflection unless it is present in the reality but that duality is within the spectrum of oneness because we are absorbed only in God and whatever else we see we see it all in connection with God but in this world the duality is such that it disconnects us from God so basically if you go back again to the fundamental definition of illusion some of us may think duality is illusion which is true at one level but at fundamental level, the fundamental illusion is not duality, the fundamental illusion is disconnection from God if there is connection with God then even when there is duality that duality also intensifies the joy yesterday was Radha Ashtami and Radha Krishna have their sweet pastimes and sometimes they are united and sometimes they are separated when they are separated that intensifies their longing, when will we meet and in the united they are so delighted, again they are separated but in separation or in union both cases there is absorption in the divine and thus the root cause of illusion which needs to be overcome is not simply duality but it is disconnection from God can you repeat your question? so if we see Krishna everywhere then can Krishna speak through anyone? can he speak through others also? yes he can the key thing is not where something is coming from but where something is taking us that means that even within us, sometimes the voices say come on do this don't do this, now how do we know whether it is God speaking within us or our own illusion speaking within us our own mind speaking within us it is very difficult to discern things based on their origin because it is very difficult, how do we identify that but if we study the books like the Bhagavad Gita they give us an overall compass for life and once we have a compass then whenever any input comes from anywhere we see whether this input is taking me in the direction of the spiritual compass or it is taking me away so if somebody says something which upsets us, we lose our peace yes, we all want peace but more than peace we want purpose we want to do something meaningful if you consider that somebody tells you I will give you a private room and there will be no disturbance somebody will provide you food, somebody will provide you water and just be peaceful for the rest of your life ok, we want peace but I want to do something it's like we want peace but more than peace we want purpose so peace is basically if somebody is very sick and they are in pain then at that time any movement they do they cause pain and then they think that if I could just stop moving I will be free from pain and yes, they will be free from pain if they stop moving but as soon as they become free from pain they will want to do something so the cause of their pain seems to be motion but the cause of the pain is not motion it is disease the disease is cured then automatically they can move in a healthy way so similarly we definitely want peace but peace is like I don't want anything which will cause me pain but ok, after that peace what? we want something more than that we want purpose in our life, we want meaning in our life and when we want purpose that purpose often comes with challenges so yes, if somebody is agitating us very much we can keep a distance from them but more than keeping a distance from someone we need to see where I want to go what is my purpose in life so if you want to connect with Krishna then what are the positive activities that I can do for connecting with Krishna to put something behind us, we have to put something ahead of us so we cannot simply push someone away from us our brain is such a thing that our thoughts we can't empty them we can't drive away any thought from within us but we can crowd a certain thought out of us so the more you put something positive in your consciousness and pursue it purposefully then the disturbing people and agitation they are causing that will subside so let's move on actually we have to begin the answers so now I said in the 40th verse Krishna assures Arjuna that yes that you will never have any loss then at one level people need to be assured like if somebody is very sick doctor what has happened to me, have I got cancer, have I got some disease things are alright, things will be alright but doctor can't just give some simple assurance doctor has to tell why are you having this pain, what do you have to do about it so then Krishna also rationally analyses so Arjuna's question is here if somebody takes on the spiritual journey but they are unable to complete it and then they die without the journey completed then what will happen to them then Krishna says the spiritual credits you have will never be lost that means the attraction to the spiritual, to the transcendental will always be there and broadly speaking if you consider the cloud metaphor once again from this cloud to this cloud a small cloud is moving now it may not reach the destination for two reasons one is that some strong wind comes and it swifts somewhere away the other could be that it just runs out of time so we all have a finite time in this lifetime and we all want to grow spiritually but sometimes the distance that we need to cover in our spiritual journey the time required for it may run out of time so Krishna considers both these possibilities the first possibility is that a wind sweeps somebody away that means that although they had a strong spiritual desire which made them start the journey but that desire became overpowered by some other desire the world keeps alluring us with so many pleasures and we might resist them for some time but after sometime we might again get allured so if that happens Krishna says this first possibility that the wind sweeps you away so he describes that the 40th verse was the general answer the 41st verse he says that he says the Bhagavad Gita envisions the universe to be broadly three level we live at the earthly level we could call it the terrestrial and above this is the celestial level it is the heavenly level so what is heaven, basically if you consider the ordinary parlance also that is heavenly, some food was heavenly that place was heavenly, the idea is something which gives us immense pleasure, we call it heaven now in the Bhagavad Gita's description of the universe, heaven and the kingdom of God they are two separate things, the spiritual world heaven exists within the material world where there are better material pleasures so Srila Prabhupada said that in some ways Hawaii is like heaven in some ways, not always but there is a place where there is lot of beauty lot of naturally comfortable lot of pleasure available so Krishna says that if somebody has strong desires wind comes and