Gita chp 13-18 overview – How jnana culminates in bhakti

Sunday feast lecture at Radha Gopinath temple

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, I’ll explain the meaning, then we can recite it. So, he became the Sārthya of Arjuna, Sārthya Marjuna Syādau, Kurvan Gītā-mṛtam dadhau. And he gave the nectar of the Bhagavad Gītā.
Sārthya Marjuna Syādau Kurvan Gītā-mṛtam dadhau Sārthya Marjuna Syādau Kurvan Gītā-mṛtam dadhau Lokatrayopakārāya In this way, he benefited all the three worlds, Lokatrayopakārāya. Tasmai Kṛṣṇātmanena Mahā Tasmai Kṛṣṇātmanena Mahā And to that Kṛṣṇa, who is the soul of all of existence, I offer obeisances. Lokatrayopakārāya Tasmai Kṛṣṇātmanena Mahā Sārthya Marjuna Syādau Kurvan Gītā-mṛtam dadhau Lokatrayopakārāya Tasmai Kṛṣṇātmanena Mahā One last time.
Sārthya Marjuna Syādau Kurvan Gītā-mṛtam dadhau Lokatrayopakārāya Tasmai Kṛṣṇātmanena Mahā Oṁ ajñāna-timirandhasya jñānāñjuna-śalākāya Cakṣurūṇa-mṛtam yena Tasmai śrī-gurave namah Namaoṁ viṣṇu-pādāya Kṛṣṇa-praśṭhāya bhūtale Śrīmate bhakti-vedānta Svāmī iti nāmine Namaste sāraswati deve Gauravāni prachārine Nirviśeṣa śūnya-vādi Āśyātya-deśa-tārine Vāñchā kalpa-tarudhyasya Kṛpāsindhubhya eva ca Patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo Vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namah Jai Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Prabhu Nityānanda Śrī Advaita Gadādhara Śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare Hare Kṛṣṇa So today we are discussing on the last six chapters of the Bhagavad Gita in the last two sessions the first to six chapters and then the seventh to twelfth chapters were discussed this series is going on on the occasion of the Gita Jayanti which is going to be celebrated tomorrow on the occasion of Mokṣada Ekadashi so the thirteen to eighteen chapters are among the most technical chapters in the Bhagavad Gita and they comprise what is often called as the Jnana section so the Bhagavad Gita broadly talks about Bhakti the first six chapters talk about how Karma leads to Bhakti the middle six chapters focus on Bhakti and the last six chapters talk about how Jnana leads to Bhakti so I will take one driving metaphor to analyse the thread of thought that unifies the last six chapters and that metaphor will be based on 13.22 in the Bhagavad Gita which is often called as the Bīja Vākya the root of the whole middle six chapters so of the last six chapters rather now in this section if you look at the background at the tenth chapter Krishna has spoken the Chatushloki Bhagavad Gita 10.8 to 11 and after that Arjuna accepts the essential conclusions of the Gita 10.12,13,14 he says param brahma param dhama pavitram paramam bhava he says you are the supreme person not only you all the great sages are saying this sarvam etadridam manye I accept everything that you say essentially at this point Krishna has enlightened Arjuna and Arjuna is thereafter asking questions not for his own enlightenment but for the sake of clarifying concepts which might be confusing so it’s from the tenth chapter onwards whatever Krishna asks whatever Arjuna asks is for helping other people to connect the conclusions of the Gita with various other concepts that were familiar to people at those times so in the tenth chapter he asks about the concept of Vibhuti so how can I remember you Krishna when we are in the material world and looking at material things so that he describes in Vibhuti Yoga in the eleventh chapter he analyses the Vishvarupa so please demonstrate the Vishvarupa so that if you see in the eleventh chapter second verse Krishna essentially Arjuna essentially says the same thing which he says at the end of the Bhagavad Gita at the end of the Bhagavad Gita in 18.73 he says that by your mercy my illusion has been destroyed and I am situated free from doubt now so now if you see 11.11 and 11.2 he says the same thing Mad Anugrahaya Paramam Guhyam Adhyatma Sangeetam Yathvayoktam Vachasthena Mohoyam Vigatomama Mohoyam Vigatomama Anoha is gone how has it happened Mad Anugrahaya Paramam because you have had great mercy on me so Anugraha is what he is using the word here and 18.73 he uses Tat Prasadaan so Prasada and Anugraha are the same thing mercy so Krishna is being informed by Arjuna that now I am enlightened what I am asking you is for the benefit of others so the 11th chapter he asks about the Virata Rupa then the 12th chapter he asks about the personal and impersonal conceptions so there is no direct connection between 11, 12, 13 chapters we can trace a connection but it is just like after a class is over and five people ask questions it’s not that the five questions are going to be connected with each other so we can trace a connection if we want to so the defining questions which begin the 11th chapter, 12th chapter, 13th chapters they are not necessarily in a linear flow they are in a thematic connection that what was explained how do we understand this in this light how do we understand this in this light so the 13th chapter begins with a question now the question is about certain terms which were common in the culture at that time in the philosophical circles at that time what do those terms mean so he asks about in 13.1, six terms he asks about he asks about what is Purusha? what is Prakriti? what is Kshetra? what is Kshetragya? and what is Jnana and Jnana Jnanam Jnayam Chakeshava so he says please tell me about these six things and the 13th chapter essentially explains these six concepts so I’ll come to these concepts a little later let’s go to 13.22 which I’ll be taking as the bija for the whole metaphor for explaining the flow of all the six chapters 13 to 18 so 13.22 is called by our Acharyas as the bija bhakya, bija is the seed so Purusha prakriti sthohi bhunte prakriti jan gunan karanam guna sangosya sad asad yoni janmasu Purusha is the soul prakriti sthohi the soul becomes situated in matter why? bhunte prakriti jan gunan because of desiring to enjoy prakriti jan gunan, the products of material nature and because of this karanam guna sangosya because of association with the modes of material nature sad asad yoni janmasu, person takes birth, gets auspicious and inauspicious things in this world so the soul is spiritual, the body is material, how did the soul get entangled in matter in western philosophical circles the idea of a soul which is quite aggressively promoted by a philosopher named Rene Descartes it was rejected because he did not have an explanatory framework for explaining how a non-material being can influence matter since the behaviour of matter, the idea was that we can explain it on the physical laws so how can something which has no mass, which has no weight, how can it exert any force and how can it influence matter so he himself could not give any answer and subsequently subsequent philosophers also did not give Cartesian duality that was mostly rejected in western mainstream philosophy now the Bhagavad Gita explains that this identification or misidentification of the soul with matter that happens how did the soul influence matter the soul does not influence matter, the soul desires to influence matter and it is the super soul which acts as the mediator so to give an example say somebody wants to watch a movie now when say if I turn on a TV to watch a movie, I may be sitting in my room comfortably and it may be a comfortable environment but if I turn on the TV and then the movie turns out to be a horror movie so suppose somebody is watching a horror movie now although that person is safe and comfortable in one’s own room but the consciousness is caught in the movie and because the consciousness is caught in the movie, one may experience fear, horror, terror and all these emotions come because of the consciousness getting caught now if that person wants if somebody is getting very scared sometimes children hear some story and they get very scared and they see the parents are getting scared and they say don’t watch it, they’ll turn off the TV but the soul’s entanglement in material nature is such that there is no button to easily turn off so once we start watching the movie it’s just we get caught Purushaha prakriti sthohi Purushaha, the soul, prakriti sthohi gets caught in material nature why? Bhoomte prakriti jan gunan Bhoomte, because of the desire to enjoy and this desire to enjoy, just like when a person wants to watch a movie, there is a desire to enjoy the movie and that desire transports that person, not physically but emotionally from the safe arena wherever one is, into the turbulent arena of the movie so like that the soul’s consciousness gets projected and transported into material existence and this is this whole thing is done by by the arrangement of a super soul, now in a movie normally, I’ll start with the metaphor of a movie because it is something which practically all of us are familiar with but I’ll move forward to another metaphor say of a video game now in a movie we are just spectators in a video game we are participants so when you participate in a video game what happens is say if somebody is playing some video game involving say police chasing a thief, then the police have a van and the police are going in a van and depending on how the player operates the video game, the van will move fast, the van will catch up with the thieves or the thieves will leave behind and in this, in a video game, the actions of the video game player are reflected in the actions of the participant of the events on the game so it is not just a spectator it is a participant but if we see the person who is playing the video game that person needs to know the rules ok this, I have to operate this, this will happen this will happen, if I do this, this will happen but at the same time that person has not, the video game player has not designed the video game the video game designing requires a far greater intelligence much of which will not be known to the video game player now going further than a video game in in army training or especially air force training, often simulations are used simulation means artificial replication of a reality, say for example a fighter pilot is supposed to bomb a particular location, now we cannot actually do an experiment and send a fighter pilot and see drop a bomb, do you drop it accurately or not, it will cause so much collateral damage, so much destruction so the precision of the training how well trained the pilot has become that is tested and demonstrated through simulation so simulation means the air pilot who is being tested he will sit in a chair and that chair will be more or less similar to the air pilot’s chair in a plane and then all the sensors are there it’s not just the eyes, but there will be ear pads and there will be leg brakes seats rests and brakes for the legs and there will be buttons for steering the plane and everything that the pilot would have done in an actual plane, the pilot will do here in the simulated setup and whatever the pilot does accordingly the simulation of the aeroplane will move accordingly so in this way now the pilot gets very caught in flying that plane and flying that plane in the simulation has gone to the enemy territory, when it has gone to the enemy territory at that time suppose an anti