Gita applied Chapter 2 – The Gita separates the soul from the body and harmonizes both too

[Talk at ISKCON Silicon Valley, San Jose, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. So, today morning we’ll continue discussion on the Gita applied as an overview. So, I discussed the first chapter on Wednesday evening and at the end of the first chapter, Arjun has come to a confused indecision.
He, at one level he makes, it’s confusion but through the confusion he does indecision. I will not fight. … … He has put aside his boast saying I will not fight.
And he is based on his reasoning, we saw in the first chapter the whole theme is that I divided in four sections. First is Duryodhana’s vision, then Arjun’s vision, then Arjun’s confusion, then Arjun’s reason for his confusion concluding with Arjun’s decision. So, now till now in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna has spoken only one word … … Just one fraction of that 25th verse, 1.25. Here in the second chapter Krishna will speak for the first time.
So, can we display the chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita? Chapter 2 begins with Arjun being disheartened, Arjun being confused. Let’s recite the verse. … … … … … … … … So, here … This is a very significant point that his eyes were filled with tears.
Now, what is the significance of this point? That generally people don’t show their emotions too much in public. Even if we are overwhelmed, we want to cry, we will be going private and cry. And especially somebody who is a warrior, warriors are trained to conceal pain.
Because pain is a sign of weakness. Say if two boxers are fighting and say one of the boxers has already a broken jaw that has been repaired, but still gets a punch, the boxer winces. And immediately the opponent understands this is a point of weakness.
And then the opponent will hit where it hurts. So, therefore, Kshatriyas are trained to not show their emotions in public. To conceal, especially negative emotions.
They may celebrate after victory, but pain, they try to conceal. There are different kinds of pains in life and sometimes emotional pains are far greater than physical pains. Now, we could say pain is ultimately an emotion.
So, isn’t all pain an emotion? Yes, that’s true, but what is the source? Sometimes there is a physical wound which is causing the pain. So, the physical sensation is the cause of the pain. But sometimes there is nothing physically wrong, but emotionally say a relationship has broken down or we have lost a loved one.
Physically, we are not in immediate danger. So, the fact that Arjun, despite being a trained warrior who is on the most, on the battlefield for the most important war of his life has become overwhelmed with emotions so much that he is crying publicly. That indicates the magnitude of the trauma that he is in.
Not only is he crying on the battlefield, but he is also crying at the point of maximum visibility. Maybe because he is right now, he is in between the two armies. So, in general, enlightenment is preceded by some kind of turbulence, some kind of distress, some kinds of devastation.
In the Bhagavad Gita, later Krishna will say that there are four kinds of people who come to him. They are those who are distressed, those who are distressed, those who are distressed, and those who are distressed. So, of course, that is not correct.
But the point is that even if somebody is seeking knowledge, Krishna says four categories, what are the four categories? Artha, Jijnas, Artharthi and Jnani. So, the distressed, the knowledge seekers, the inquisitive and the wealth seekers. So, now, yes, there are these four categories, but in general, unless there is some distress, the other category of people will not usually turn toward God.
Nowadays, if you want to have, gain some knowledge also, or inquisitive about something. There is so many ways, so many places we can go to know things. So, somebody’s car has broken down and the other person says, I know how to fix a car.
The other person asks, do you know it or do you Google know it? Do you really know it or you just Googled it and you think you know it now? Now, of course, you can learn from Google also, but the point is that it’s not necessary that just because somebody is seeking knowledge or somebody is inquisitive, one will necessarily come towards God. And similarly, when we talk about money, now, today when people want money, they will probably go to a bank. They will not go to God for getting money.
So, there are so many alternatives that are available that people may not turn toward God. Broadly speaking, in today’s world, people turn toward God either because life is frustrating or life is unfulfilling. I wanted something very strongly in my life and I didn’t get it.
So, I am frustrated. I don’t know what should I do? How can I go on in my life? Or, I wanted something very strongly, I got it, but I found it’s an anticlimax. It didn’t live up to its expectations.
So, it’s not that I am unhappy in the sense that it’s a big distress in my life. It’s just that what I thought will give me happiness has not given me happiness. Then we turn toward.
So, the Jnani is in this category. They want some higher happiness. But the foundation is there has to be some distress.
So, here Arjuna’s distress makes him receptive. Actually, there is a if there is a deep meaningful conversation that is going on, then we could say in that conversation, there is constant death and reincarnation happening. Because when we are discussing with someone, then we had some idea that idea has to die.
That’s wrong. That is not a correct idea. And then, my own conception about that thing changes.
So, there is a reincarnation. That idea changes. So, there could be reincarnations of two types.
Internal reincarnation is gradual. Sometimes, some ideas incrementally they change. Okay, I had this understanding, but now I have this understanding.
It’s incremental change. But sometimes, it is a drastic change. So, a deep conversation leads to the evolution or complete transformation of ideas.
And normally, when we have a particular idea, that idea, that worldview is like the ground on which we stand. And when turbulence occurs, it’s like the ground under us is being pulled. So, for Arjuna, he had two primary roles for his life.
Do you remember, I discussed in last class about what was the essential conflict in Arjuna’s mind? Two dharmas. Kula dharma and Kshatriya dharma. So, he had two identities.
Okay, I am a member of the Kuru dynasty. And he also had identity that I am a Kshatriya. But when these two identities start pulling him in two opposite directions, it’s like say, we stand in a boat that’s a little rocky.
But if you stand in two boats and then the boats start going away from each other. Then, initially, we try to stand. We can stretch, stretch, stretch.
But when the two boats start going too far away, you start realising I am going to fall down. I cannot stretch this much. So, we have multiple roles in life.
If the two roles start pulling us rapidly and completely in opposite directions, then it’s like the ground under us is no longer there. Where do we stand? So, that can be extremely disorienting. And that is what has happened to Arjuna.
So, here the significant point is, अश्रोपुर्ण कुलेक्षनम् He was filled with tears. And that indicates the magnitude to which he was overcome. Now, interestingly, at this point, when Krishna responds, वाच्यमंतु सूधन्न Can you just have the translations like last time? Not the translations, just the Sanskrit, or the transliteration rather.
Only the transliteration. So, you can remove the synonyms as well as the translation. Verse text.
So, now, Krishna speaks two verses over here. But at this point, Krishna’s mode of speaking is somewhat different. So, let’s look at these verses.
We’ll recite it together now. श्री भगवानु वाच्य कुतस्त्वाकश्मलमिदम् विषमे समुपस्तितम् अनार्यजुष्टमस्वर्यम् अकीर्धी करमर्जुन So, कुतस्त्वाकश्मलमिदम् So, both these points that Krishna makes are rhetorical questions. कुतस्त्वाकश्मलमिदम् This is not भुवु, कश्मलम्.
This is a weakness, this is a contamination. And, say, for example, there’s a cricket match and there’s a final over of a big cricket match. And suddenly, a bowler who’s supposed to bowl, or the batsman who’s supposed to bat, they get a case of nerves.
You know, I can’t play. If there is a very good batsman at the opponent end and the bowler has to bowl the last over. And the bowler may feel, if I bowl, I lose, everybody will jeer me.
So I don’t want to bowl only. So let somebody else bowl. So now, come on, you can’t do this.
You cannot get overcome by weakness like this. This is not the way. Where has this come upon you? That means, this does not belong to you, this does not be who you.
So you are a Kshatriya, you are a Arya, and you act in a worthy way. And the next verse, Krishna says, This is, Klaibya actually refers to weakness, especially the weakness of a Kshudra, of a powerless person, of an impotent person. So he was too strong, what is Klaibya and Kshudra.
Now Kshudra is not a casteist slur. It is a characteristic. Brahmana, Brahman refers to that which is big.
The biggest reality is called Brahman. Kshudra is that which is small. So a person who is large-minded is a Brahmana.
A person who is small-minded is a Kshudra. So it’s primarily here when Krishna is referring to it, which is being small-minded. And, Give up this weakness of the heart.
Arjun, you are the chastiser of enemies. Just give up this weakness. And, so here the word Parantapa means, oh Arjun, you can chastise your enemy.
So chastise this enemy of weak-mindedness that is there within you. Don’t give in to this weakness. This does not be who you.
Naitat tvay upapadyate. So now, Arjun, on hearing this, feels indignant. This is not weak-mindedness.
And he counters by another rhetorical question. So Krishna’s question was, how can you act weakly like this? So he is saying, this is not weak-mindedness. This is thoughtfulness.
And he asks a rhetorical question, that would you, Krishna, fight against and kill your guru? Or your grandsire? Those whom I am meant to worship, he says, that means I am meant to offer flowers in honour to them, how can I offer arrows to them? He is saying that this is not weak-mindedness. This is thoughtfulness. Sometimes two people are talking with each other, but sometimes they are talking past each other.
Talking past each other means, they are actually speaking at different levels, and whatever they talk, because each of them has their own perception about things, so the conversation does not move forward. So that is what is happening over here. And he makes a further next point, that he says that if, rudhir pratik dan, if we fight, then rudhir is blood.
That we will be covered by blood. And, no, this next verse, 2.5. So rudhir pratik dan, that we will be covered with blood. Everything that we gain will be tainted by blood.
Now, in a sense, violence and bloodshed are inevitable in the war. But still, it is whose blood? That is important. Gurun ahatva.