sweeps it away means somebody has strong desire for worldly pleasure, then he says that person will go to a heavenly place where they can have the desire fulfilled and after fulfilling the desire abundantly then they will come back to the earthly level and at the earthly level they will be born either in a spiritually cultured family or in a wealthy family so the idea is that after the desire has been fulfilled then when they come back to this world they won't have to struggle for again beginning the spiritual journey we may have to struggle in our spiritual journey in two ways one is that our material life itself is so problematic some people may have to work 12, 15, 17 hours just for earning a living then they have no time for spiritual life if somebody is reasonably well to do then they can pursue other things of course they can pursue more illusion also but here we are talking about people who already had a spiritual inclination they had a spiritual inclination, they got deviated but those desires they were able to fulfil abundantly now they come back, that itch is over now then if there are no material distractions they don't have too much struggle for maintaining themselves they can march forward or if they are born in a spiritually cultured family then again they get the spiritual inclination gets nourished so this is how Krishna says that whatever spiritual advancement you have done that's not lost you get swept away but you will come back again on the path you get swept away, you go there, you come back and move on the other case as I said is somebody is moving but they don't get swept away but just that they run out of time then he says that this is the other category of people they are born in not just a spiritually cultured family but a spiritually advanced family where the parents are not just spiritually favourable but the parents are already spiritually very serious then what happens, the children they have their spiritual inclination right from their previous life but they also get it in their upbringing and then they can move forward much faster so both ways the spiritual opportunity even if it seems to be lost in this life it will eventually come back and then Krishna describes what happens after that it's that somebody might be very spiritually advanced but when they are born from the mother's womb they are not going to cry God's name they are not going to say Hare Krishna, they are going to cry so to some extent our spirituality is expressed through our biology our spirituality is expressed through our biology that means when a baby is very small the baby will act according to his biological drives but our identity is not limited to our biology so what will happen is, Krishna says Purva Abhyas, by the spiritual practise which they have done in the past they will be helplessly attracted nobody needs to tell them about spirituality they will just get automatically attracted I was in UK just now so I met a devotee a girl, a teenager, not a teenager, maybe 20-25 she is from Poland and in Poland we have one of our leaders who does big festivals so she said when she was 6 with her parents she was going out for a walk and suddenly she felt, I want to go there I want to go there her mother thought it's just a child's curiosity, let's go and there was a big festival of India tent now a lot of colourful activities are happening over there but this small girl, she just took her mother's train now there are places where there are gopi dots girls are decorated with various dots they wear different kinds of dresses all kinds of fun things are there but she didn't go anywhere just went straight to the place where there was a temple and she went there and she was born in a Christian family but she went there and started holding her hands what are you doing? his mother couldn't understand so she was so captivated by that she couldn't consciously articulate what was it? see all of us we could say we have certain articulated knowledge we have certain embodied knowledge and then beyond that there is things which we don't know so that means most of us if we have grown up in learning a particular mother tongue particular language as our mother tongue then we can speak reasonably well according to the grammatical rules of that language but if somebody asks us what are the grammatical rules? if somebody speaks something wrong it's not spoken like this, it's spoken like this but what's wrong with that? no, it's not right but why it's not right? we might not be able to articulate it so what happens is our articulated knowledge is less our embodied knowledge is more we know many more things than what we can put in words and many times you might notice that that we hear something we are discussing on some issue and somebody speaks something that was the word I was looking for that was the thought I was looking for Emerson said that Ralph Aldo Emerson he said all my best thoughts have been stolen by the ancestors all my best thoughts have been stolen by the ancestors that means what? I am already doing it but hey that's what I was thinking so we have articulated knowledge and beyond that a bigger circle is embodied knowledge and beyond that is what we don't know so what Krishna is saying over there is that when a child is born new and a child is coming into this journey they may not have any articulated knowledge of what they are doing but they will be helplessly attracted towards spirituality helplessly here in the sense of irresistible and then once that attraction is there the connection is established yatha tej yatha tobhuyah samsiddhau kuru nandana then once that first connection is established then again the practise resumes that means this cloud was moving this way it couldn't reach the full destination so when the soul is born again somehow by that irresistible attraction the connection is established and the journey resumes the journey resumes and then after that prayatnayata manastu yogi samshuddha kilvishaha aneka janma samsiddhas to yati param gatim and Krishna says don't lose heart even if this takes multiple lifetimes sometimes it's not necessary that enlightenment it's not necessarily slow it's not necessarily slow it's not necessarily fast we will progress at the pace that works the best for us so one way I talk about the mood of the Gita is that when Krishna says mamma vartamanu vartante manusyaha partha sarvesha that all people are on my path what it means is that from your place at your pace access the grace so from your place wherever you are like I am talking about the mountain some people may be already half the way up the mountain some people may be at the bottom of the mountain some people