aircraft missile comes and hits the plane and suddenly the plane explodes in a blaze of fire so the pilot who is the trainee air pilot, who is caught in the virtual reality will experience a virtual death, for that pilot pilot is not injured, but because of the misidentification the one will undergo all those emotions, including the shock of death also, one will not die but will experience the shock of death this is what Krishna is saying the soul when the soul identifies with matter what happens is different kinds of experiences which happen to the body, we feel as if they are happening to us and the six terms that Krishna explains in this chapter so Purusha and Prakriti as I said is basically soul Purusha is the soul and Prakriti is matter, now in the Purusha there are two Purushas this is the twenty second verse, twenty third verse says this is one Purusha who is caught in material nature that was 13.22, but 13.23 Krishna says there is another Purusha who is Uttama and this theme of Uttama Purusha which if we turn it around is Purushottama this Purushottama will be described in the 15th chapter which is called as Purushottama Yoga there is another Purushottama his name is he is called as Paramatma he has entered into all the three worlds so the conditioned soul has entered into the material world and is trapped in it whereas supreme soul has entered in the material world and is sustaining the material world he is imperishable and he is the controller now apart from this there is Kshetra and Kshetrajna so the terms are similar so Prakriti is generic material nature all of material nature is called as Prakriti now all of us we have control some control over a small section of Prakriti and that is our body we don’t have control over everyone but each of us has some control over our body so the part of Prakriti over which if Prakriti is this metaset and the part of Prakriti on which we have control that is called Kshetra so Kshetra is all of us will have different degrees of control over different magnitudes of Kshetra and elephant has a its Kshetra is extremely small an elephant Kshetra is much larger now Kshetra is not to be measured only in terms of physical magnitude it’s also in terms of ability now there may be some famous singer that person also has a throat like us but that throat is not like us physically it is the same but the extent of control that person has over the Kshetra and the kind of musical sound that the person is able to produce is entirely different so the extent to which a Kshetra a Purusha has control over Kshetra that is determined by one’s karma so different souls depending on their karma from previous lives they have different magnitudes of control that’s why some people can sing fluently some people can speak fluently some people they have everybody has a material body but some people have a very good looking material body, some people have average looks, so all these variations are there based on our past karma, so there is Kshetra and there is Kshetragya Kshetragya is the knower of the Kshetra and Krishna also said there are two kinds of Kshetragya, one is the local Kshetragya and other is the global Kshetragya, local Kshetragya is the Atma, the global Kshetragya is the Paramatma and then there is also the Purusha, Prakriti, Kshetra Kshetragya and Jnana and Jnana so the sections in the Bhagavad Gita, the 13th chapter is among the most complex chapters in the Gita not among, it is the most complex so much of it is very Upanishadic the Upanishads delight in presenting complex things in complex ways why? because there are people who tell them something very simply Radha Krishna is the divine couple ok Radha is the primordial cosmological feminine principle and Krishna is the primordial cosmological masculine principle, wow it is the same thing essentially but some people need more intellectually stimulating presentations, so the Gyanis are of that orientation and Upanishads present things in very complex ways and in this section of the Bhagavad Gita, chapters 13 to 18, especially chapter 13 Krishna uses that Upanishadic methodology he presents things as paradoxes for example he says that that super soul, first he says in 13.14 he says everywhere are his hands and legs, everywhere are his ears, everywhere are his eyes, and this way he is everywhere and just after saying that everywhere are his hands and legs immediately next verse he says he says he is the source of all senses but then immediately he is without any sense at all just now Krishna said that he has everywhere are his hands and legs and suddenly he is saying he has no hands and legs what is going on over here so this might seem like a contradiction, but it’s not a contradiction, this is a paradox contradiction means two statements are opposite, paradox means two statements appear to be opposite but if we go deeper we find a reconciliation which harmonises both, so paradoxes are ways in which deeper truths are often conveyed, so when Krishna says everywhere are his hands and legs he is talking about the super soul who is present in every heart, present in every atom but at the same time the super soul does not have any, his form is not material, it is transcendental so the indriya when Krishna uses the word, he uses it in the sense of material senses the super soul does not have any material senses, so these are paradoxes which are there, so here this section from 13.8 to 12 talks about gyana and 13.13 to 13.18 talks about jnana so jnanam jnayam jnana gamyam hrdi sarvasya vishchitam so he says that supreme being is jnana is jnana and is jnana gamyam, so what is this jnana, jnana, jnana gamyam I’m just giving a little glimpse of the technicality of the 13th chapter, I’ll just finish this and we’ll go on to more easier things, but what is Krishna telling, we can just get a glimpse of the profundity of the Gita over here there is knowledge there is the object of knowledge and there is the objective of knowledge these three are different things say for example if a student is studying so the student is acquiring knowledge, then there is the object of knowledge, ok what are you acquiring knowledge about, some student may say I’m studying MBBS, I’m studying engineering somebody else is studying, I’m studying arts, whatever, so there is knowledge what we are acquiring, there is the object of knowledge, here the word object you can say in terms of what are you studying but there is the objective of knowledge objective of knowledge means, now why are you studying, it is not that most students when they study, it is not that they are in love with biology or chemistry or mathematics, they are interested in their career, in their job in the money that they will earn after that so the jnana gamyam the objective of knowledge for them is not the particular subject it is the money that they will earn from that but in the transcendental process in the transcendental realm the jnana, the jnana and the jnana gamyam all three are the same the knowledge that we acquire is not different from Krishna Krishna says that those who in the 18th chapter he will tell later, we will come to it that those who study this they are worshipping me with their intelligence so this knowledge is actually Krishna himself and the words of the Bhagavad Gita are not different from Krishna and by studying the Gita what do we come to know, we come to know Krishna so jnanam jnanyam jnana gamyam hrdi sarvasya vishtitam he is situated in the heart, that supreme being is situated in the heart and the 13th chapter ends with a compound word which will come again in the 15th chapter and which is vital for understanding the worldview of the Bhagavad Gita the last verse of the 13th chapter is the 35th verse kshetra kshetra jnorevam antaram jnana cakshusham bhuta prakriti moksham ca eviduryanti te param so he says kshetra kshetra jnorevam kshetra and kshetra jn antaram jnana cakshusham, understand the antara, the difference between the two the word antara at one level means distance at another level it means difference, when we understand the distance between matter when we understand the difference between matter and spirit, we will also understand the distance between them, right now we think of ourselves to be the body so kshetra kshetra jnorevam antaram jnana cakshusham, with the eyes of knowledge understand this normally we may say what is this some people say can you show me god, can you show me soul actually some people say seeing is believing, if you show me then I will believe you actually the truth is if you believe it then you will see it why is that because in any subject we go forward, if somebody is working in the stock market and then you see a graph suddenly going downwards and some stock broker gets a heart attack on seeing the graph going downwards so what happened, the line went downwards why do you have to get a heart attack so there is a jnana cakshu over there isn’t it, what that graph going downwards means a person who has knowledge that can understand that, now if somebody does a chest x-ray and the doctor sees the x-ray and the doctor is alarmed and the patient says what is the problem, doctor says you have got advanced TB now how are we seeing that its jnana cakshu so we actually don’t see with our eyes we see with the knowledge that we have that enables us to transform vision into comprehension vision is what we see, comprehension is what we understand so it is education that transforms vision into comprehension if there were no education then vision might be there visual data will go into our eyes but there will be no comprehension so it is education that is required in biology or medicine there are two kinds of blindness, there is congenital blindness and there is advantageous blindness so congenital is when a person is born blind advantageous is when the person becomes blind because of some accident or something like that now through the advances of medical technology in some cases both kinds of blind people their vision can be restored now I have seen videos of this also so what happens is if a person who has never had vision, that person is a carpenter even those without eyes can learn certain skills a person is using maybe an axe or a knife or a hammer and person’s eyes are restored and then that person looks at the axe, looks at the knife and just nothing makes sense so one person who was congenital blind he said that I opened my eyes and then somebody spoke to me and I looked in that direction and all that I could see was just a confusing array of bright and dark patterns but because I knew that voices came from faces I thought this must be the face of a person so this same person who was a carpenter when this person he saw the axe, he saw his own hammer he couldn’t understand it, what is this and then he moved his hand and touched it immediately, oh this is an axe, he started using it so in this case what has happened is there is no background knowledge to transform the vision into comprehension so even when vision is there but if there is no education there is no comprehension so the Bhagavad Gita says that if you want to understand the Kshetra and Kshetragya, we need Jnana Chakshusha we need the eyes of knowledge to understand and the Gita provides us