He says that, I don’t want the blood of my gurus to come here. It is interesting, the word gurun. Guru is singular, gurun is plural.
He is thinking of Bhishma also as a guru. So, there are multiple gurus, and he is saying, those who have taught me, if I gain something, it is tainted by their blood. So, how can I gain it? Now, he is saying, hatvartha kamaamst guru nihaiva.
Now, the question might come that, actually, don’t think of them as gurus. Because they are not acting like gurus. Kamaamst guru nihaiva.
So, they have given up their position of being a guru, because they are addicted to wealth. So, because Drona and Bhishma were maintained, in a sense, by the Kauravas, and they felt that they are bound. There is a famous verse in the Mahabharata which says that, that Bhishma tells Yudhishthira that, actually, wealth is no one’s servant, but everyone is wealth’s servant.
And I am bound by the wealth of the Kauravas. So, I have to fight against them. Now, that is an external, I have to fight for them.
That is an external reason, which he gives over there. Internally, we know that. Krishna wanted Bhishma to fight on the side opposite to him, so that they could exchange viruras.
And so that, ultimately, it would be demonstrated that no matter how great be the warriors on the side of Adharma, ultimately, Dharma will win. So, but at this point, the discussion is not going at that level. It is more at an external level.
So, he is saying that, yes, hathva artha kamaamst guru nihaiva. So, actually, even if they are desiring wealth, but still they are gurus. So, this raises a question that when does a person who is at a respectable position lose the right to that position? So, Arjuna is telling that they are aggressors.
You cannot give up your duty for them. But he says, no, even if they are fighting against me, even if they are attached to the wealth, but still, they are respectable for me. So, there is a difference between offering respect to someone and offering submission to someone.
Respect means that, yes, I respect you for who you are. But submission means I will do what you are telling me to do. So, we may respect many, but we cannot submit to everyone.
And sometimes, if a particular person is not acting in a right way, then if we submit to them, we will end up doing the wrong thing. So, for Arjuna, he is equating respect with submission over here. So, there has to be respect, no doubt.
Anybody who has taught us anything, there has to be some respect for them. But we cannot submit to them. So, here, he is saying that they have not lost their position.
But, at this point, he keeps thinking, and he arrives at a conclusion. He realises that there is no easy way ahead. Whichever option I see, there is only loss over there.
So, let’s recite the sixth verse now, 2.6. They are situated. Who are they? Those without whom we would not desire to live. Actually, our life becomes worth living because of certain things.
Certain people, certain values, certain purposes. And without that, life wouldn’t be worth living. So, he feels that without them, my life won’t be worth living.
But, if I want them to live, then I won’t be able to live. Because, now we are already on the battlefield. Either I kill them or I am killed by them.
And, if I decide I don’t want to be killed by them, then what is going to happen is, I am going to have to suffer in the sense that I am going to have to, we will have to live in a forest. And, for a person to run, to have been declared, to have run away from the battlefield, that is also very painful. He just doesn’t see any easy way ahead.
And, this brings him to the point of, earlier, he said, I am not going to fight. Now, also, that’s what he will say. But, there is a difference.
Whereas, earlier, it was a decision that I will not fight. But, here it is that I will not fight till I understand. So, earlier, Arjun was giving his understanding and saying, therefore, these are the reasons why I will not fight.
But, here, he says, I want to know. If I don’t know, how can I continue? And, then, the next verse is a well-known verse. And, this verse is very important for one word in it.
I am asking you, what is Dharma? Every book has its own defining question. The Ramayana’s defining question is, what are the characteristics of an ideal person? The Mahabharata’s defining question is, what is it? What is the duty of a person about to die? The Mahabharata’s defining question is, what is duty? Not just about to die. What is duty? What is Dharma? So, that same question, which is the defining and driving question of the Mahabharata, is also the defining question of the Gita.
So, Arjuna is caught between these two Dharmas, the Kshatriya Dharma and the Kula Dharma. So, what is really Dharma? What am I meant to do? What is the right course of action? So, we all need a sense of orientation in life. Without that, we get completely confused.
What do I mean by orientation? See, where we are going, where we are meant to go. If we don’t understand this, then we are lost in our lives. Last time, I quoted about the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche, who said that God is dead.
Now, there is a whole group of people called New Atheists. These are modern Atheists and they are very celebratory. They say, religion is the cause of all evil and Atheism is the solution to all problems.
That is their idea. And they all quote from these thinkers like Nietzsche, Nietzsche and Nietzsche were maybe a hundred or so years ago. But, people like Nietzsche, when he spoke that God is dead, he said that if God has died, there is not enough water in the oceans of the world to dry the blood from our hands.
We have sunk into a bottomless ocean. Why? Because without God, there is no overarching purpose for life. And, when people have nothing worth fighting for, it’s not that they will stop fighting.
They will start fighting over anything. When we don’t have anything worth fighting for, we will start fighting for anything. Because, any small thing, somebody will make big and they will start fighting over that.
So, what has happened is, people have elevated small, small, small things to huge magnitudes. And, small, small things can vary from people, especially if you see today, there is so much love of pets. It’s fine to have a pet, but pets sometimes become the most important person in people’s lives.
Yoga is very popular in the western world. There is a variant of yoga which is called Doga. Doga is a portmanteau.
It is a combiner of two words, dog plus yoga. So, it is the yoga that you do with your dog. So, you want to share your entire life with your dog.
So, if I am doing yoga, I want to do it with dog. So, they are actually Doga trainers. And, they train not just you how to do yoga, they train how to get your dog to do yoga.
And, of course, another has come up now. There are some people who just don’t like dogs. They like cats.
So, there is Koga also. So, now, we all need something to love. So, we will take something or the other and elevate it to a very big level.
So, Dharma is not just some religion or some religious code. Dharma is ultimately a sense of orientation in life. What is life meant for? Where am I meant to go? So, if you are driving, then we need to have some direction.
Where are we going when we are driving? Others will be lost. If you consider a big ocean in which we are there, we don’t know where to go. We will be lost.
So, Dharma is what is the right thing to do. What is the orientation for life? So, we all have certain structures in our life that give us orientation. Say, if we have a job, okay, this is what I have to do.
If we are part of a family, this is my role in the family. Now, all these give us some orientation in life and they are very important. Now, these cannot give us ultimate orientation.
Because sometimes the orientation that is given by these things, they just get disrupted. When they get disrupted, then what am I living for? So, unless we can have a sense of orientation that is beyond disruption, a sense of orientation that is beyond the world’s disruption. If we don’t have that, then sooner or later, we will end up disrupted and disoriented in life.
So, Arjuna had these structures, the Kula Dharma and Kshatriya Dharma to provide him orientation, but now he is disoriented. So, I was with one devotee who had gone to Sri Lanka for food relief when the tsunami had occurred. He said he met so many people, just like in one moment, a few moments, their whole family, their house, everything, their shop, everything was destroyed.
It’s like one man or one woman or one teenager just living. What am I to live for now? So, he said that eventually when we went there, what we needed to provide people was not just food, they had enough food. We had to give them some trauma therapy.
And it was, they did some kirtans, they gave some talks and we need to, if our orientation in life is disrupted, then we need to have something else that will orient us in life. And for most people, when there is no sense of orientation, they get completely lost. In general, for all of us, we will experience disorienting moments when some structure that we have that gets disrupted.
So, the Bhagavad Gita will provide Arjuna an orientation that will never be disrupted. And that will be, that is Arjuna’s question. What is Dharma? Suppose we are, we enter a class and at a time when question answer session is going on.
And then we try to make sense, the points seem interesting, but if we came after the question has already been spoken. And then we are hearing the answer. If we know the question, then the answer will make greater sense.
This point is good, this point is good, but how does it all fit in? Otherwise, all the points in the answer will be like attractive pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. But, how do I fit it in? So, similarly, if you want to understand the Bhagavad Gita, this understanding the question which it is answering is important. The question it is answering is Puchamitvam Dharma.
What is Dharma? How do I orient myself in life? And then, the next verse, when he says, I will not fight, he is clearly saying that there is no other solution that will work. So, Arjuna had still a trajectory. The trajectory is, normally for Kshatriyas, the trajectory of their life was that they attain a prosperous kingdom in this world, or if they die, they attain prosperity in heaven.
But Arjuna is saying, neither of these will work. Nahi prapashyami mamapanudhyad ya chokam uchchoshanam indriyanam that the grief that is drying up my senses. Avapyabhumam asaptanam rudhyam So, there are two definitions of success for a Kshatriya.
In this world, prosperous kingdom, or in the next world, heavenly prosperity. But neither of these is going to work for me. And therefore, he says, I want you to tell me, chishyas teham jyadhi At this point, again, we will see, 2.9, let’s go.
Let’s recite this. Sanjay vacha evamuktvarushi kesham gudakeshah parantapa nayochyati govindam uktvato shri babhuvaha nayochya Again he is saying, I will not fight. But, this is a refusal to fight, not as a decision to not fight, but as a refusal to fight till a decision comes up.
Till some enlightenment happens. So, it’s like, first the doctor is telling, take a medicine, and the patient says, I won’t take the medicine. And then the doctor says, then the patient says, I want to understand how this medicine works.
