Gita Overview Mumbai 14.17-21 Knowledge arises from sattva not abhyasa

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Yes, so Manish Prabhu yesterday brought the question I was mentioning about how with our material senses even the thoughts of the mind are material so then how exactly can we perceive transcendence so even when we think about Krishna when we chant Krishna’s name when we study the philosophy of Krishna consciousness so are we actually perceiving Krishna or not so this is analysed in the Shruti Stava Shruti Stava is the 88th chapter of the 10th canto of Srimad Bhagavatam that is prayers by the personified Vedas and in that Parikshit Maharaj asks the question to Shukadeva Goswami if our senses are material and Supreme Lord is transcendental then how can we perceive that Supreme Lord and Parikshit Maharaj actually tells an incident and Narad Muni had asked this question to Narayana Rishi and Narayana Rishi narrated another incident when this had happened they tell another incident when Lord Vishnu was fast asleep and then the Vedas came there to awaken him and they recited the prayers so those prayers which are recited by the Vedas to the Lord to awaken him from his mystic slumber they are known as the prayers of the personified Vedas Shruti Stava in Sanskrit and there this question is analysed and Vishwanath Chakradhakar gives his commentary to this section very systematically and he explains that though the material senses by their own effort cannot perceive the Supreme Lord but the scriptures give certain descriptions about the Supreme Lord so those descriptions are given for us more as a compass as a direction for thought so when we think about the Supreme Lord according to scriptural directions for example when the scriptures tell us that Krishna is a youth with a bluish black complexion like that of a monsoon cloud then we may think of a youth and we may think of a monsoon cloud and we may try to concatenate, combine these two images together and try to conceive of Krishna so the concatenation of two mental images is not the Supreme Personality of Godhead but when we try to think Krishna think about Krishna according to scriptural direction then that subordination that service attitude pleases Krishna and then Krishna by his will chooses to manifest to us at the spiritual level there is the Atma, there is the Manna and there is the Indriya, the eyes, the ears, the senses so say when I am looking at the deity when I am looking at the deity there is a physical contact between the form of the deity and my eyes now depending if my mind if I am not very attentive, absorbed then there is just the contact and nothing further happens even that contact is purifying because it is Krishna manifesting but still that is not as potent as if I try to think about it, if I concentrate then there is not just the contact between the deity and the senses but also the mind gets involved over there and that perception enters the mind, there is greater penetration greater purification that results by that but still Krishna’s presence has not yet been evoked it is when we sincerely try to serve Krishna according to the scriptural direction by taking darshan of his deity then if Krishna is pleased by our endeavour then Krishna manifests at the spiritual level the soul has his own capacity for perception and at that spiritual level when Krishna manifests that is called as sphurti sphurti is self-manifestation so there is that famous verse by his own will so that is why when Krishna is manifested at the level of the mind that means we are thinking about Krishna that is not necessarily a spiritual manifestation now because those thoughts are about Krishna they are purifying so somebody else might think of a sports star or a movie star or some cartoon character those may also manifest as conceptions as thoughts, images at the mental level they, from an ontological point of view ontological means from the existential point of view, they are non-existent people so at the mental level they are just thoughts conceptions, but because they are not connected with reality leave alone the supreme reality, those thoughts don’t purify us although at an emotional level some people may get moved and affected much more somebody is a fan of Sherlock Holmes so if that person thinks about Sherlock Holmes then that person may get excited and we may think about Krishna and we may not get excited about Krishna because at the conditioned level, the attraction to material things is often higher than to the spiritual things among sadhakas so the svayam eva sphuraty ada is when actually revelation takes place so when we chant the holy names of Krishna and when we study scripture and take darshan it is not that we are directly thinking of Krishna we are trying to think about Krishna according to scriptural direction and the thinking about Krishna really happens when Krishna manifests himself is that clear? any other questions? so now let’s move forward to 14.17 so yesterday we discussed about the effects of the modes so in that first we discussed what happens when a person dies in the various modes, then we discussed about the long term effect and then we discussed the long term effect was post death, the medium term effect then we will discuss the short term effect that was this one now we will discuss about another effect, the immediate effect and that results to some extent from sattva is born gyanam so a very significant point here is Krishna is talking it is not that just by study knowledge will emerge he says this knowledge that is talked about is not just a matter of intellectual processing, it is a matter it is a knowledge that is actually a matter of internal assimilation and that requires a lifestyle so there may be mundane philosophers who may know about the conception of the soul as given in Vedantic literature better than what we may also know but if their