the eyes of knowledge now in the 13th chapter Krishna talked about 13.22 was Karanam Guna Sangosya because of association with the modes the modes are referred to in the Gita repeatedly right from the second chapter itself Krishna talks about the modes and those references become more and more as the Gita progresses, in the 14th chapter Krishna devotes entirely to the three modes so there is no question that Arjuna asks at the start of the 14th chapter but Krishna himself is elaborating so when he is talking about Purusha, Prakriti Kshetra, Kshetragya, Jnana, Jnana now to understand Prakriti the modes, the Gunas are important now what exactly are the modes the modes may not be familiar to us but our modes are familiar to us we all have different modes at different times and why we have different modes is sometimes very difficult to know suppose three people are sitting in a bus and they are going along, so all of them are sitting on the window seats in three successive rows and they look out of the window and they see lush green forest the first person is reading a book and the bus is a little bumpy so he is not able to read and he looks out and he sees such a lush green comfortable forest I could sit and I could read this book and I will lose myself in the wisdom of this book the second person sitting on the second chair that person has been watching a movie and when he sees the forest, he remembers some romantic dance and song from the movie and he starts thinking oh, you know if I had someone with me, I would also enjoy over here the third person is lethargic wants to sleep and the bus is bumping up and down and the person looks out and sees the forest oh, such a comfortable place to sleep peacefully and forget everything it is the same thing same thing, entirely different perceptions, what made it not the difference, it is their mentality and what do we mean by mentality, there can be different ways of explaining it, Bhagavad Gita talks about the modes, so the same visual data is going in but the response to it is differing so the modes are basically they are the subtle forces that shape the interaction between matter and consciousness when material impressions come in how does the consciousness respond to them, so modes are subtle forces that shape the interaction between matter and consciousness, so the first person who is reading a book is in what we say Satvaguna, the mode of goodness the second person who is thinking about romantic enjoyment, that person is in Rajoguna, the mode of passion the third person who is thinking of just dozing off, lazing off, that person is in the mode of ignorance, Tamoguna now the modes are not just shapers of consciousness they are also constituents of nature that means there are certain things which are in certain modes so in that sense the modes we can say if we going back to the earlier metaphor of a movie, essentially what we have is a screen it may be LCD screen or whatever screen and on that screen all that happens is three colours light rays of three colours they fall on it, but the light rays of those three colours depending on how they are brought together we have different shapes, patterns, motions all these are formed because of originally three colours so like that, in 13.92 what Krishna says is what does one want to enjoy? one wants to enjoy the material things which are products of the three modes so the objects that we see in this world these objects are made of the three modes and accordingly we desire different things so there is sattva guna which is Krishna says that in sattva knowledge arises when there is there is greed and and there is distraction, intoxication, illusion and then ultimately results in ignorance that is this is the result of the mode of ignorance so in the 14th chapter Krishna gives characteristics of each of these modes now when he gives characteristics of these three modes the purpose is to provide us a map of our inner territory to provide us a map of our inner territory all of us have certain sattvic influences certain rajasic influences certain tamasic influences and changing ourselves requires not just the desire to change oneself the desire is important but when we understand the modes are the shapers of our desires then we understand that actually what goes on in our inner world is not just a matter of our desire alone let me explain this further what I mean by this that most of you probably are familiar with computers or at least some smart phone or some computer related device so now in any computer related device there are some things which are default patterns so for example if I am going to surf the net and if I have google chrome as my default browser so as soon as I click a link I don’t have to choose chrome automatically it gets chosen that choice can be changed I may choose safari or I may choose firefox or some other browser but if I set something as a default it will automatically get chosen I have to make conscious effort to change it so the modes comprise our programming now all of us when we say that we have a certain mode that means that becomes our default choice now we can change the default choice but the default choice is what is chosen automatically and changing the default choice requires conscious effort you know I am a writer so after I write my articles I often have to proofread those articles I have a text to speech software which reads it out and then in the text to speech software they correct some things you know somebody has written t-e-h they will correct it to t-h so that it is read properly so now I once an article so the soul is sat chit anand so when this software was reading it the soul is saturday chit anand so it corrected sat to saturday now in english sat is a short form for saturday but I was writing in sanskrit sat chit anand so here what has happened is the auto correct is incorrect so I had written sat chit anand properly but when it comes out of the programme it comes saturday chit anand anybody who reads it what is going on saturday chit anand over here so what is happening even if I give in the right input because that is the default programme over there so although my input is correct the output comes out incorrect so like that you will see that sometimes we start doing an activity with a very sincere desire we sit down to chant and now I am going to be attentive I sit down and I want to be attentive focus on Krishna maybe 10 mantras 15 mantras 20 mantras and you know he spoke that to me she did like that and I will do like this and then you know there is a kurukshetra going on in our head after sometime now what happened we went in with the right intention but the mind has certain default momentum and that default momentum causes the mind to go here and there so the default can be corrected but it requires conscious effort so the modes determine our default behavioural patterns so like I said there is a video game going back to that example of a video game in the video game the player can change ok if a person is flying a plane ok if anti aircraft missile comes along you should swerve towards the left that might be the default choice you might be able to change it and move towards the right to avoid it that can be done but there will be certain default choices so the modes determine our default choices so depending on the mode which we are in we will respond to situations in particular ways and changing our responses is possible but it requires not just the desire to change it requires constant conscientious observation ok this is what I went in to do this and now suddenly things have gone off in wrong direction I have to bring it back they say when a plane is flying say for example if I am going from Mumbai to Calcutta to go to Mayapur 90% of the time the plane is off track you wonder that how does the plane reach their destination actually it is off track because when it is going in the environment there is a wind pressure there are the clouds there are atmospheric conditions so the plane cannot move in a constant absolute straight line but the pilot and the auto pilot mechanism that is in the plane if the course is given then the plane continuously does course correction and by that course correction the plane gets to the right destination so there is continuous course correction that is required so like that same way the modes are shapers of our thought patterns and subsequently after our thought patterns our behavioural patterns so what we need to do is continuous course correction we shouldn’t get discouraged if say when we start chanting and the mind starts wandering or we come to temple we want to have pure thoughts and suddenly some other undesirable thoughts start coming there is no need to get discouraged what we need to do is just correct ourselves the mind may stray away we don’t have to let it stay away the mind will stray away but that doesn’t mean that we have to let it stay we can bring it back so gradually in the lower modes the mind will go to various superficial peripheral things now gradually this is what will normally happen but gradually as we become purified by the practise of bhakti the mind will start coming towards goodness and it will start relishing higher spiritual things and Krishna says in 14.11 so he says when the mode of goodness is prominent what happens at that time one of the favourite Upanishadic metaphors is to compare the body to a city we know that one of the metaphors is the body is compared to a chariot the idea is to create a distance you are different from your chariot now we are in Mumbai but we are different from Mumbai so the body now say in Mumbai there may be five railway tracks from which people come from different places so like that this body is a city in which there are nine gates so Krishna says over here sarva dware shuddhe hesmin prakasham upajayate so he says that all the gates the city of the body they are illumined with knowledge when one is in goodness now what does it mean? is it that when a person is in goodness the eyes will become effulgent the ears will become battery sources no that’s not what he means the Bhagavad Gita is a poetry and one of the features of poetry is the use of poetic devices or literary ornaments they are called in Sanskrit there are two Alankars one is Shabda Alankar and other is Artha Alankar Shabda Alankar means the same words are used with different meanings for example in the second chapter Krishna says dehe deha bhritambhara so dehe he is talking about the body deha bhritambhara that is referring to the embodied soul but the same word deha deha is used purusham purusharshabha so there are two words which sound the same but the meanings are different there is Artha Alankar also so this is a literary ornament where Krishna is using the doors to the senses are illumined by knowledge what he means by that is suppose a door is dark the area of a door is dark we will not know who is coming in and who is going out so some thief may creep in and may destroy our property and may plunder our property but if the door is illumined then we will be able to see who is coming in and then we will decide whether to allow that person inside or not so like that when we are in goodness the doors of our senses are open