I want to understand what exactly the disease is. Till that point, I won’t take this medicine. So, there are two different things over here.
So, generally, we cannot help people unless they want to be helped. So, if you want to counsel someone, usually, unless they are open for counselling, unless they come to a level where they are asking some questions, we can’t really help them. Generally, most of us, if you have to give charity, there’s a little pain in the heart, oh, I’m going to lose my money.
But there’s one charity we all freely give. What is that? Advice. Yes, all of us give advice very easily.
Now, our advice may be very wise also. But still, unless the other person values it, unless the other person wants it, giving it is not very helpful. So, Krishna does not give advice.
Till Arjuna is approaching him as a friend, he says, I don’t want to fight. You don’t want to fight? That’s fine. Krishna just talks with him at that level.
He doesn’t agree that you shouldn’t fight. He talks with him at that level, saying that, hey, don’t give in to weakness like this. But when Arjuna asks, Arjuna changes the mood.
And he says, I want to understand what is Dharma. So then, what happens? tam uvaca rishikesha prahasanniva maharatha prahasanniva He’s as if smiling. So the idea here is that Krishna is appreciating how dramatic is the change in Arjuna.
That the warrior is a friend, has now become a student. That in the middle of the battlefield, which is the place for action, urgent, immediate action, that is the place where instead of action, reflection is going to happen. The deepest reflection is going to happen.
So the Bhagavata setting itself is very amazing. To have philosophy spoken on the battlefield is indicative of how important philosophy is. Some people say that, I’m a go-getter.
I want to achieve things in my life. I’m not interested in philosophy. That’s fine, but even a go-getter needs to know where to go and what to get.
Now, if they don’t know that, then they’ll just be wandering around aimlessly. So Arjuna is also a go-getter. But at this particular point, he has recognised that, I’ve lost my orientation, I’ve become disoriented.
So seeing this difference, this dramatic change, Krishna is smiling. And we see, when Arjuna is lamenting, Krishna is smiling. Now what does it mean? It’s not that Krishna is happy that Arjuna is lamenting.
Rather, Krishna is happy that Arjuna is going to be enlightened right now. So, it’s like a patient, sometimes what happens is a patient is sick, a patient has a disease, but if it’s a serious disease, the patient is in denial. If somebody comes to you and says, you’ve got cancer, you say, no, no, I can’t have cancer.
Initially there is a denial. And as long as there is denial, there cannot be treatment. So when the patient comes out of denial, the doctor is happy.
Not happy that the patient is sick, but the doctor is happy that the patient has come out of denial. So, Arjuna, because he has come out of denial, so Vishidantam and Prahasan, that contrast is there. Krishna is happy.
Now, when Krishna begins speaking, let’s see what the first words he speaks. So, any questions or comments till now? Yes. What do you mean by rhetorical question? Okay, what is rhetorical question? Rhetoric is one particular way of speaking, making points persuasively.
The Greek thinkers who developed it quite a bit. It’s used in Indian tradition also. Rhetorical question means, a question whose answer is self-evident.
If you are hungry, will a garland make you happy? Now, there is no answer except yes to it. I mean, no, it will not make me happy. So the question is asked not to specifically get an answer, but the point is conveyed through a question.
So, rhetorical question is a question in which the answer is implicit. Like, actually, all of us often find ourselves in a and both of them seem to be promising and there is no promising now or later. Sometimes even in future life, there could be two different opinions and both might have said back of things.
So, how does one actually make a proper decision? Okay. So, if there are two decisions, two courses of action, both of them seem promising, both of them also have some backing from scripture, so what do we do at that time? Yeah, we don’t have Krishna with us. Yeah, we don’t have Krishna but it’s not that we don’t have Krishna entirely with us.
Generally, if we consider our life, there are some things which we clearly know we should do, some things which we know we should not do. Now, if we are doing the things which we are meant to do and not doing the things which we are not meant to do, by that we are showing Krishna that we want guidance. But, if we are not doing those things which are clearly known what we should be doing, then we are showing Krishna we don’t want guidance.
So then, there is a grey zone in life for every one of us. But there is also black and white. But if we extend the grey to black and white also, and say, okay, this also, I needn’t do this, so I needn’t do this.
Then what happens, if we show Krishna we don’t want guidance, then he will not give us the guidance. But if we are doing what we are meant to do, and we are showing Krishna that we want guidance, then he will give it to us. Either it will come as an innate conviction, this is what I should be doing.
Or it can come as some crystal clear insight from someone whom we are discussing. We discussed this last time, broadly speaking, that right and wrong, how to decide that there are three factors in it. Intent, content and consequence.
Why am I doing it? What exactly am I doing? And what will be the result of doing this? This is what Mahabharata broadly says for decision making. So, initially Yudhishthira Maharaj is, so there are basically two kinds, you can say there are two ethical theories, or two theories about ethics. One is categorical ethics, the other is contextual ethics.
Categorical ethics means that this is the category of right and this is the category of wrong. And that’s all there is to it. That’s categorical ethics.
So, speaking lies is wrong. And one should never do it. That’s categorical.
But contextual ethics means that yes, there is a category of right and wrong, but suppose some rioters have come to kill a friend of ours. And that person comes and is hiding in our house. And we give them shelter and the rioters knock on the door.
Is this person here? What should we do at that time? If we speak the truth, the consequence will be that person will die. So, although truth, speaking falsehood is in the category of wrong things, but here the consequence takes precedence. So, content is important and content needs to be a primary parameter for deciding right or wrong.
But content is not the sole parameter. So, traditionally we know by our conscience, by our culture certain things are right, certain things are wrong. But the context determines the consequence.
The context also shapes the intent. So, based on that, we have to make a decision. So, yes, Prabhupada said this also, Prabhupada said this also.
But in this situation, what is most workable? What is most effective? What will serve the purpose of Shri Prabhupada? Prabhupada’s purpose was to help us become Krishna conscious, help us to help others become Krishna conscious. So, if something that Prabhupada said is alienating people, is making it difficult for them to come to Krishna, then maybe that is not what should be done over here. It of course depends on what it is.
But broadly, if we have that overall purpose in mind, ultimately the purpose is to attract people toward Krishna. So, if that consequence is not happening, then we have to see, we have to re-examine the content. So, our intent may be that I want to present Prabhupada as it is.
That’s good. But our intent also has to be that I want to connect people with Krishna. So, Prabhupada would say that if you speak something and people go away, that’s a failure.
People should be able to connect. So, intent, content, consequence are three factors by which we decide. So, let’s move on.
If you have any comments, please feel free to share. Now, from here onwards, Krishna starts speaking. And it’s interesting, what Krishna speaks, the first word that he speaks is, let’s recite this.
What we believe is seen in how we live. What we believe is seen in how we live. So, our conceptions should be seen through our actions.
And, some people may say, I believe in God. But they act in very godless ways, very ungodly ways. So, that belief in God can be very alienating for others.
If a devotee is very domineering, very judgemental, very short-tempered, very possessive, then people think, what kind of devotion is this? So, we may have certain beliefs, we may speak a lot, but our actions show where we are at. So, Krishna is telling Arjuna, there is a mismatch over here. You are speaking learned words, but your actions and your emotions are not learned.
You are lamenting for that which is not worthy of lamentation. So, ultimately, education should lead to the transformation of our actions, and not just our actions, the transformation of our emotions. Say, if a sometimes, if somebody chooses to become a surgeon, and a surgeon means they have to see blood, they have to, not just see blood, they have to cut, which will cause blood to come out.
If a surgeon becomes squeamish, I don’t want to cut, I don’t want to cause blood, well, then you are in the wrong job. You cannot be sentimental over there. So, Krishna is telling Arjuna that you are speaking learned words, but you are letting get carried away by sentimentality.
If a surgeon has to amputate a limb, that’s painful. Cutting somebody’s body is never pleasant, but the surgeon, if he has knowledge, sees the big picture, if this limb is not cut, ultimately the whole person, the person will die, the whole body will suffer. Therefore, this has to be done.
So, the Bhagavad Gita’s, the Kurukshetra war is like a surgery. Arjuna, sorry, the Kauravas are like a diseased limb in the social body, and unless they are amputated, the whole social body will rot. And Krishna is telling Arjuna that you your emotions are not educated.
And then he starts talking about the soul. So, first he says, we are all eternal. I, you, everyone is eternal.
And you say, how are we eternal? The body is changing, but inside the body there is something that is eternal. And then there are all verses, a familiar will not go recite the verses. Then he says, okay, but that is then the verse after this can just keep going down.
So, he says, but somebody might say that actually I still feel pain even if I know that I am not the body, still body sensations cause pain. He says, tolerate. Now, tolerate them for what purpose? That he tells in the next verse.
2.15 and you will recite this one. So, tolerance is a tool to transcendence. Tolerance is not an end in itself.
See, Krishna is not telling Arjuna to make tolerance into the supreme virtue. If tolerance were the supreme virtue, Krishna could have said to Arjuna, just tolerate the cover of the atrocities and why fight the war? So, we have to tolerate so that we can transcend. Earlier I gave the example of an ocean.
So, in an ocean, if somebody has to go in a particular direction, then, now in the ocean sometimes some part of the sea might seem smooth, some part of the sea might seem stormy. When somebody starts deciding based on how the sea looks, which direction they go. Then, they will never get to the destination.