lifestyle is in the mode of passion then all that knowledge will just be as Srila Prabhupada would say philosophy without religion is mental speculation so it will just be mental speculation for them so nowadays in the west and increasingly in India there is the fad of being religious without being spiritual without being religious I am spiritual but not religious this is so common that it has spawned its own acronym called SBNR SBNR is a separate statistical group, spiritual but not religious and their idea is that we should be open minded this is the article which I am writing in the upcoming BTG about spiritual but not religious their idea is that we should be open minded, we should not commit ourselves to any one dogma, one institution one school of thought and certainly not any institutionalised religion be open minded and wherever you get spiritual experiences you take the spiritual experience and move forward so certainly we should not be close minded, that is true but at the same time if we actually want to get spiritual experiences we need to commit ourselves to some process so the idea is that if we consider spirituality there is a difference between a spiritual experience and a spiritual state of consciousness a spiritual experience is something which comes and goes even materialistic people may sometimes come to a temple or sometimes go to some holy place and they may feel something very deep, something peaceful something very profound, so that is a spiritual experience so spiritual experience is something which may come and go but what a serious spiritualist wants is not just a spiritual experience but he wants a steady spiritual state and to get a steady spiritual state one has to follow a process that transforms so the idea of spirituality without religion is that one just shops around for spiritual experiences and shopping around for spiritual experiences doesn’t lead to anything lasting difference between spiritual experience and spiritual state spiritual experience is something which comes and goes spiritual state is something that lasts when Krishna is talking about gyana over here when a person lives in the mode of goodness then that person attains the real gyana the assimilated, internalised gyana others might get some experiences and those experiences are valuable but they will not necessarily by themselves be transformational they will come and go so therefore Krishna makes it very clear that there has to be a process that has to be followed so if one tries to be simply spiritual without being religious, it’s like trying to be healthy without trying to take a medicine it’s trying to be healthy without taking a medicine, say I want to be healthy but I don’t want to take any medicines, I want to be spiritual but I don’t want to be religious so what does religious actually mean if religious people understand that you have to follow some rituals and believe in some dogmas that is a caricature of religion actual religion is a set of practises that transforms us, that enables us to develop love for God, so this is our goal and to get to that, there has to be a following of a process so therefore just spiritual experiences will be valuable but not transformational we want it to be transformational and there has to be a spiritual process so wanting to be spiritual without being religious is like wanting to be healthy without taking a medicine it doesn’t work and this was one of Shila Prabhupada’s prominent contributions that Shila Prabhupada actually did not just share Vedic concepts with western people he actually transplanted the culture so that people could get transformational experiences and Shila Prabhupada was flexible in terms of, people can cook according to their own culture and nature and they can offer that food to Krishna the principle of offering food to Krishna is universal the specific variations can be there Shila Prabhupada also said you can wear the clothes that are considered normal and respectable from the secular perspective whenever it’s required but actually whatever the dress we are wearing we should serve Krishna but wherever it was not necessary to change Shila Prabhupada said that stick to the traditional Vedic culture because that helps to create a spiritual atmosphere which is conducive for inner transformation that’s why Krishna describes just the presence so now here Krishna is talking as soon as the mood of goodness comes up actually one starts becoming inclined towards knowledge one may not immediately get knowledge but one becomes inclined towards knowledge actually speaking when Krishna talks about the four kinds of people who come to him who are those four kinds of people Artho, Jijnasur, Artharthi, Jnani so actually speaking roughly it’s not a very accurate correlation but one of the characteristics of Shudra is Shochati one who is always lamenting and that lament is a sign of the mode of ignorance so Artho is the characteristic of a person in the mode of ignorance Artharthi I want more, more, more that is the characteristic of somebody in passion and Jijnasur is the characteristic of a person in goodness because at the level of goodness even if one does not have knowledge right now one is inclined towards knowledge I want to know more, what is all this about and actually the Jnani which Krishna talks about over there is a person who is transcended, he has not yet come to devotional service but later on the next verse Krishna talks about him is such a person is situated at least in Atma Jnana and has some conception that the absolute truth may be personal so Jnani is almost transcended so of course it is also possible that Artharthi can become Artho and Jijnasur can also become distressed at some time that is why it is not a water tight classification but it is a general direction of mental orientations now in this the Jijnasur the person who is Prabhupada uses the word Jijnasur as