are illumined that means we can understand what is the kind of sensory information that I should allow inside what are the impressions that I need not allow inside it’s not that everything that the world is showing we have to see it depending on what we allow inside our insides are going to be shaped so when we are in goodness our doors are illumined I should not see this, I should not hear this, I should not eat this why not it is not that there is some external autocrat who is telling us don’t do this there are in today’s world there is this whole idea of freedom freedom is a very cherished conception and that is natural we all want to be free but we often have a very limited conception of freedom freedom is not just the ability to do what we want to do freedom is also the ability to do what we should do I will explain this difference suppose a person is a recovering alcohol addict now there are people who get addicted and it’s not that every person who is an addict is a terrible person sometimes even people who are basically good they get caught in a bad habit sometimes now this recovering alcohol addict wants often there are treatment clinics retreat centres sort of where recovering alcoholics are told you go and stay there for one month, three months six months and intensive treatment now what happens one of the fundamental things about any recovery centre is that they don’t have any access to alcohol they don’t have any access to alcohol so here this person who is alcoholic he gives up the freedom to have access to alcohol he voluntarily places himself in a situation where I will not have alcohol why? it’s your right, you can drink whatever you want why should you lose your freedom the idea is he understands at least if he is trying to recover he has the intelligence to understand that this freedom to drink I may exercise that freedom but with each indulgence Krishna will talk about this in the 16th chapter he says we become bound by our desires people may say I am free I can go wherever I want yes we are free physically but we are bound mentally now when an alcoholic is there say this is his home this is his office and in between there is a bar so what happens that alcoholic, somebody who has never drunk alcohol, that person just goes by straight to the office may not even notice there is a bar but that person maybe he has drunk once or twice then what happens as soon as he starts passing by the alcohol immediately the mind goes into, maybe I should drink no I should not drink, I should drink I should not drink and if that person indulges again and again then in period of time he doesn’t even have to see the bar as soon as he comes out of his house his mind has already gone into the bar and so what has happened there is an invisible rope that ties the mind to its object of attachment and that rope drags us towards that object so freedom when we say, we always think of freedom in terms of the ability to do what we want to do but freedom can have also another dimension freedom also has a dimension of being able to refuse to do what we shouldn’t be doing the alcoholic understands I shouldn’t be drinking but that alcoholic just doesn’t have the freedom the ropes that are dragging are so tight that we just drag towards it so as long as we think of freedom only in terms of what we are free to do what we are free for doing we have a limited conception of freedom another dimension is of freedom is what are we free from doing what we are free from doing today morning in his Bhagavatam class Chandramouli was talking about shopaholics shopaholism is actually a far greater addiction than alcoholism they say there is a book on it its called you are what you shop so a shopper his or her whole sense of self identity comes from what I shop so what happens over here is actually that person has the freedom whether to buy or not to buy but the person doesn’t have the freedom because the desire has got so tight and has to purchase something so now alcoholism may be an extreme example, we may say its not relevant to us shopaholism is something which is more relevant to us there is also what they call as foodoholism foodoholism means people are people are just addicted to eating and now food is necessary for survival but there is hunger and there is pseudo hunger pseudo hunger means that hunger comes not from the body it comes from the mind if I am using I will just quickly explain, I am talking about the concept of how the modes bind us suppose I have got a car and I know I have filled 10 litres petrol and 10 litres fuel and the car’s average is around 40 km per litre or whatever so if I fill 10 litres it should go for 400 litres 400 km but I suddenly find that after going only 100 km the fuel tank is showing empty something is wrong, either the tank is leaking or the fuel indicator itself is wrong so like that if I have eaten adequate food for breakfast then I know that the body has enough fuel to run till lunch but if after 2 hours suddenly I start feeling hungry if I have eaten enough and I have not overworked then that sudden untimely hunger it is not biological hunger it is psychological hunger so psychological hunger means it is the attachment to the food that is making me feel that I should eat it it’s like our there is a fuel tank indicator if it malfunctions there is already fuel but we keep pouring fuel in it so like that the body already has food in it but because our hunger indicator malfunctions so we put in more food in it this happens sometimes so essentially all this analysis first of alcoholism then of shopaholism then of food addiction all these examples I am giving to say that we are all not necessarily free we all have certain desires that bind us and we need to these desires, things that bind us they are determined by our moods so when we come in the mood of goodness we can start observing oh this is the kind of influences that are coming in I should not let them in these are good for me so freedom bhakti, it may seem that oh you should not eat this, you should not go here you should not do that I am losing my freedom but by the spiritual practises we don’t lose our freedom actually we gain our freedom just like a recurring alcoholic he goes and stays in a alcohol treatment centre for one month or six months, whatever by that, by forcibly depriving oneself from sources of alcohol, by voluntarily renouncing that freedom one becomes free from that unhealthy desire so like that there are certain desires we have which are unhealthy, which are distracting which are degrading and we become free from those desires and we become free to do what is good for us what is beneficial for us so I was talking about how the moods determine our default choices and the process of bhakti enables us to change our default choices so now in the 14th chapter Krishna says in the 20th verse Krishna gives a description, in 21st verse Arjuna asks a question which is similar to what he has asked in 2.54 he asks what are the characteristics of a person who has transcended the moods he has three questions what are the characteristics internally of a person who has transcended the moods, what are the characteristics externally of a person who has transcended the moods and how can I know or how can I transcend the moods so Krishna when he talks about the next two verses, 22nd, 23rd is the answer to the internal characteristics, 24th, 25th is the answer to the external characteristics and 26th is the process so he says internal characteristics is not that there are no desires he says there are there is temptation and there is transgression temptation means the desire to do something, transgression is doing something wrong so tolerance is the blocker between temptation and transgression when we have the capacity to tolerate somebody may speak in a way which makes me angry so it’s a temptation to shout and blast and maybe hit that person but I don’t have to actually do that if I have tolerance, so Krishna says the person who is moving towards transcendence that person has that that wall of tolerance internally by which one’s responses are not shaped by one’s conditions one’s responses are shaped by one’s principles our responses are shaped not by one’s conditions but by one’s principles a few months ago I was in Melbourne so one devotee asked a question there he said that sometimes there are some devotees who don’t like me there is one devotee who doesn’t like me and I try to do some service with him with him or her whatever but always that devotee gives negative vibrations, so what should I do and if that devotee is here what would you like to tell that devotee now I explained elaborately but relevant to this topic is that actually if we consider if our responses are determined only by our conditions then that person is irritable, I’ll become irritable that person is short tempered, I’ll become short tempered, that is we stay at the same level of consciousness that they are, but suppose a person is a is a salesman in a shop of readymade clothes that person is standing at the counter and is showing different clothes and there is the owner who is also sitting at the money counter and is observing the employees now there are some some shoppers who are very very finicky about certain things, they may see hundred clothes and not purchase even one cloth, they find fault with every cloth so now the the salesperson at that place may get irritated you are choosing, you are looking at so many not choosing any, but if the salesperson sees, understands my salary is not coming from this person, my salary is coming from the owner and the owner is observing, if the owner sees that I still stay courteous and polite, even when people are irritating the owner will observe that, the owner will appreciate that and the owner will eventually reward me for it similarly when we are interacting with people if we as devotees let our interactions stay only two dimensional as you behave tit for tat if we have only that level of consciousness, then where are we conscious of Krishna we understand that whatever is happening, yes this person is behaving in an irritating way but Krishna is watching and my response is to please Krishna, yes I want to serve this person, I want to have a relationship with this person also but I am having a relationship with this person, not just for the sake of this person I am having it for the sake of Krishna so our responses are shaped not just by our conditions but by our principles and then the conditions may be provocative now it is not that we can never get provoked in certain situations it may be required to speak strongly but that is a decision it is not a default response a decision means what I think, deliberate and decide, ok this is the time and I need to speak strongly, but the default response is just somebody is applying pressure, pressure and like suddenly a pressure cooker bursts so like that we burst, that is unregulated so by the practise of bhakti as we situate ourselves in the higher modes, our responses become not a function of our conditions but they become function of our principles now in the 15th chapter, this was the 14th chapter which is about, so Krishna concludes the 14th chapter by saying that the way one can go beyond