Oh, that part of the sea looks nice, I will go there. But they get there and the storm reaches there also. And then they get out of there and go somewhere else and the storm will come there also.
So, if somebody is going through the ocean, they have to go where their destination is. Not just where the storm is peaceful, where the sea is peaceful. Sometimes the storm is there, then you might have to check yourself, slow down, or just do some kind of course correction, but ultimately where one goes in an ocean is determined not by how the ocean is, but where the land is.
So, Krishna is basically talking about the body and the soul. The body is where the ocean is. The material level of reality is where the ocean is.
And the spiritual level of reality is where the land is. So, he is saying that you tolerate and persevere. Tolerance is not passivity, tolerance is perseverance.
You persevere, even if there is a stormy, don’t give up that path, keep moving along that path. And then, amritatvaya kalpate, you will attain immortality by that. Transcendence means you will attain eternal reality.
You will attain eternal happiness. And the same point Krishna stresses in the next verse, this is quite an Upanishadic verse, where na sato vidyate bhavo na bhavo vidyate satah So, this is in English, if you see asat and bhava, they are the words in the first line. And the second line is abhava and satah.
So, there is inversion. In English, this is called as chiasmus. Chiasmus means you change the sequence of the word.
Like say, John F. Kennedy said that, ask not what the nation has done for you, ask what you have done for the nation. So, there are two parts of a sentence and they are inverted in the second half. So, na sato vidyate bhavo, na bhavo vidyate satah.
So, the Bhagavad Gita has many poetic ornaments. Actually, I have all seminars on the poetic ornaments in the Bhagavad Gita, which we will go through some of them as we go through over here. But Krishna is making this point that there is the material, there is the spiritual.
Like I said just now, there is land and water. So, the ocean will never be steady and the land will never shake. So, don’t be just caught in the appearance of how the ocean looks and go in that direction.
Go where the land is. So, live in such a way that you can rise to spiritual consciousness. Then after that, he starts talking about the soul and stresses repeatedly that the soul is indestructible.
That it cannot be destroyed. And he contrasts once again 2.18. Let’s keep going ahead. So, you can go now to 2.22. So, essentially here Krishna is talking about the soul will never die.
The soul is always eternal. And then this is an interesting verse. Let’s go to 2.22 only.
Let’s recite this verse. Now, this verse describes what is called as, in philosophy, it’s called as radical dualism. Dualism means that there are, now in our context we use dualism to refer to that, that God and the soul are different.
In today’s mainstream philosophy, we use dualism to refer to that there are 2 levels of reality. Matter and spirit. So, most people are today materialistic.
And normally when we use the word, have you heard the word monism? What is monism? One reality. So, now generally we equate that with Mayavada. Impersonalism.
But actually monism means, it simply means there is only one reality. So, you could have material monism and spiritual monism. So, the impersonalists, some of them are spiritual monists.
Because they say, Brahman is all that exists. Which is true, but within Brahman there is differentiation. Whereas, you could say people who are materialistic and atheistic, they are also monists, but they are material monists.
You see, only one thing exists. So, they are, there are different kinds of materialists. There are functional materialists and there are fanatical materialists.
Functional materialists are those who say matter is all that matters. But something else is there that doesn’t matter. But, fanatical materialists are, they are pure devotees of matter.
See, matter is not all that matters, matter is all that exists. Nothing exists beyond matter. That is what they argue.
So, here, Krishna is saying that, what Krishna outlines is from the modern framework, it is dualistic. Dualistic means there is body and there is soul. And the two are separate.
Now, the relationship between them is very functional. Functional means that, he is saying that the soul and the body, they are just related the way the body and the dress are related. So, now, any of us can wear any dress that we want.
So, the dress is meant to serve a functional purpose. Somebody, if they are going in a very hot weather, they might wear a very thin cotton kind of dress, but if they are going in cold weather, they can wear a very different dress. And sometimes, the person can, depending on the way they are dressed, they can look entirely different.
But, the person is different from the dress. So, Krishna talks about there is a radical difference between the soul and the body. There are many, many religions talk about the soul.
Even Christianity talks about the soul. But, the word soul does not necessarily mean the same thing for different people. See, words, there are terms and there are concepts.
And the two are not necessarily related. Give the example of that, you have a suitcase. A suitcase, if the suitcase has no handle, it becomes difficult to carry.
So, the suitcase is like the concept. And the term is like the handle. So, terms are verbal, concepts are intellectual or mental.
So, the terms are handles for the suitcase, of the concept. So, once I was travelling here only in America, and I was going from one place to another, and just as I was leaving, my suitcase handle broke. So, I asked, can you fix this? The devotee said that actually, in America, buying a new suitcase is easier than fixing one.
So, we didn’t have time to buy also. So, that devotee gave that suitcase to me. Then I took that suitcase.
Now, usually, I don’t carry mine. Usually, the wheelchair assistant goes to check in. So, by the time I came and I went to the baggage carousel, I had forgotten what the suitcase looks like.
You know, I only remembered the suitcase had a red handle. So, then all the red handle suitcases we were taking out. And we were saying, this is our suitcase.
So, then, it struck me that we can have a similar handle for many suitcases. So, similarly, the same word, the word is like a handle. But, which suitcase it is attached to is important.
Isn’t it? So, we may all use the word soul, but what are we referring to? Many people use the word soul to refer to, in Christianity, there is no conception of soul and the body being different. That’s why they have resurrection. And that’s why they, at least, in Christianity today, does not accept reincarnation.
Because their idea is that when you are reunited, the soul and the body will be, when you are resurrected, rather, the soul and the body will be together. And there cannot be consciousness without the body. Of course, there are a lot of philosophical problems with this.
This is that, say, if somebody dies when they are very old, then which body will they have? If they have an old body for the rest of eternity, well, that is not a heavenly prospect, is it? Even if they are in heaven. Now, everybody will have a young body. But what if somebody dies when they are infant? They never had a young body.
So, how are they going to get that young body? So, the conflation of body and soul is very problematic. They basically, what they do is, they eternalise the material. They eternalise the material.
So, all the relationships that are there, all the roles that are there, they eternalise them. And because, especially, the Catholics are a little more philosophical than the Protestants. So, the Catholics, especially, have a problem with divorce.
Now, they say that, what is the problem, metaphysically speaking? Say, the horizontal relationships are eternal. So, if you divorce your spouse and you marry someone else, then who will be your spouse in heaven? The one you divorced or the one you remarried? Now, they say that the relationships are eternal. So, it becomes quite problematic.
So, of course, the current Pope, he said that, now people love dogs so much. So, he said, in their idea, the souls are present only in humans. Animals don’t have souls.
So, animals have consciousness, they have their own differentiation. They say that animals have spirit but not soul. Now, we ask, what is the difference between spirit and soul? They say spirit is what gives consciousness, soul is what gives the consciousness that can search for spirituality.
So, now, we understand that the difference is of degree, not of category. The consciousness of the human beings is more developed. That’s why we can perceive spirituality.
In animals, the consciousness is not developed so much, so you can’t perceive spirituality. But it’s not that there are two different kinds of souls. But that’s their idea that animals don’t have souls of the kind we humans have.
That’s why they say we can cut animals and eat animals. But now, people love dogs so much. So, the current Pope said that, actually, if a dog serves a faithful Christian, the dog will also go to heaven with that dog.
And you can be reunited, not just with your family members, but also with your dogs. So, if you see many of these Christian books, they talk about heaven. And if you see in heaven, there are all happy people, men, women, children, everyone.
You’ll see the pictures filled with all happy people in heaven. The only person missing in heaven is God. Because it’s all, in principle, they say it’s God-centred, but they have no clear conception of God.
It’s not very clearly described in their tradition. So, this is not to criticise Christianity. Prabhupada said that they also aspire for love for God.
And in that sense, they’re also devotees. But the philosophical clarity that the Bhagavad Gita provides, it is not there over there. So, although they talk about the soul, their conception of the soul is somewhat different.
Basically, for them, the soul is like a metaphorical reference to our non-material essence. We have something non-material, and it’s a metaphorical way of referring to it. Like we may say that, see the word soul and spirit are used in that sense.
Say, somebody in an unsportsmanly way gets somebody out. This was against the spirit of cricket. Now, what do you mean by spirit? There is no soul of cricket that is like going around in the cricket field or something like that.
The spirit refers to the way it should be played. So, for example, in the WTC, the twin towers had crashed. An American president said that the soul of America is shattered.
Now, what he meant over there is the soul refers to the essence, the core of what we believe, what we live for. So, in the Christian tradition broadly, the soul is metaphorical. In the Bhagavad Gita, the soul is not metaphorical, it is metaphysical.
The soul is not metaphorical, but metaphysical. Metaphysical means meta is above. Physical is body.
So, above the body. So, although the soul and the body, the soul is commonly used in both traditions, but this verse, which talks about the soul as another category of reality. The body is a reality, it’s like a dress.
The soul is a reality, like the core person. And the body keeps changing. So, the relationship between the body and the soul is functional.
Now, when you say functional, it doesn’t mean it is unimportant. The kind of dress we are wearing, for that function it is important. And say, if we are in cold and we have only one sweater, we’ll have to keep it careful.
