Gita 9.12 – Rejecting real currency as fake leaves one impoverished
Bhagavad Gita 9.12 So here Krishna speaks about the way those who misunderstand him are doomed.
Those who misunderstand him were talked about in the previous verse. And this verse talks about them. What is the end result that they get? The word mogha means waste.
A mogha means one which never goes waste. So for example, a moghadruk means one whose eyes or vision never goes waste. That means one who sees the truth.
Or a moghashara. Lord Ram is called as a moghashara. That means his arrow never misses the target.
Or for that matter, the word mogha is used in the Bhagavad Gita in 3.16 16 So one who lives sinfully, seeking only the pleasure of the senses. What happens to such a person? Such a person lives in vain. Such a person's life goes waste.
So mogha means futile or waste. Here Krishna says So three things, the desires, the activities. These three are usually present in every action.
We desire something. Then we have the knowledge of how to go about and do that thing. And then we go and do it.
There is action. So action is preceded by intention and cognition, we could say. The desire and the knowledge of how to do it.
And Krishna says over here, all three will go waste. The asha, the karma and the jnana. All three will go waste.
For whom? Vichetasaha is consciousness. Vichetasaha is misdirected consciousness. So for those whose consciousness is misdirected, for them, everything goes wrong.
Everything goes waste. And we could say it's worse than waste. Because suppose a person has money and a person spends the money wisely, then the money multiplies and the person's assets improve.
But suppose a person wastes the money, squanders the money on wasteful schemes, then that person has lost the money. But suppose worse than simply wasting the money is, suppose that person gambles and loses, puts the money and loses not only that money but loses all other assets also. So loses one's house, loses one's property, everything one loses.
And then that person will be left with nothing at all. So mogh jnana vichetasaha, so like that, when a person acts without the knowledge of Krishna or against the spirit of understanding Krishna's position, then not only are the actions waste, mogha, mogha, mogha, three times Krishna is using the word mogha here. It's a poetic alliteration which brings about great emphasis.
But along with that there is also something more detrimental. Rakshasimhaasurim jaiva prakritim mohinim shritaha So shritaha, shritaha is a shortened form of ashritaha. That person takes shelter of prakritim mohinim, of the nature, prakriti, of my energy, which is mohinim, which is deluding.
And thus that person goes to rakshasimhaasurim jaiva. That person goes towards deadly, demoniac natures. So asuri is often talked about as a mentality.
Daivasura sampada vibhaga yoga is only the 16th chapter where Krishna talks about the qualities that are godly and ungodly. And that is clearly, different people can have these different qualities. At the same time, the rakshasa is also a species.
So for example, we have Vibhishan. He was a rakshasa in body, but he was not an asura in mentality. Duryodhana, on the other hand, was a manava in body and he was asura in mentality.
So here when Krishna says rakshasimhaasurim jaiva prakritim mohinim shritaha, he's indicating that those people who act in defiance of his position, minimizing his position, not only do they not advance in their spiritual growth, but they… So, prakritim mohinim shritaha, mohini, that which deludes. The word mohini is famously used in the context of mohini avat, mohini murti, the only feminine incarnation of the absolute truth who deluded the demons and even deluded Lord Shiva. So prakritim mohinim shritaha here refers to the deluding potency.
Krishna has earlier talked about mamamaya duratyaya. This mayamaya is very difficult to overcome. tribhir kuna mayair bhavair, ebhi sarvamitam jagatmohitam na abhijanati.
So Krishna says that this deluding potency made of three modes is all living beings are deluded by that. So now, that which causes delusion, we need to come out of the delusion, not that we take shelter of the delusion. If we take shelter of the one who causes illusion, then we put ourselves in deeper illusion.
We could say illusion square, illusion cube, illusion quadrupled, illusion raised to the many many power, to the power of a large number. That's how prakritim mohinim shritaha. The one whose, the deluding potency, one whose shelter we need to come out of, one whose shelter is actually, it is a very bad shelter, durashraya.
It is a shelter which causes distress and devastation. That is, they take the shelter of such an energy. Moghasha, mogh karmano, mogh jnana vichetasaha.
Moghasha, so mogh, mogh, mogh, everything becomes futile for them. It's like sometimes, some children say play business or some other game which involves fake currency. Now even if they accumulate a million dollars in the fake currency, that is actually of not much use.
We need to have the understanding that the fake currency is fake, it has no value. So the serious problem with the impersonalists is that it's one thing to consider the fake currency to be real, that's bad. But it's quite another thing to reject the real currency as fake.
If you reject the real currency as fake, then we are left with nothing at all. So similarly, when we mistake the temporary forms of this world to be sources of great pleasure, we are mistaking the fake currency to be real. But when we mistake Krishna's eternal form to be temporary, then we are mistaking the real currency to be fake.
And a person who mistakes fake currency to be real loses that money or doesn't get whatever is to be got through that value of money. But a person who rejects real currency as fake, that person is left without any currency at all. So that is a very unfortunate condition.
So like that, those who reject Krishna, those who misunderstand, those who reject Krishna's transcendental form, they are doomed. And that is what this verse declares. Mogha, mogha, mogha.
Their desires, their knowledge, and their endeavors, they all end in futility.