the modes is by practising bhakti just practise bhakti unbreakably now there is a difference between uninterrupted devotional service and unmotivated devotional service in the condition stage our devotional service cannot be unmotivated now we have even the motive of purification is also motive but still it can be uninterrupted uninterrupted means even if I don’t feel like practising bhakti still I will practise, why? because I know it will purify me, I know it will please Krishna so Krishna doesn’t just see our feelings Krishna also sees our feelings about our feelings that means our feelings about our feelings means sometimes you know we are reading books, we are hearing class and just feel bored now that feeling of boredom may just come in our consciousness how do we respond to it? we just look a dozen times in a minute at a clock to see when the class is going to get over or we try to fight off that boredom, Krishna I want to be interested so there are certain feelings which will come as default responses because of the modes but what is our feeling about those feelings if we try to resist those feelings, Krishna sees that, Krishna appreciates that and we move onwards because of that endeavour that inner endeavour to try to cultivate the right feelings bhakti doesn’t have to be unmotivated, it should be uninterrupted, everyday we keep chanting, everyday we keep practising bhakti whatever is our capacity, now in the 15th chapter, Krishna himself moves onwards without any question, so here he starts with the metaphor of an upside down banyan tree says there is an upside down tree the roots are upwards and the branches are downwards and the acharya explained that this refers to a reflection so this world, Krishna says is like a reflection of reality so the nature of illusion, earlier I gave an example of, say this world is like a virtual reality and that is actually, it’s an example which conveys one dimension of reality but no example conveys the whole material reality fully Prabhupada once gave a lecture that the whole material world is an illusion and then one of his early disciples he said, he was just walking out of the temple and he saw the whole material world is an illusion, maybe this wall is also an illusion, so if I think that the wall is an illusion and I try to walk through the wall will I be able to walk through the wall this wall is an illusion, this wall is an illusion bam, hit his head against the wall so he said, Prabhupada you said the whole world is an illusion Prabhupada said yes, the whole world is an illusion means what, you have to understand what is illusion is not the world itself it is the world’s promise that we can become happy over here, this world this exists over here, the table exists, my body exists, your body exists and the promise what is the illusion is the promise that by making certain arrangements in this world, we will become happy the world itself is real so sometimes we may say that this world is like a dream yes, it’s like a dream in one sense but there is also, it doesn’t mean that the whole world has to be rejected there is a process that has to be followed to come out of the dream, to wake so similarly, Krishna uses different metaphor over here, so he uses the metaphor of a reflection in the 15th chapter and in this chapter, the Acharya has explained that, Shankaracharya also says this in his Narsimha Karavalambha Sotra, he says samsara sarpavruksha samsara samsara vruksha aghabhijam ananta karma shakhayutam karanapatram anangapushmam aruya dukha falilam patitam dayalo lakshmi narsimha mamadehi karavalambham so he says samsara vruksha this world is like a vruksha and aghabhijam, agha is desire one’s sinful desire so it’s desire, the tree comes from a seed, similarly this whole material existence comes from agha aghabhijam, and that aghabhijam is talked about in 13.22, that’s why I said 13.22 is the bijya vakya purusha prakriti stohi gunte prakriti jan gunan so when Krishna talks about the modes of material nature, he says, linked between the 14 and 15 chapters is that, Krishna says the modes are the water that nourish this tree a tree exists, how does a tree grow? when it is watered, so he says the nourisher of this tree is the modes and then, this tree itself cannot be destroyed but our entanglement in the tree can be destroyed asanga shastrena drudhena chitva, with detachment you cut yourself off and then what is there beyond this world? there is mayabodh that there is no light in that abode there is not illumined by the sun, by the moon, by fire so here Sri Prabhupada adds in his parpot in his translation itself, there is no electricity over there we wonder, where is it, there is no electricity na pavakaha, pavakaha is fire so how is Prabhupada adding electricity over here see, when scripture is to be taught, the point is not to get it right the point is to get it across the point is not to get it right, the point is to get it across scripture has to be presented in a way that is relevant to people so the essential point of this verse in the 15th chapter is that in the spiritual world everything is luminous, itself luminous there is no need for external luminosity and Krishna talks about the same thing in the with respect to the material world in 15.12 this is 15.6, in 15.12 he says the same three items, the sun moon and fire so he says this world is illuminated by the sun the moon and fire and their effulgence comes from me so the essential point of this verse is that the material world needs sources of illumination whereas spiritual world does not need any source of illumination, now Prabhupada’s readers, people in the modern and the postmodern world they mostly live where the primary source of illumination that they experience is electricity now we we know that theoretically the sun is what gives light but we often live in an artificially illuminated environment, so when Prabhupada is adding electricity over here what is he doing, he is explaining the relevance of the verse the essential point of the verse is that we don’t need any artificial source of illumination it is self luminous so there is there is a literal translation and there is a essential translation essential translation means which conveys the essential meaning so there is a computer programme which tried to do translation this is of course apocryphal but it illustrates the point which is there, that there is this biblical saying the flesh is willing but the spirit is weak, what it means is that, no the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, what it means is that we have a desire for doing nobler things but our body drags us down, so they had a computer programme which translated this into Russian and it retranslated that into English, so what happened the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak so that got translated into Russian and it got retranslated into English it became the vodka is good but the meat is spoiled the spirit is willing, spirit means alcohol, alcohol is vodka, so the vodka is good but the flesh the flesh is weak, the meat is spoiled, so if we just go into literal translations what happens is we can lose the meaning completely, so Prabhupada doesn’t focus on literal translations he gives us essential meanings so in the 15th chapter Krishna talks about that same point which I mentioned 13.35 is jnana chakshu, he talks about it again in this 15th chapter 15.11 he says that how how so he says that how the soul resides in the body, how the soul moves from one body to another how the soul is controlled by the modes all this the fools cannot see we have to see with the eyes of knowledge and these eyes of knowledge he gives us first with respect to the material world when he says how even when we are living in this world we depend on God all the time many people think that science as it is advanced now science can provide all the answers to us and therefore science can solve all our problems we don’t need God actually yes science can offer us many things but science operates based on certain laws and those laws are not made by science, those laws are not made by nature it’s an enduring mystery in science, where do laws come from so actually as Indian mathematician Srimas Ramanujan said that an equation for me has no meaning unless it represents the thought of God so the more we study science and the more science is able to do things a spiritually informed person sees in every advance of technology not just the intelligence of man but also the intelligence of God so yes we humans have manipulated nature using technology but that capacity for manipulability the principle that nature operates according to God that comes from God, so Krishna says Krishna talks about various ways in which he sustains material existence from 15.12 to 15.14 and then he says how I am present in the heart and I give knowledge then he describes how he is the how he is the ultimate ultimate goal of all the Vedas and then he concludes that chapter by saying that one who understands him that one who understands him to be the absolute truth that person is truly enlightened so the 13.22 was the seed of the tree of material existence then 15 chapter describes the tree itself the 16 chapter describes the uppermost and the lowermost part of the tree and the 17 chapter describes the middle part of the tree so what does this mean, that if there is a going back to the earlier metaphor of the movie in a movie there are certain things which will make us happy certain things which will make us horrified miserable so there are whole different kinds of emotions that come so like that within this material existence there are different impressions that we have different kinds of behaviours that we do and different kinds of reactions that we get so the two extremes that is the 16 chapter describes the divine nature and the demoniac nature so the divine nature, now Krishna describes a list of qualities and the important thing is means we are born with these qualities so all of us have certain sets of qualities which we are just born with now why we are born with certain qualities there is reductionistic science which tries to say that everything about us comes from our genes now genes are important they do shape maybe the pigment of our skin the particular structure of our bones certain things they shape but they don’t shape everything how is that? first of all, how can genes determine the mood of a person the personality of a person there is no scientific explanation for that and even within the realm of scientific explainability there is something which is called as monozygotic twins monozygotic twins means there are two twins so the same the same egg splits into two and then two twins are born so now in this case their whole genetic substance is entirely identical the twins are usually genetically similar but in the case of monozygotic twins they are genetically identical and though they are genetically identical they are not behaviourally identical they are individuals in their own right they have their own moods, their own personalities their own behaviours so where does this behaviour come from? it is not coming from their upbringing because both of them had the same parents same upbringing, but