Because we need it at that time. So, for us, the body is important. So, there is the soul is, so we could say, the body is functional, the soul is fundamental.
And both are important. But, their importance is a hierarchy. If you see, it is not that Bhagavad Gita recommends rejection of the body.
Ultimately, Krishna will tell Arjuna, act according to your bodily nature. So, we don’t reject the body, but we reject the reduction of our self-conception to the level of the body. We don’t think that I am the body.
So, this connection is very, so sometimes people say that, some critics of the Bhagavad Gita, they say that this, the Bhagavad Gita, the radical differentiation between the body and the soul will lead to a radical material rejection. You won’t care for anything material. If you consider the body is completely separate from you, you won’t care for the body.
And you won’t care for the world. But that is not the case. The Bhagavad Gita has spoken so that Arjuna would fight a war.
So, we understand that the body is also important because the body is a tool for the soul. And, this is very interestingly seen in, if we go back earlier, I said in 2.13, Krishna says, you are not the body, you are the soul. But 2.14, most of us know this verse.
Can we recite that? matra sparsastu kaunteya shito shna sukha dukkha daha agamapaino nityas tam sthitikshasvabharata So, here, Krishna is using two names for Arjuna. Which are they? Kaunteya and Bharata. Now, you see, both these names are related to his body.
Just now, Krishna has said, you are not the body, but he said, oh, you who are the son of Kunti, do your duty, tolerate. Oh, you who are born in the Bharata dynasty, do your duty. So, what is going on? If I am not the body, then how can I be Kaunteya? The idea is that the fundamental identity is there.
And the functional identity is meant to further our fundamental purpose in life. So, living spiritually is not easy. So, whatever way, whatever supports us for living spiritually, we use that.
So, Arjuna’s functional identity, okay, you are born in the great, so, yes, tolerating things, tolerating the loss of bodily relationships, it’s difficult. So, tolerating any bodily pain is difficult. But you, oh, Arjuna, are capable of doing difficult things.
Because you are born in a great dynasty, you are born to a great mother. So, the idea is that the functional is meant to be used for the spiritual. Prabhupada, when he would come to India, India was not that, see, when Prabhupada went, left India in 1965, he had been trying to share Krishna Bhakti for a long time with the Indians.
But, not very serious about it. Now, Sumti Moraji, when she, Prabhupada approached her for a ticket to go to America, she said, Swamiji, if you want to speak Bhagavatam, you come to my house, every evening I’ll hear Bhagavatam from you. Now, Prabhupada did not want to speak Bhagavatam as a pious ritual.
Prabhupada wanted to speak Bhagavatam as a means of spiritual transformation. So, now, when he came back in 1970s with his disciples, the basic Indian reality had not changed. So, it’s not that, we will see amongst Prabhupada’s disciples, very few are Indians, especially those who are leaders.
And very few are Indians who were introduced in India. Very few. So, what happened? At that time, India was very captivated by nationalism.
We just got independent 15-20 years ago and the hope was India will become great now. And, Prabhupada, when he went back to India, because the Indian milieu, Indian setting was not receptive for spirituality as spirituality. See, America, the environment was, the hippies had more or less rejected everything mainstream.
They had rejected education, they had rejected career, they had rejected family, they had rejected even hygiene, everything. So, Prabhupada says in a lecture, the hippies had done sarva-dharman parityaj. I taught them how to do mam ekam sharanam raja.
So, when Prabhupada presented it that way, so basically, they had more or less rejected all functional identities. And Prabhupada focused directly on the fundamental identity. But, Indians were not in the mood of rejecting their functional identity.
So, if you see, most of Prabhupada’s preaching in India was Prabhupada tapped into the mood of cultural nationalism that was there. So, Prabhupada’s plan was also Indians are enamoured by Westerners. So, if I go to the West and make Westerners into devotees, then seeing that, Indians, they want to imitate them, they will imitate this also.
So, now, it’s interesting, if you see in the newspaper articles about Prabhupada’s Western disciples and many many people appreciated and supported Prabhupada. But, their idea was, at that time at least, our India is so great that these foreigners are following our culture. So, Prabhupada at that time tapped into that.
He started, there was no concept of life membership in his American outreach. But, in India, he realised that people, recognised that people are not ready right now for committed spiritual practise. So, he said, let them get connected, let them use some financial support and let them get the books.
So, the culture was there, but the commitment in terms of serious spiritual practise and the philosophical reorientation of life, that was not there. So, Prabhupada tapped into that. And, Prabhupada, many of his lectures, especially new people, he will speak that this is in one lecture in Mumbai, he says this Bhagavad Gita is a book from India.
He says, but to teach the Bhagavad Gita in India, I have to get people from America. So, he says, this is your book. Learn this and teach it.
Prabhupada says, you know, Bhagavad Gita ke liye duniya mein bahut market hai. He says, there is a lot of market all over the world. And, he says, you people are afraid, you are lamenting that India lost Pakistan.
He says, you teach the Bhagavad Gita, the whole world will become Hindustan. So, now, what is Prabhupada doing? Now, Prabhupada, one life, philosophically, he says, we are not Hindus, we are not Indians. But, if that is the mood, use that to make people connected.
So, we cannot reject our functional identity. We connect our functional identity with our fundamental and ultimate identity. So, we, if you ask, Prabhupada, what is your name? I am a spirit soul.
Well, okay, I know, I understand that. But, that is of no functional use, isn’t it? If I want to identify you, if I want to connect with you, say, I am a spirit soul, is of no functional use. So, we have to have functional identity in this world.
And, the functional identity should not take us away from our fundamental identity. The functional identity should take us toward our fundamental identity. So, we can go back again to 2.22. The whole reason why I was talking about this is that although the Bhagavad Gita talks philosophically in terms of radical differentiation between matter and spirit, but functionally, both are integrated together for one purpose.
So, any questions about this till now? Any questions or comments? Okay. Yeah. Where is the mic? So, this identity also leads towards our identity crisis and hence balancing our how does one actually like Krishna said, think of me and but practically, at least for me when I go to my office, I forget.
I am so absorbed. I mean, I have to look at other people. They are so absorbed.
Okay. So, how do we stay spiritually focused and not get into identity crisis while functioning in the world? Yeah. There is no reference in the Mahabharata that when Arjuna was shooting, the Kurukshetra was shooting arrows.
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna! Krishna! Krishna! No. When he was fighting, he was fighting, isn’t it? Sometimes, some people mistake chanting as excuse for not being responsible. You know, somebody is they have done something wrong and somebody is angry with them.
Why did you do this? Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna! Krishna! Krishna! Hare Krishna! That’s not what we are meant to do. Chanting is one way we connect with Krishna but ultimately, we are meant to offer ourselves to Krishna and that means taking responsibility for ourselves. So, if a particular service requires focus, then we need to focus on that.
Suppose somebody is supposed to give a class and people come for a class and at the time of class they start chanting throughout the class. Well, that’s nice but then tell us it is a Kirtan session, not a class. So, we can’t conflate or dissolve differences between different roles.
If somebody is going to do a Kirtan, Kirtan is wonderful, somebody is going to give a class, then they have to actually prepare for a class and give a class, isn’t it? There are different limbs of devotional service and there are different ways of doing devotional service and each way has to be done in a responsible way. Chanting is important but if chanting alone were all important, Prabhupada could have stayed in Nandavan and chanted only. Why did Prabhupada come to the West? Why did Prabhupada travel all over the world? Why did Prabhupada write his books? Why did Prabhupada set up and try to manage his con with all the headaches that came with it? So, it is because he also wanted to create an infrastructure by which people could chant and he wanted his followers also to maintain and expand that infrastructure.
So, if a particular role requires a particular frame of mind for us to do it in, then we have to adopt that frame of mind and that is responsibility in devotional service. Now, as far as our jobs are concerned, yes, we need to be professional and committed over there. We could say absorbed or obsessed depending on the perspective but if our overall life is orientated for serving Krishna, then specific aspects of our life will fall in place.
If we become so obsessed with our job that we start neglecting Krishna bhakti entirely, then that is unhealthy. So, as we keep practising bhakti regularly, Krishna starts coming more and more in the forefront of our awareness. Initially it is in the background, it is there somewhere but as we keep practising bhakti, it starts coming in the forefront.
When I first came to America and then after that I went back to India, many of my relatives who had for like 15, 17, 20 years, they thought that I was a gone case. That I just wasted my life. They called me and they told me, your life has become successful now.
Laughing When I was studying, I had opportunity to come to America. When I didn’t come to America, they said you have wasted your life. So, now for them going to America is a big thing.
When I came to America first time, I was excited. But then after coming for a few times, where I am is not as important as what I am speaking. So, when this newness to something, that thing stays in the forefront of our awareness.
But once the newness fades, then where we are is not as important as why we are. So, similarly for us, when we are doing our job, where we are, we have to be aware of it. But gradually as we keep practising bhakti, yes, in our job, sometimes there is crisis, there is emergency, there are deadlines and we have to be absorbed in it.
But as we keep getting more and more experienced, that doesn’t completely consume our consciousness. Yes, this is there, but Krishna is also there in our awareness. And as we keep practising bhakti, doing our sadhana, gradually Krishna starts coming to the forefront of our awareness.