may be in a valley at the bottom of the mountain but from your place you start off the grace is available the path to rise up is there and at your pace some people might move very fast some people might move slowly so of course what you are saying is true is that we shouldn't expect or demand that the growth will be very fast good question so if we are I understand what you are saying if we are on a multi life spiritual journey and along this journey we might be growing spiritually but we are also acting in the world so won't we be accumulating karma by that yes acting in the world does mean that there will be some amount of karma however because there will be a spiritual inclination and if we are progressive on the spiritual journey that spiritual inclination will keep getting stronger and stronger and because of that the negative actions that we will do will be far lesser the negative karma that we accumulate will also be lesser and even the positive karma that we do so there is negative karma, there is positive karma and beyond that there is spiritual karma so even the positive karma we will spiritualise it more and more so on the spiritual journey our focus, we need to be Krishna conscious not karma conscious we shouldn't worry so much oh I have to get rid of this karma I have to avoid that karma we can actually if we become too karma conscious we can almost become paranoid oh this will cause me some karma this will cause me some karma we have to act like human beings functioning in a compassionate mode so yes we will accumulate some karma but that karma will get neutralised as we move forward spiritually the important thing is keep moving forward spiritually see beyond the mechanics of the principle of karma we have to see the purpose of Krishna Krishna's purpose is not retribution it is redemption retribution is you did this and you have to suffer this that's not Krishna's purpose it is redemption he wants to elevate us he wants to redirect us towards him so if we intensely want to move towards him he will adjust the karma in such a way we can keep moving forward you had a question? answer sure ok Krishna says for multiple lifetimes you will go on the spiritual journey and ultimately you will attain perfection so the overall mood of Krishna's discussion here is that don't worry too much about what will happen in the future I am taking the spiritual journey right now don't worry too much if this will go wrong that will go wrong Krishna says you do your part right now and the remaining I will take care of that that is the essential mood over here the specifics can vary we can worry too much about the future what of this, what of this, what of that we can't know what the future holds but we can know who holds the future we can know who holds the future that is Krishna and we can hold on to the one who holds the future if we hold on to Krishna then whatever the future will bring Krishna will guide us through it that is the overall reassuring message of this section, I will summarise I spoke today on this section of the future destination of a incomplete Yogi Yogi is not completed the path so Arjuna first has a question about what is the mind just, is too restless just is persevere, this is what if somebody can't persevere, the two clouds metaphor was there that if somebody use the cloud of material piety and goes to the cloud of spirituality but gets swept away, will they be neither here nor there and then he asks Krishna, I have this doubt but I trust that you can answer this question, so I talked about how at one level doubt and knowledge are opposites but another level doubt and knowledge are successive destinations on the same journey so we have doubts only when we have at least a desire to know and are unable to know so in a while driving, doubting is like the brakes and putting faith is like pressing the accelerator so if something doesn't make sense, there is a doubt but somebody always has doubts and never puts faith and that's like a person using the brakes alone to move so doubt is a sign of intelligence but doubt is not the only sign of intelligence and then when Krishna answers Arjuna's question in text 40, the first focus is that give an assurance whenever a question is there there is a rational part and there is an emotional part and the answerer of the question needs to carefully see what is prominent if it is the emotional part that is prominent then that needs to be addressed first the rational part is wrong, that needs to be addressed first so Krishna here notices that Arjuna has this apprehension so first he gives the assurance one who is in the spiritual path will never lose either in this or the next life and how that never loss will happen that he describes first if the cloud gets swept away by gust of wind that means some other desires take over the person then in the heavens the facility for fulfilling that desire will be given and then the person can come back again to continue in a life, in this world where there are not many distractions or the person just runs out of time there is no other desire then they will be born in a spiritual family where they can just march ahead and complete their journey and how does one's previous spirituality manifest in this life our spirituality doesn't contradict our biology so baby might be born just crying like any other baby but as that baby grows, within the biology, the spirituality starts manifesting the six year old suddenly wants to go to a place and sees beautiful deities and gets absorbed over there so I talked there about three levels with respect to cognition there is articulated knowledge and there is embodied knowledge and then there is lack of knowledge so our past spirituality will not be within our articulated knowledge but it will be within our embodied knowledge like a person who knows how to speak in a language and what is right and what is wrong but doesn't know the specific rules so a person who has practised spirituality will automatically be attracted towards spirituality, although they might not be able to make a rational case of why am I attracted to this, why is this good but they can learn that and they resume that journey and gradually over multiple lifetimes, the same principle of attraction will continue and ultimately they will attain their destination, so Krishna's mood overall is that while you are practising spirituality now don't worry about the future you take care of the present and I will take care of the future for you, thank you very much Hare Krishna there were so many pearls of wisdom at your face, at your place at your place and so many others so thank you Prabhuji for joining us and I especially.