still they are different so our behaviours are not just shaped by our genes there are certain qualities which the soul is pure but around the soul there is a subtle body and in the subtle body certain impressions are stored and those impressions are expressed through the gross body so the Bhagavad Gita 16th chapter tells that there are certain qualities which are divine certain qualities which are demoniac but our impressions go with us but they don’t have to grow with us they go with us from this body to the next body they have come with us from our previous body to this body so some of us may have certain godly qualities certain ungodly qualities but we are not slaves of those qualities we can change those qualities and the whole 16th chapter describes first three verses describe the Daivi Sampad, then the next almost 20 verses, 17 verses describe the Asuri Sampad the demoniac nature and this is the demoniac nature when he describes Asau maya hatah shatrud Hanishe chaapara anapi Ishwaroham ambhogi siddoham balwansuki Bhavishyati punar dhanam this much wealth I have acquired this much more wealth I will acquire, this enemy I have eliminated, that enemy I will eliminate next the way Krishna describes it, we can say that Krishna was probably thinking of Duryodhana at that time Duryodhana had this mentality, I have got this much kingdom and I will get this much, I will get this much and there are many people who have this mentality so Krishna after he describes this, he says Krishna gives many subtle nuances also, he doesn’t say these people are necessarily atheistic he says he says they are self complacent and impudent and they don’t do naama yagya they don’t chant the names, they do yagya for naam, they do sacrifice so that they can become famous they give charity, they do various things so that they can become very very famous, you know there is some festival, they want that ok if there is some temple my temple should be biggest in the whole world or if I am going to do something religious, I do it so that I get fame so they may be religious but their purpose of religion is not purification, it is simply self glorification and then Krishna says that there are, this demonic qualities, ungodly qualities can be condensed into three and they are lust, anger, greed, these are three gates to hell these destroy the soul, now Krishna has said in 2.17 the soul cannot be destroyed but here in 16.21 he is saying these three destroy the soul, so this destruction is not literal, it is metaphorical that the soul’s spiritual awareness is destroyed by ungodly activities, by demonic activities, so then the 16th chapter concludes with a call that Arjuna you should follow shastra and you will stay purer if you don’t follow shastra know what is to be done and what is not to be done from shastra, what is the meaning of following shastra it essentially means that when we follow shastra we don’t become bound by our conditionings, rather we become freed from our conditionings, the default behavioural patterns that we have got, we are not forced to act according to them, we can change and cultivate healthy thought patterns and healthy behavioural patterns, now at the start of the 17th chapter Arjuna asks a question about the middle, he says top is those who are godly, bottom are those who are demoniac, so the godly accept shastra and live according to shastra, the ungodly reject shastra and live according to their self centred desire but what about those who are in between so he asks that those who do not accept shastra but they have some faith, what is their situation so here we can see the analytical framework that bhagavad gita offers we can use it to analyse the current world scenario, now today we have various religions say, we have Hinduism, we have Christianity we have Islam and these religions what is the Gita’s perspective on them, now we don’t see any direct reference to Islam or Christianity in the Gita, what to speak of that, we don’t see any direct reference to Hinduism in the Gita so what is the Gita’s frame so Gita gives us objective criteria, it’s behavioural pattern, what is their conception of charity what is their conception of food what is their conception of behaviour what is their conception of austerity, so Gita gives behavioural characteristics by which we can infer the moods so now because of the fear of terrorism it is true that there is a great threat because of terrorism but say in America, there is one presidential candidate who is saying, let us ban all Muslims now this sort of mentality ban all Muslims from coming to immigrating to America, what this does is, it lumps everyone into one category all Muslims, they are potential terrorists so let us ban all of them but the Bhagavad Gita offers us a characteristic analysis based not on some religious affiliation but on behavioural characterisation says that there are, even among Muslims even among Hindus, even among Christians even among atheists there are people who are in goodness there are people who are in passion, there are people who are in ignorance and people who are in ignorance, they will cause violence and they will justify their violence by whatever they want if we see Hitler’s Nazi Germany that was at that time, in the 1930s and 1940s, it was at the pinnacle of scientific progress and they had developed a lot of weapons and they were driven towards scientific progress and they were using scientific progress to scientifically slaughter the Jews the gas chambers they were not like traditional guillotines or methods of execution they were scientific things so the point is, Hitler was primarily he was nominally Christian but he was primarily motivated by atheism and there they used science to kill people, now even if we want to argue that way that even if there are terrorists and terrorists are killing people, we could say that terrorists are able to kill so many people because there are weapons of mass destruction and the weapons of mass destruction if there were no bombs, if there were no high tech weapons then even if terrorists want to kill, how many people would they have been able to kill so the point I am making is that somebody wants to blame, they can blame technology, because technology is there, that’s why terrorists are able to kill so many people so this sort of blaming peripheral things, whether it is technology or whether it is religion it neglects the reality that people are functions of their own psychology so technology can be used for good purposes, technology can be used for bad purposes similarly religious belief can be used for good purposes, religious belief can be used for bad purposes so the Bhagavad Gita says, rather than lumping everybody in one category we have to see goodness passion and ignorance when I wrote this book GK for PK answering the questions over there, about the movie PK so there I wrote in the introduction I have an online Muslim friend and he told me, it is easier for me to communicate with moderates of other traditions than with extremists of my own tradition so moderates of other traditions means, there is a Muslim who is a sattva guna there is a Christian in sattva guna, there is a Hindu in sattva guna they can think alike and they can have better communication than a Muslim in sattva guna and a Muslim in tamo guna or what to speak of Muslim, Hindus in sattva guna and Hindus in tamo guna, it will be difficult to communicate so the simplistic reduction of a whole category as bad now that oversees the reality that people are not all in one homogeneous behavioural category even if people belong to a particular religion, they will be different depending on their psychology and that is shaped by the modes now after giving this analysis, Krishna moves into the 18th chapter and the 18th chapter, Arjuna it’s the summary of all the 6th chapter of the previous chapter, so Arjuna asks the same question, which he has asked right at the beginning, he asks, what should we do? can you explain what is tyaga and what is vairagya tattva micchami veditum, he says, I want to understand the tattva of what is tyaga and what is sannyasa so essentially the question is, what Arjuna is asking, should I fight or should I not fight? so Krishna explains that sannyasa is physical renunciation tyaga is emotional non-involvement so everybody has to physically renounce, but we have to become emotionally non-involved, emotionally detached and working with emotional detachment, we can all become purified so Krishna answers that question briefly and then he analyses in terms of sankhya the modes the ways in which we act and he says that actually speaking there are this is a little technical, I’ll quickly explain this and then I’ll go to the conclusion, he says there are 5 factors when we act there are 5 factors in every action, for example right now I’m speaking I may say I’m speaking what else is there? who else is doing anything? but the fact is Krishna says there are 5 factors so adhistha, that is the that is the field of action, that is the body karta, karta is the soul adhisthaandha karta karanam ja pruthak vidha, there are the various senses through which the action takes place vividhasya pruthak cheshta and there are different endeavours and then daivam chaivatra daiva is the divine will the supreme will manifested through the actions of the devatas, administering devatas so to give an example of this suppose a cricketer is batting and the cricketer is batting the baller bowls and the cricketer swings the bat and the ball goes for a sixer the batsman hit a brilliant sixer the next time the baller bowls the same ball the batsman swings the bat the same way but he misses the line and is clean bowled now what happened the same batsman, similar ball similar shot, but completely different result, but the sixer the other was a clean bowled so what happens, there are in cricket sometimes they say the batsman is out of form now no batsman wants to be out of form, why do they go out of form, no matter how brilliant the batsman may be, the batsman is not the supreme controller so what happens there is the field, the batsman may be a very skilled batsman but if that person has got some injury got say some stomach upset and the batsman cannot come on the field itself so first of all the body has to be functional, adhistanam then the soul, the karta, there is a person who is playing cricket that person is dead, the dead body comes on the cricket field, nothing can happen karanam cha prathagvidha and there are specific senses, so if a person is batting, then there are various fields the person has to have sharp vision there is hand leg motion coordination there is proper stance proper moving of the bat all this is the training of the senses karanam, so the body itself has to be fit but also the specific senses have to be competitive to do the action then vividhascha prathak cheshta and after that it is not that a batsman is born a champion the day he is born they also have to practise so that is cheshta so whatever we are doing by endeavour we improve, Arjuna was a great archer but even he endeavoured, he practised tirelessly and then daivam chai vatra panchamam ultimately destiny is the deciding factor there are many cricketers who have their own