So, we have to, the most important thing is that we have to do our services responsibly. And while doing our services responsibly, we try to be as devotional as possible. In devotional service, there is a noun and there is an adjective.
Which is the noun? Service. Devotional is the adjective. So, the idea is, if you look at 12.8 to 12, Krishna talks about a hierarchy.
Be absorbed in me. Spontaneously. If you can’t be absorbed in me spontaneously, then be conscientiously absorbed in me.
If you can’t be conscientiously absorbed in me, then work for me. If you can’t work for me, then you give up the fruit of your work for some good cause. So, Krishna is giving a hierarchy.
In that hierarchy, the point is that even if we can’t be devotional in our service, continue your service. The devotional attitude will gradually come. So, maybe at the beginning of the day, at the end of the day, we can remember Krishna.
And during the day, if we have some breaks, maybe during lunch break, we can hear something. We can pray and offer the work to Krishna. Narayanayati Samarpayami.
So, gradually we insert Krishna as conscious remembrance in segments during the course of our life. And gradually, by that segments of Krishna’s conscious remembrance, Krishna will become more and more prominent in our consciousness. So, does not following Varnashrama Dharma lead to disorientation in life? Should we follow Varnashrama Dharma? The Varnashrama Dharma has an ultimate purpose.
Its purpose is to worship Lord Vishnu. So, there is, there are specifics and there is principle. The principle of Varnashrama is to harmonise our material nature with our spiritual purpose.
That means, if a Kshatriya has a Kshatriya nature, they want to manage, rule, delegate, get things done. So, to harmonise our material nature with our spiritual purpose. If you tell a Kshatriya to be like an intellectual, like a Brahmana, Kshatriya will find it very difficult.
Everybody has problems in life. The expertise of Varnashrama is to allot to people the problems they like to face. So, if you tell a Kshatriya, you know, can you find this verse in the Bhagavatam which says that sometimes in emergency, even if you speak something which is counterfactual, that is okay.
So, Kshatriya says, come on, fix it, do it. He says, come on, just give the class without the verse. Who will notice? A Brahmana, I told that, hey, really, where can it be? This person, this person, a Brahmana will be stimulated by that.
So, everybody has to face problems, but if they are given the problems that they like to face, then they can be relatively happier than otherwise. So, that is the principle to harmonise our material nature with our spiritual purpose. Now, how exactly to do it in today’s world, that way, that is something which is still being deliberated broadly in our moment.
So, whether that means creating divisions, even if we create divisions like that, who will decide who belongs where? So, the important thing, rather than thinking of it at a societal or an institutional level, we can see that at an individual level, we try to understand our nature, what we feel inspired to do, what we are good at doing. To understand our nature, there are probably two things. What we are competent at and what we are comfortable doing.
So, guna karma vibhagasha, guna means that we are competent at that. Guna means we are comfortable doing it, internally we feel good about it. Karma means we are competent about it.
So, if we can see those two things, and then we engage ourselves accordingly, we could say that we are broadly serving the purpose of Varanashram. Varanashram is like an airport for the take-off of the aeroplane. The take-off of the aeroplane is our spiritual growth.
So, now, generally an aeroplane will require an airport to take-off. But, even if there is a very big and safe and active airport in New York, if in San Jose we have to build an airport, we cannot make a replica of that airport. We have to consider geography over here, we have to consider the atmosphere over here, climate.
So, the purpose is not to recreate the airport, the purpose is to replicate the take-off. The purpose is to replicate the take-off. So, similarly, we need some social structure by which we can take-off spiritually.
So, now, what that structure will be? We have to see a certain circumstance, whether we can entirely replicate Varanashram, we can partially replicate Varanashram or we can focus primarily on the purpose of Varanashram in whatever situation we are in. We have to see that and we have to continue practising bhakti accordingly. So, we focus on the take-off and channel the principle that use our material nature to pursue our spiritual purpose.
Isn’t constantly remembering Krishna while doing our duties the aim of life? Isn’t constantly remembering Krishna while doing our duties the aim of life? Yes, of course. Now, what do we mean by constantly remembering Krishna? Is it that a devotee has to split the consciousness in two parts? Like, live like a schizophrenic? That, you know, one part of my consciousness, I am doing my work, the other part, I am remembering Krishna. No.
Remembrance of Krishna is at multiple levels. See Krishna is not just another person. Krishna is the supreme person.
And that means, normally when we use the word remembrance, what do we think? If we have to remember someone, we look at the photo of that person, or there we pay attention to them, we absorb our own thoughts of them. That’s what we normally think of as remembrance. And that’s true.
And that is also a remembrance of Krishna, which we do cultivate during a sadhana bhakti. We take darshan of Krishna, we chant his holy names, we sing his kirtans. But we have to understand that Krishna is not like a finite, limited person.
Krishna is supreme. So, if we remember Krishna’s purpose in this world, say when Arjuna was fighting the war, he was not chanting Hare Krishna. Does that mean he was not Krishna conscious? No, he was conscious of Krishna’s purpose.
And he was doing Krishna’s purpose. So, if we are doing some, managing for a big festival. Now, at that time, we are talking with someone, don’t park your car here, park your car there.
Now, we are remembering Krishna in the sense that we are doing it for Krishna’s purpose. So, when you say Krishna will come more and more in the forefront of our consciousness, that means that purpose will come in the forefront of our consciousness. What I am doing, I am doing it for Krishna.
See, broadly speaking, whenever we do anything, there are some things in our control, some things not in our control. The things that are in our control, we try to control them for the purpose of Krishna. We do have to, if Prabhupada wanted us to do devotional service, as expertly as possible.
So, expertly means, what is in our control, we control it well. Prabhupada wanted that if we are cooking food, food should be delicious. At one level, when you are cooking food to make it delicious, that means you are being a controller.
Controlling, exactly put this much ingredient, don’t put this, heat it for this much time. So, we are trying to control things so that we get a particular result. So, the things that we have control over, we control them for the purpose of Krishna.
And the things that we don’t have control over, we understand that Krishna has control over them. Now, we can say that Krishna has control over the things that we have control over also. That’s true.
Krishna is the supreme controller. At the same time, Krishna is the supreme controller. He is not the sole controller.
He has given us free will. And with our free will, if you want to use it properly, that’s wonderful. If you want to abuse it, Krishna will allow us to do it.
So, the things which are in our control, we control them. Remembering Krishna means that we keep Krishna as the purpose in our mind. I am doing this for Krishna.
And the things that are not in our control, we entrust them to Krishna. That Krishna will take care of this. That’s why we will not get fearful, we will not get worried, we will not get paranoid because Krishna has control over these things.
So, to remember Krishna means to remember Krishna’s controllership, to remember Krishna’s purpose. And gradually as that starts becoming more and more, then the more a personal relationship with Krishna is developed, the more we will remember Krishna as a person more and more. So, we shouldn’t see it like a digital logic, one or zero.
It’s analogue progression. The awareness of Krishna starts becoming more and more. And yes, ultimately, we want to remember Krishna constantly.
And we want to remember him even while we are doing our work. But it’s not that we should become distracted in our work in the name of remembrance of Krishna. Either we do our work diligently for the purpose of serving Krishna.
Now, Jiva Swami went to Varanasi to learn Sanskrit. Years and years it takes to learn Sanskrit grammar intricacies. He went and associated with Mayavadis over there because they were the best teachers of Sanskrit grammar at that time.
So, for the purpose of serving Krishna, he learned Kavya, he learned Natya, he learned Vyakrana. Now, all that is quite technical and unless one absorbs oneself in it, one can’t learn it. But his purpose was remembrance of Krishna.
So, by our sadhana bhakti, it is our purpose that becomes spiritualised. And then we can bring that purpose into various walks of our life. And gradually the conscious remembrance of Krishna will become more and more.
Clapping can be for appreciation and clapping can be for conclusion also. That is open to interpretation. What are the characteristics of kids’ functional foundational identity? Foundational identity or fundamental identity is same for everyone.
Everybody is a soul. But kids functionally, they are children and they will as children play, have fun. And when Prabhupada was a small child, he wanted a gun.
And he gave one gun. He said, I want one, two guns. I want one gun for each hand.
And Prabhupada demanded that. Prabhupada, of course, his devotion was that he also as a child wanted to do Ratha Yatra. So, we don’t have to, we definitely want them to be Krishna conscious.
But Krishna consciousness is something just as adults also, different adults will be Krishna conscious in different ways, to different degrees and different levels of seriousness. So, I have a devotee, he is a son of a Prabhupada, Prabhupada’s disciples. And he is quite an intelligent person.
He said that, he is telling me, my most prominent childhood memory is my parents’ disappointment that I was not the reincarnation of Prahlad Maharaj. So, now, children will be children and some children may be souls who are already very spiritually evolved, and then be spontaneously attracted to Krishna. Some may not be.
So, we have to make sure that as children, what they will naturally do, we facilitate them in that and facilitate them in Krishna Bhakti also. It’s, they will take it up at their, if we tell them to do something, they will do it. But at the same time, we have to make sure that they don’t feel forced by it.
And there is love and there is expectation in love. As parents, we love our children, naturally we have expectations from them. But our love should not be conditional to the fulfilment of the expectation.
It’s not that our children should not feel that, if I don’t become a devotee, my parents will not love me. It’s natural, if they do something which is important for us, the bond will be deeper. But it’s not that the love should be conditional.