superstitions, there is a famous cricketer Australian captain, he would always keep a red handkerchief in his pocket, maybe one fourth of it out, three fourth of it inside and he thought that was a good luck charm sometimes he would drop a catch first he would, after dropping the catch, instead of taking the ball he would look, have I dropped the handkerchief, how did I drop the catch, so now cricketers know that I have to perform but they also know that performance matters but performance is not all that matters that despite the best performance sometimes things can just go out of control and there are forces bigger than human performance that shape the results and they in their own way try to appease that performance there was an Australian batsman whenever he would go out to bat, first he would go to the pavilion commodes and make sure all the lids were closed and if he would get out early, first he would go and see if any commode lid is open and if any lid would be open, he would go and blast his team members why did you keep it open now what has that person’s batting got to do with the commode lid being open or closed, it’s a superstition but the point is they all know that apart from their performance there is something else that also shapes the results and they are in their own way trying to appease that so there is a destiny which also shapes our results and Krishna says that if we act with detachment then if we act with detachment then we will not become bound only one who thinks that I am the doer not just I am the doer, I am the soul doer that person is in illusion that person gets bound and after that, after analysing various things within the three modes further, the same analysis which Krishna gave in the 14th chapter, he gives in the 17th chapter he continues in the 18th chapter so he talks about karma, kartag buddhi jnana and dhriti in the three modes and then he talks about sukha in the three modes and then he talks about varanashram as a means for gradual elevation beyond the modes and then in 18.56 is so Krishna has in one sense from the 13th chapter it is a path of jnana it is a gradual ladder that is going up up up up and 18.56 Krishna says that by the process of bhakti by the practise of bhakti one will attain liberation this is 18.55 now from here by talking about this gradual process of purification through jnana to the culmination of bhakti then Krishna says in 18.56 he drops down a ladder and he says bhakti you don’t have to go through the whole gradual process to come to the level of bhakti you can practise your bhakti from anywhere Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur in his commentary explains that whatever work you are doing you can do your work but do it in a mood of devotion and by doing it in a mood of devotion you will become liberated if you become conscious of me you will pass over all obstacles by my grace Krishna is not saying obstacles will go away, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace when we face problems in life all of us will face problems but our perception of the problem often becomes a bigger problem than the problem that means suppose I have some problem so that is like a 20 kg weight which I have to carry suddenly somebody says you have to carry 20 kg weight it will be irritating it will be exhausting but suppose I have to carry 20 kg weight and I am going to I have to do it but while that time I put 30 kg more on top of it and I have to carry 50 kg that will be impossible so like that life puts some problems in us but when we become problem conscious now why this why did this happen, why did things go like this why did it go like that, that resentment that we have that saps our energy internally so that problem is a 20 kg problem but our resentment becomes like a 30 kg weight on top of that and then we lose our ability to deal with the problem so Krishna says if you become conscious of me machittaha so when we become conscious of Krishna we are no longer problem conscious problem is there, ok I will have to live with it I will have to deal with it but if our thoughts are consumed by the problem then the problem starts becoming bigger and bigger and bigger and we start feeling our ability to deal with it is smaller and smaller and then we become overwhelmed but if we are conscious of Krishna then we can see the problem in perspective and deal with it properly Krishna says that the problem will not go away but you will be able to go over the problem machprasada tarishisi and then after this Krishna tells that yes things are controlled by material nature but I am in control of material nature, therefore if you surrender to me you will transcend material nature, tame vasayanam gaccha sarva bhavena bharata surrender to him and then 18.63 Krishna tells Arjuna now I have completed my message he says iti guhyatam vimrishshaitadeshe shena yathe chisittha deliberate and decide what you want to do the Bhagavad Gita is not a book of commandments in the bible there are 10 commandments in the biblical tradition, the old testament the 10 commandments, the Bhagavad Gita is not so much a book of commandments as a book of choices choices and consequences, if you do this, this will happen if you do this, this will happen, now you decide what you want to do so Krishna tells vimrishshaitadeshe shena deliberate deeply and decide what you want to do yathe chisittha kuru so the Bhagavad Gita offers a vision of God who respects human independence and human intelligence God is not saying do this, don’t do this He is actually appealing to human intelligence He is not telling Arjuna I am telling you so you do this He answers Arjuna’s questions in a very reasonable and intelligent way so he appeals to his intelligence and he respects Arjuna’s independence, you decide what you want to do yathe chisittha kuru and then Vishwanath Chakrathakur says at this point Arjuna goes into deep thought Krishna said this is the second chapter Krishna said this is the fourth chapter this is the seventh chapter, this is the twelfth chapter this is the eighteenth chapter what exactly should I be doing and as Arjuna goes deep into thought it becomes pensive so Krishna’s compassion overflows and Krishna says Arjuna you don’t have to get lost in this deep thought, I will tell you what you should do so he says most confidential knowledge I will give to you now second superlative first superlative is most confidential, second superlative is these are my supreme words ishtosime budhamiti ishtosime, you are very dearly loved by me you are strongly loved by me tatovakshamitehitam therefore for your benefit I am speaking this so Krishna is saying Arjuna don’t be confused I will make things very clear to you and then he says manmana bhavamad bhakto madhyaji mam namaskuru mam evaisya satyam te pratijanet priyosime 18.65 is almost identical to 9.34 where also Krishna said the same thing but in 9.34 the emphasis is manmana bhavamad bhakto that is the same if you stay engaged in this way you will come to me so there in 9.35 9.34 the emphasis on what the soul has to do, what we have to do but here the emphasis on Krishna is what I will do mam evaisya satyam te you will surely come to me, this is the truth pratijanet priyosime you know that you are very dear to me so earlier Krishna has told Arjuna kaunteya pratijanihiname bhaktah pranasyati you declare that my devotee will not perish so Krishna is not satisfied with Arjuna declaring, Krishna is saying I am declaring also my devotees are very dear to me and still Krishna is giving so many instructions, there are so many Vedas so many different things are there in scriptures so what should we do so he says sarva dharman parityajya mam ekam sharanam vraja aham tvam sarva papebhyo mokshayisyamim asuchah just give up everything else and surrender to me alone this is all that you need to do mam ekam sharanam vraja, alone you surrender what will happen by that aham tvam sarva papebhyo mokshayisyami I will free you from all sins now in 7.28 Krishna has told Arjuna that you first become free from sins then you will become fixed in bhakti esham tvantagatam papam jananam punyakarmanam te dvandvamoham nirmukta bhajante mam tudavratah after you become purified from sins then you will become fixed in bhakti but here Krishna is saying don’t bother about it just start practising bhakti I will purify you of all sins so the acharya gives the example that there is a small baby that is growing up and the mother is offering potty training to the baby you have to respond to nature you should go to the washroom and that baby spoils his clothes soils his clothes the mother gets angry and says first you clean yourself then you come to me so that is Krishna in 7.28 first you purify yourself then you come to me esham tvantagatam jananam punyakarmanam te dvandvamoham nirmukta but then if the baby is small I am helpless, I don’t know what to do then what does the mother say come here, I will clean you so that is Krishna in aham tvam sarva papebhyo moksheshami you just come to me, I will clean you I will purify you, don’t worry about it so this is Krishna’s compassion coming out then in 18.67 he says that it’s like sometimes you know a father has a huge treasure father has got very precious jewels which he has kept for his sons for his children but he doesn’t tell his children about that inheritance because they misquander it so now but when the when the father feels very sometimes feels very great affection for the son and the father takes the son to his treasury, opens the innermost chambers of the treasury and he shows these are the jewels and after revealing the jewels the father may say don’t tell all your sons all your brothers and sisters about it so similarly Krishna says idam te na tapaskaya na bhaktaya kadachana nachashu shurusha ve vacham nachamam yo bisuyati he says here I have bared my heart to you, I have told about the innermost secrets of spiritual love don’t just tell it to anyone and everyone why because people if they don’t understand just like the children misquander a precious legacy the parents legacy is for the children only but the children have to grow up children have to mature so that they will value the legacy and they will use the legacy so like that Krishna is saying those who are not yet spiritually matured, don’t tell them about these innermost confidential things tell them about the basic things about you are not the body you are the soul but these are things which should be told carefully and then in 68 and 69 he is telling he is giving various kinds of phalashruti so he says those who preach this message there is no one more dear to me than those people so he says nachata sman manusheshu kashchin me priya kruttam aham there is no one as dear to me as those who preach this message now someone may say but preaching is very difficult you know I can’t preach Krishna says if you can’t preach then just hear or just study he says if you can’t preach you study he says just study while you are studying you will be worshipping me with your intelligence and you will become purified he said like somebody has fallen in a well the rescuer comes and throws a rope and the rescuer comes and throws a rope and he says just hold on to the rope I will pull you out suppose the person who has fallen in the lake says no I don’t have any strength I can’t hold on to the rope then this person says ok I will throw a rope down with a lasso around it with a circular loop around it just tie it around your waist and if you just tie it I will pull you out he says no but if I tie it around my waist it will cause so much pain it will be so tight so then what that person does is that person ties the rope to a bucket and sends the bucket down you just sit in the bucket I will pull you out so like that first Krishna is saying you preach this message if you can’t preach the message at least study this message somebody says I can’t even study it’s very complicated then Krishna says if you can’t study just hear the message just come to classes and hear the message he says those who hear this message they will also become purified they will also become liberated eventually and then after that in 18.72 Krishna asks Arjuna have you become purified have you heard attentively has your illusion been dispensed so again Chakravartipada explains that here the mood of Krishna is Arjuna if you have not understood anything I am ready to repeat it and if you have not understood the whole Bhagavad Gita I am ready to repeat the whole Bhagavad Gita I want to make sure that you have understood everything so Krishna is not just like a official paid teacher who just wants to give the class and go on with one’s own life Krishna wants Arjuna to understand to be transformed and if we ask have you understood Arjuna, has your illusion been dispelled and Arjuna replies in 18.73 nashto moha smrti labdha yes my illusion is gone my memory is restored tat prasadam my achyuta by your mercy oh achyuta I am well situated, my doubts are gone and karishe vacanam tava I will do your will I will do your will in the bible when it is described in the gospels how when Jesus came to know that he is going to be crucified the next day so he says that let thy will be done and that is a great expression of surrender yes that you know if something is going to happen, if bad is going to happen but still let thy will be done that is the exalted level of surrender but the Bhagavad Gita is going further it is not just let thy will be done but I will do your will it is not that whatever is happening I accept it, rather I will do what you want to be done my lord so it is a very exalted level of surrender and we need to know that surrender is not just stereotyped see normally when we use the word surrender it is like at the end of a war when a general has no more strength to fight, surrender, you raise the white flag of surrender and similarly we have Draupadi now when she is helpless, she surrenders she raises her hand and surrenders in helplessness but Krishna tells Arjuna to surrender sarva dharman pratijya mam ekam saranam vraja and Arjuna says yes I will surrender but what happens Arjuna picks up his bow and is ready to fight so it is not that surrender always means helpless in activity surrender means whatever is the best way we can serve Krishna we serve accordingly so for Draupadi in her situation surrender means just giving up everything else and leaving things to Krishna Arjuna was a Kshatriya, he had the capacity to do things, surrender means doing wholeheartedly what we can do and leaving to Krishna what we can’t do our mind makes us exactly do the opposite you know we we don’t do what we can do and we worry about things which we can’t do anything about what we can do we don’t do it and what we can’t do anything we keep worrying about it so in that way we I was in New York so one devotee asked me over there what is the difference between detachment and irresponsibility so I said detachment is after the activity irresponsibility is before the activity that means I do the activity properly and then I don’t worry about the result, that is detachment but irresponsibility means I don’t care for the activity only suppose somebody is cooking for Krishna I am detached how much sugar I put, how much salt I put how much oil I put, I don’t care, I am detached and if it doesn’t taste good all the people who eat they will also get training in detachment this is not detachment this is irresponsibility so Krishna it’s not that Arjuna is unconcerned he is concerned about what happens detachment does not mean that we are not concerned about the fruits it means we are concerned about something bigger than the fruits we are concerned about something bigger than the fruits Arjuna wants to win the war but he doesn’t want to win the war for the sake of the war he wants to win the war for the sake of Krishna so if he doesn’t win the war also still he has got Krishna and that connection with Krishna will be his eternal satisfaction so when we cook for Krishna at that time, yes sometimes the cooking will work out nice, sometimes it will not work nicely but if we have done it with the devotional intention the best effort that we put in, that will please Krishna and so there is Bhagavad Gita this is the theme of the second dialogue the one dialogue in the Bhagavad Gita is between Krishna and Arjuna, the outer dialogue which starts with Dhritarashtra Vacha he is asking what happened, dharmakshetra kunshetra so the outer dialogue is between Sanjay and Dhritarashtra now on hearing Krishna’s message Arjuna’s heart is transformed Arjuna’s doubts are dispelled and he is situated in determination, but the Bhagavad Gita itself demonstrates that even God’s message may not transform everyone’s hearts so what Krishna speaks and Arjuna hears, Arjuna is transformed by that, but the same thing Sanjay speaks with Dhritarashtra and Dhritarashtra is not transformed by that so is it that Sanjay speaking it goes in vain? No, Sanjay describes he first expresses gratitude he says how adbhuta this conversation is in 74, in 75 he expresses gratitude that Vyasa Prasada Chitwan it is because of Vyasa’s mercy that I was able to hear this, I am grateful to him and then in 76 and 77 he says that rishamicha punapuna, rishamicha muhurmahu so I am constantly relishing the remembrance of the remembrance, first he says samvadhamim adbhutam, this wonderful conversation I am remembering and I am feeling ecstatic at every moment, he says when I remember roopamatya adbhutam hare the wonderful form of Lord Hari which Krishna is as Parthasarathi and Krishna as the Vishwaroopa when I remember this I am filled with ecstasy, so the Bhagavad Gita itself demonstrates this inner success and outer success Sanjay is not externally successful, he is not able to change the heart of Uttarashtra but he is internally successful just by speaking Krishna’s message he becomes spiritually enriched he becomes spiritually ecstatic and that is what the Bhagavad Gita’s central message is it places our destiny within our capacity the Bhagavad Gita places our destiny within our capacity in this world our destiny our success often depends on things that are not within our capacity, sometimes students may not have very good memory capacity and if the exam success depends on how much you can remember students will not be very successful now in this world so much stock is put on one’s physical appearance, how one looks and if we don’t have very good looks then we may feel that my prospects have become limited, so in this world often our destiny depends on things which are not in our capacity but the Bhagavad Gita tells us in the spiritual realm our destiny is within our capacity if we serve Krishna with what we have as Krishna says just offer me a leaf, a flower just a little water, the Acharya has explained that Krishna is not even saying not even saying plural fruits and flowers, just one flower you offer that is also enough so whatever we have if we offer to Krishna even if that offering doesn’t become successful externally even if the external results don’t come internally our heart will become enriched with devotion and we will become satisfied the Bhagavad Gita ends with the imagery last verse is so wherever there is a geographical question, the Bhagavad Gita begins with the question that dharmakshetra kurukshetra what happened at dharmakshetra kurukshetra so with the generic answer he says wherever there is Krishna and wherever there is Arjuna there will be victory but the significant imagery here is that Arjuna has picked up his bow at the end of the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita 1.46 Arjuna has cast aside his bow in dejection he has put aside his bow but by hearing the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita he has raised his bow and he is ready to fight so Arjuna’s bow represents our confidence it represents our determination just as Arjuna by seeing the armies in the battlefield he lost his determination he lost heart, like that if we look at the world with our eyes often adversities perplexities and problems will dishearten us we will put aside our bow thinking what is the point why should I struggle so much what is the point of it all but when we understand Krishna’s message in the Bhagavad Gita we understand that the point of all is love undying immortal love we are working not just for success in this world, success in this world will come it may not come but if we try to serve Krishna sincerely we will get everlasting success even the smallest of things that we do, Krishna is noting and Krishna will be rewarding so the Bhagavad Gita when we understand this message of Krishna’s immortal love no matter externally how discouraging our situation may be we will become internally inspired to keep reciprocating with Krishna to keep serving Krishna according to our capacity just as Arjuna lifted up his bow, similarly we too will lift up our metaphorical bow our determination will become restored our confidence will become rejuvenated and even amidst problems we will be able to march ahead in life tatra shreer vijayobhutir dhruvanitirmatirmama so where Krishna where the soul is united with Krishna the Bhagavad Gita is of course literal and historical but it is also poetry, so there is imagery Krishna is present on the chariot with Arjuna the body is like a chariot and a soul, we the souls are the passengers in this chariot in the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna was ordering Krishna do this, don’t do this but by the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna says karishye vachanam tava so Prabhupada says in his first initiation lecture he says once you take shelter of Krishna there is no need for you to lament because you have handed the reins of your chariot to Krishna we have made Krishna our chariot here and Krishna will guide us to supreme perfection in life, unfortunately we give the reins of our chariot to Krishna but again we keep taking back the reins but when we keep coming in the association of devotees keep hearing, we understand Krishna is in control let him be in control of my destiny also, just let me keep serving him according to my capacity and as we keep Krishna in charge of the reins of our chariot we will let that Parthasarathi drive us towards the supreme Artha, the Parmartha of our life, thank you very much Shrimad Bhagavad Gita Ki Shri Prabhupada Ki It’s quite late, we won’t have any question answers today, thank you very much