It’s whether our relationship with our children as parents, it is there whether we, whether they become devotees or not. But naturally, if they become devotees, we’ll be happier. So, we’ll have that expectation.
So, the important thing is, yeah, we have a spiritual responsibility that the children should also become elevated and liberated. But that’s our spiritual responsibility cannot trump. Well, maybe I should not use the word trump.
Our spiritual responsibility cannot override their free will. When the shastras say that, okay, one should not become a guru, one should not become a parent, one should not become a teacher, if one cannot liberate one’s dependence. What does that mean? That simply means that, when they take that role, they should not take it simply as a privileged position.
It comes with responsibility. But then we will see, even in scripture, sometimes great gurus, their disciples may not become always faithful followers. Advaita Acharya’s own son, in the Bhagavad-Gita, he became a Mayavadi.
Of course, his Mayavad was a special version of Mayavad. He thought that, because Advaita Acharya called Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, so Advaita Acharya is greater than Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And just as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is an avatar of Krishna, Advaita Acharya is also an equivalent avatar of Krishna and therefore, we should worship Advaita Acharya.
So, it is a confusion. But basically, Krishna’s Kriyas are quite categorical in not including Advaita Acharya’s son in the Bhagavad-Gita. Is that a failure of Advaita Acharya? You could say, at one level, his son didn’t become a devotee.
But every soul has free will. So, at a functional level, what a parent should be doing for a child, we should be doing it functionally as parents. At a fundamental level, we are souls, so we want to provide them facilities by which they will also come toward Krishna.
So, that way, we can integrate our roles also. Okay, one last question and move on after that. Forgive.
How do we deal with intense emotions and forgive so that we can move on in life? Yeah, a lot depends on the kind of nature we have and the kind of relationships we have. Different people process emotions differently. Some people, when they are upset, I want to be alone right now.
Some people, when they are upset, they need someone to talk with. So, now everybody needs someone to talk with. But how immediately, how fundamentally, in what format they need.
Some people, I want to do my thinking first and then I’ll talk. Some people, it’s by talking that they actually can process their emotions better. So, we need the relationships that will help us to do that.
We don’t have Krishna directly accessible to us right now, but we need to have some friends around us with whom we can share our heart and that requires cultivation. That means, rather than it said that, don’t expect a friend like Vidura, be a friend like Vidura. So, when we are in need, we will need a friend like that.
But if we have not extended ourselves to others in their time of need, then for us to expect that will be unrealistic and unreasonable. So, we all need friends and if we don’t get at a particular time, it can be very disheartening, very distressing. So, the best we can prepare for such times is, we extend ourselves to others when they need us.
And then even if that person doesn’t reciprocate, quite often that person will reciprocate if we have a good bond. But even if they don’t reciprocate, Krishna will see and Krishna will send someone else in our lives with whom we can connect. So, we do need connection to help us process our emotions.
So, let’s complete the remaining verses quickly now. Now, from here onwards, Krishna talks about the indestructibility of the soul. He’s talking about how the soul is like the core person and the body like the rest.
The body will get old, but the soul will not get old. And Prabhupada writes here in the purport that repetition is essential for assimilation. The same thing is repeated in different ways that is assimilated.
So, here Krishna talks about the point in 2.23 in terms of verbs. In 2.24, he talks in terms of nouns. Verb means the soul cannot be cut.
And in 2.24, it’s a noun. So, it’s impenetrable. So, in different ways it is conveyed so that the essential message is taken forward.
Now, there are two words over here, sarvagataha and achala, which are often used by impersonalists to talk about the all-pervasive nature of the soul. Sarvagataha, the literal translation of sarvagataha could be all-pervading. And achala is immovable.
But you have to understand that the it’s a literary book. Literary means it’s literature. And literature has its own way of presenting things.
So, if we could say literally, if the soul is sarvagataha, then Krishna has already said in 2.13, the soul is situated in the body. The body is definitely not all-pervading. And the soul is situated in the body, how can the soul be all-pervading? So, here sarvagataha refers not so much to the all-pervasiveness as the capacity for travelling everywhere.
Sarvagataha means not existence but capacity to go. That’s how Prabhupada translated it. The soul can go to any abode.
And if you see, this makes greater sense because the context is what? That although the body is destroyed, but the soul is not destroyed. And the point of that is that even if the soul goes to a place where the body can get destroyed, the soul will continue to exist. So, for example, our body, if it goes to the sun planet, the sun as a solar object, then our body will be destroyed.
But the soul will not be destroyed. Sarvagataha makes much more sense as capable of going everywhere, not all-pervading. Similarly, achala, if the soul is literally immovable, then how can transmigration happen? The soul is in one body and the soul leaves a body to go to another body.
The soul is literally immovable, then the soul cannot go from one body to another at all. So, here immovable means, the essential point is that it is not materially affected. The soul cannot be moved by matter.
Material forces cannot move it. So, it is the soul moves by its own desires and the soul moves by its attachments. So, the point in this context is, the soul is beyond matter.
And let’s complete this. Can you go ahead? So, now, if you go to, Krishna uses a, Krishna again talks further about the soul, avyaktoyam achintyoyam. Now, again, you cannot take, achintyo means that it is inconceivable.
Well, if it is inconceivable, then why are we trying to understand it? Because it is inconceivable. The point of inconceivable over here is that we cannot conceive it fully. We cannot understand it through, so, different acharyas have different meanings.
Valdevidyabhisham Chakur says that achintyo means that it cannot be, if we rely only on pratyaksha pramana, we cannot even contemplate it. We have to use inference, anuman, and we have to refer to shabda. So, achintyo means, chintan cannot be done on it very easily without shabda.
And with pratyaksha alone, we cannot do it. And if you see again the context, avikaryo yam uchyate tasmad evam viditvainam nanu shuchitu marhasi. Therefore, do not lament.
In many Indian traditional funerals, this series of verses from 25 to 30 are recited. And the idea is, these are nanu shuchitu marhasi, nanu shuchitu marhasi, do not lament, do not lament. These are called na shuchitum verses, that do not lament.
So, do not lament. So, we will see, I will show you later that several verses have this as a chorus point. So, now, if you see when Krishna is saying, therefore, do not lament.
So, the idea is, when Krishna is talking about achintya or avikarya or avyakta, why is he saying that? He is saying that, therefore, do not lament. That means, exactly what will happen to the soul, which destination it will go to, we cannot know that. But know that the soul is eternal, soul is indestructible, therefore, do not lament.
So, when a loved one passes away, we cannot know where they have gone. But we know that they are indestructible, they have gone to some other world and therefore, we need not lament for it. Now, after this, Krishna talks about the alternative worldview, that is the materialistic worldview.
And it is quite an intricate argument, it is very brief in 2-3 verses, but it is an intricate argument. I will just mention it very briefly over here. The materialistic view is that there is no such thing as a soul, that matter only gives rise to consciousness and it stays for some time and after that it is destroyed.
But if that were true, then nothing will be true. Now, what do I mean by that? See, if materialism is true, nothing will be true. Say, if all of us are feeling hungry now and maybe some digestive enzymes are getting secreted in our stomach.
If some enzymes are secreted in our stomach, are those enzymes rational or irrational? They are just enzymes, isn’t it? There is no rationality or irrationality in those enzymes themselves. That is a bodily function. So, there is a bodily function which indicates, okay, now you are hungry, you have to take some food.
But there is no, you could say semantic content, no content in terms of meaning for them. So, similarly, what happens in our brain, nowadays people are like many materialists, they have pinned all their hope on the brain. The brain will save us from God.
The brain will save us from the soul. Consciousness comes from the soul. Consciousness comes from the brain.
God is just a product of people’s brain wiring. That is the idea that they have. So, just like in the past, the Egyptians, they had preserved the bodies as mummies.
So, some scientists have till now preserved the brain of Einstein and they hope one day we will revive the brain and we will have Einstein back. So, they have pinned the hope on the brain. Now, ultimately, what is the brain? What is happening when we are happy, when we are angry, when we are going through various emotions? Certain chemicals are secreted in the brain.
So, at a bodily level, we are, if we consider the evolutionary perspective, we exist for two purposes, survival and reproduction. So, we do not, the animals are not concerned about truth and certainly not the nature of reality. They are concerned only about surviving and reproducing.
If we were also simply animals, simply evolved animals, then our concern will also be only surviving and reproducing. So, we, as our brain, everything that we perceive in the brain, it is simply for survival and reproducing. So, what is true and what is false, what is metaphysically true, what is metaphysically false, the brain is not designed for that.
Because just as a particular fluid coming in the belly does not mean anything, a particular fluid coming in the brain does not mean anything. It is true or false itself has no meaning. Things are the way they are.
This is dangerous, this is safe, this is enjoyable, this is not enjoyable. But true or false will have no meaning because the brain is simply functioning for surviving and reproducing. So, materialism, actually, this is a, I have a elaborate seminar and if you don’t understand, don’t bother about it.
But the point is, materialism sabotages the search for truth. Because in the materialistic world view, the brain is not designed to search for truth. The brain is designed only for survival and reproduction.
And therefore, materialism undercuts all philosophies, including the philosophy of materialism. So, nobody can know any truth. So, an atheist may say there is no God, that ultimately the brain is the only reality.
Okay, if everything that we believe, everything that we think is a product of the brain only, then the belief in God is a production of the brain. Disbelief in a God is also a product of brain. And something exists beyond matter as a product of the brain.
Only matter exists also as a product of the brain. So, how can you ever know whether any belief is true or false? You just can’t know it. That’s why a philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer says, materialism is the philosophy of the philosopher who has forgotten himself.
You just leave yourself out completely. There is no concept of the soul, certainly in as an independent agent. Because we are all just biologically programmed machines.
So, materialism is a very detrimental philosophy. Because in materialism, the idea is that people think religion has so many rules and regulations. Materialism is free, just enjoy.
But actually, materialism is the most binding. Because materialism says that you have no free will. You are just a product of whatever chemicals are secreted in the brain, whatever urges are there, whatever the product of your neurochemical programming, that’s how you function.
And Einstein himself was very disturbed by this. He said that if we accept the materialistic worldview, then the Nazis who killed between 6 to 12 million Jews, they were just acting according to their brain programming. So, they cannot be blamed for that.
Now, none of us function like that. See, nobody functions like a materialist. If you take materialism to its foundational meaning, say, if suddenly I come next to you and I slap you, he says, why did you slap me? Why did you slap me? He says, my brain programming told me.
Okay, you will not accept that as a valid reason. And you slap me back. Why did you slap me? My brain programming told me.
See, when we interact with each other, we treat each other as responsible human beings who are capable of, who are responsible for our actions. The whole system of justice is based on human accountability. So, if we have no free will, if we are just biological machines, then justice will collapse, accountability will collapse, relationship will collapse.
So, materialism, nobody can live as a responsible human being if they accept, take materialism to its total conclusions. So, Krishna rejects materialism and then he goes on. Can you go to 2.29? This is an amazing verse.
So, let’s quickly recite it. So, people who think about the soul, the materialist think, how can you believe in something like a soul? And the spiritualist say, how can you live without understanding a soul? For both of them, each other are amazing. It just doesn’t make sense, the world view.
Krishna is saying, some people just don’t get it. No matter how much they hear about it, they speak about it, some people, they see, they realise the soul, it’s amazing. So, Krishna’s conclusion in this verse is, again you see, the soul is eternal, the body is destructible, the soul will never destroy Arjuna, therefore, do not lament.
So, this is the section, the first section, 2.11 to 2.13, where Krishna concludes that Arjuna, because the soul is eternal, do not lament. So, one of Arjuna’s reason was that, there is so much, we will all suffer if our relatives die. Krishna answers, no, you need not lament because the soul is eternal, soul is going to continue to exist.
In the next section, Krishna combines this and talks about how we can rise to spiritual level of consciousness. So, we won’t recite verses over there, but just I’ll make two points for the next section. The next section, Krishna talks about that you have to do your dharma and by that you will attain heavens and then he says, actually, if you do not attain heaven, you will get Akirti, you will get infamy in this world.
People in this world will say that you are ignorant, that you are deluded, that you are cowardly and that will cause you great distress. So, it’s interesting, Krishna says that, for a person who has been honoured, dishonour is worse than death. So, here, I’ll just make one point and then we’ll conclude, that there is pride and there is honour.
The two are not necessarily the same thing. We could put it as maybe, the word pride nowadays has a positive connotation, like say, you have hotel pride. Now, we could use the word arrogance to be more clear.
I have not seen anywhere a hotel arrogance, isn’t it? So, arrogance means a person is too full of themselves. The word pride means, it can have a negative meaning, it can have a positive meaning. You should have some self-respect, you should have some pride.
So, when Krishna is telling here, for one who has been honoured, dishonour is worse than death, he is not talking about, oh, you should be arrogant. He is saying honour in the sense of, you should function honourably, function in an honourable way. So, a sense of honour is what enables us to act honourably.
Prabhupada writes in letter to his disciple, who has stopped practising his initiation vows, Prabhupada says that you made these vows in front of the deities, in front of the spiritual master, in front of the Vaishnavas. Don’t you have a sense of honour? How can you give up these vows? So, a sense of honour is required. That’s what enables us to function honourably.
Now, in many, in traditional culture, it is said that a person’s worth is as much as the worth of their word. If they make a word, they’ll stick to that word. So, that’s the word of honour.
So, honour is something which enables us to act honourably. In this world, there are temptations which everybody has. And how will we ensure that the temptations don’t drag a person away? That is by instilling a sense of honour.
All of us, we could say that, you know, we are like, in one sense, our body and mind, we are all souls who have come from lower species. Of course, some of you may have come from higher planets. I have come from a lower species, you can say.
But all of us, or most of us, we can say, we have come from animal species. Our body and mind is still, it’s like a, it’s like a, maybe it’s like a monkey. And we have human intelligence, which we tend to abuse for doing terrible things.
A lion will simply catch a prey and devour it. But a human being, if they want to hurt someone, a human being can torture. Like Pragrari was half killing the animal.
So, we can actually cause more pain than what is necessary to each other. So, we could say that we are, we are like monkeys with snakes inside us. We are like a monkey with many snakes inside us.
And the snakes can bite and hurt and kill. They can cause enormous pain. So, it’s not just other people are like that, every one of us is like that.
But when somebody has a sense of honour, then we don’t have to negotiate with all the snakes inside them. Okay, you said you will do it, you will do it. All of those snakes will impel you to think of this, think of that, do this, but no.
So, to the extent, see, trust is the basic, basic requirement for relationships. If there is no trust, then no transaction can also happen. It’s like say when online, online, online selling and everything started, say eBay and something like that was there.
So, now it could be very easy that for a, for a buyer to sell a, to send a bounce check and for a seller to give us useless product. Now, who is going to litigate and do all those things to try to correct it. But because there was trust, trustworthy behaviour, now online finance has become a big thing.
So, there is a sense of honour that is vital for functioning in society. If people don’t have a sense of honour, then it becomes very, very difficult to work with. So, when Krishna talks about a sense of honour, for one who has been honoured, dishonoured is worse than death.
He is talking not in the sense of arrogance. He is talking in the sense of being honourable. So, oh Arjuna, you have been honoured and as an honourable Kshatriya, you cannot run away from war.
And even if that is not what you are thinking, that is what the people will think. And therefore, you should not leave this war field. You should fight.
And Krishna concludes in 2.37. Can you just go there to 2.37? So, this whole section is, Krishna, you understand you are the soul and because you are the soul, therefore, you fight. You can recite this verse quickly. So, the same two options that Arjuna has rejected in 2.8, Krishna is presenting in 2.37. Arjuna has said that whether I gain prosperity in this world or heaven, I will not be satisfied.
But Krishna has given him the knowledge of the soul and he says from the spiritual perspective, you are not killing anyone. They all have to die by their own karma and they will continue to exist. Krishna has already introduced the concept of karma which we will talk about later.
But you cannot avoid their death because death is unavoidable. That is sure to happen. But if you do not do your duty, you will get bad karma by that.
If you do your duty, whether you win or you lose, you gain. If you win, you get the kingdom of this earth. If you lose, you get heaven.
And in both ways, you will be benefited. So, this point concludes the section. Therefore, arise and fight.
So, the knowledge of the soul is given so that Arjuna will become rooted in his sense of duty. Now, how this subject will be taken to a higher level, we will discuss in our next session tomorrow evening. Let me summarise.
I spoke on the topic of the second chapter. We talked about three broad sections. First is Arjuna’s decision not to fight till he is enlightened.
So, Arjuna is crying publicly indicating that trauma that he was in. He was a trained warrior, expert at concealing pain. But he was in such trauma that he was crying.
And then Krishna spoke first at his level. Do not just give in to weakness. Arjuna said, it is not weakness.
So, then he got confused and he said, I want to know what is dharma. So, that is a central question of the Bhagavad Gita. What is the sense of orientation for us in our life? How are we meant to act in our lives? And that is what the Bhagavad Gita will answer.
And Krishna smiles at the end of the first section, not because Arjuna is unhappy, but because Arjuna has accepted, has come out of denial of his confusion and has acknowledged his confusion and is seeking enlightenment. And Krishna speaks, talking about the body and soul. And he begins by telling that our knowledge will be reflected in our actions and our emotions.
Arjuna is not doing that. When we talk elaborately about the soul, primarily I talk about the difference between the Christian conception of the soul and the Gita’s conception, that the soul is not metaphorical, it is metaphysical. And words are like handles, concepts are like the suitcase.
So, we cannot just go by words, we have to see what concept they are referring to in people’s minds. And although the Bhagavad Gita talks about a radical dualism, that there are two realities, matter and spirit, but both of them are integrated and functional. The functional identity is not rejected, but is harmonised with our fundamental identity.
And I talked about how materialism actually sabotages this quest for truth, because materialism leaves us with no cognitive capacity to pursue truth. All our cognitive capacity is simply for existing and reproducing. And lastly, I talked about the concept of honour, that honour is not same as arrogance.
We are all like monkeys with many snakes inside us. But the sense of honour makes sure that we can be trusted. So, having a sense of honour is vital for being responsible in life.
And Krishna is asking Arjuna to be responsible. And with the knowledge of the soul, he says that whether you win or you lose, you will gain either this earth or the heavens. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Thank you.