inquisitive another word is curiosity, curious so you know the person who is curious about higher spiritual things is generally in the mood of goodness everybody is curious but most people are curious about very trivial and petty things people may be curious about have the stocks gone up or gone down, what is the score of the cricket match or they may be curious about some news, you know what is happening in the political field, who is likely to win the next elections or what is happening in the India-Pakistan border front these may have their importance but they are just mundane curiosities they have got nothing to do with the big questions of life so in a sense a person in goodness has a sense of wonder about living what do you mean by sense of wonder about living, because if we think about life, even if we don’t have necessarily a spiritual perspective, it’s remarkable we are living on a particular planet which is in a sense just floating in space, not a small chunk huge lump of huge mass is floating in space and here we are living and our whole body and the balance that is required to sustain life is extraordinary so from the material point of view if somebody tells you that I know a person who is running at 1000 km per hour around a ball of fire why is he running around like that, what is going on but the earth is running around the sun at extremely high speed and we are situated on that earth so even from a material point of view, things are quite extraordinary it’s like sometimes in magic shows we see that it is shown as if a magician he has a hat and he just pulls the hat and a rabbit comes out of the hat isn’t it, and they say oh you produced a rabbit, how did you produce it generally some sleigh of hand, some trickery but then it’s actually speaking from the material point of view suddenly this whole universe has come out and imagine that the rabbit has been produced a rabbit has been produced by a magician so suddenly it’s like a whole universe has been produced and we are like tiny germs on the hair of that rabbit we are just small beings on this vast universe so even from a material point of view who am I, where did I come from where has this world come from, these are important questions and people who are in goodness they ask these questions Einstein said that the womb of all science as well as the womb of all philosophy is a sense of wonder what is life all about how do things work so that sense of wonder actually leads to knowledge and that sense of wonder can be present only when there is goodness so now that sense of wonder if you remember we discussed it can go externally towards nature it can go internally towards psychology or it can go vertically upwards towards revelation so when we are going to study scripture it is not that we reject the world the whole concept of shastra chakshu or jnana chakshu is that we look up to understand through Krishna’s perspective but then we look at the world also and then we see it in new light we actually not only see the world with a sense of wonder but we see the world with a sense of understanding where the sense of wonder, the sense of mystery is slowly unravelled and that’s how the person in the mode of goodness rejoices we discussed earlier what are the two bondages in the way of goodness sukha sangena and jnana sangena so sattva sanjayate jnanam so this jnana leads to a sense of excitement, a sense of fulfilment when one understands in our modern society if people want to think of happiness they may think of some parties or some honeymoons or they may think of their favourite sports star lifting up the world cup and they themselves dancing all around that is the conception of happiness but actually when one is trying to understand something and when one gets insight, when actually something is difficult and one understands it the sense of jubilation the sense of illumination, the sense of satisfaction that comes by that is extraordinary most of us know the story of Archimedes he was trying to find out how to detect whether gold is pure or not and he was in his bathing tub and suddenly he understood Eureka he just leapt up and even without any clothes he just ran to his king’s palace to tell him what he had learnt, so why was that? because actually that understanding that comes is very in a sense intoxicating so now if that understanding is separate from God and spirituality then that can become a cause of bondage but on the spiritual journey also if we seriously try to study and gain understandings, then that understanding can be very enriching for our spiritual life Krishna talks about it नहीं ज्यानेन सद्रुषं पवित्रमिह विद्यते तत्स्वयं योगसं सिद्धा कालेन आत्मनी विद्यती so in 4.38 he says आत्मनी विद्यती one will rejoice within oneself and he says this ज्यान there is nothing as pure as this नहीं ज्यानेन सद्रुषं पवित्रमिह विद्यते nothing as pure as this and over time one will relish this more and more so this is सत्वात् संजायते ज्यानं then रज्यसो लोभ एवच so the characteristic of रज्यो गुणा is लोभ, I want more we discussed about this yesterday elaborately so modern society is characterised by 3 primary activities work, watch remember, shop work, watch, shop, you work, work then you want to relax, you come back and watch TV and when people watch TV they see so many advertisements and they think I want to go and shop this so work, watch, shop, WWS worldwide stupidity that’s how it is so रज्यसो लोभ एवच and प्रमादमोहं तमसो भवतो अज्ञानमेवच so the तमसो गुणा it characterises प्रमादमोहं and Krishna wants to tell that this is the mode which should be completely discredited अज्ञानमेवच, so he actually gives only one one describer for the other two modes ग्याना and लोभ, but he is प्रमादमोहं and अज्ञानमेवच he says these are the भवतो, they result from the mode of ignorance so Krishna Prabhupada explains he is talking about अज्ञानमेवच so Prabhupada explains that actually if we want to be happy we cannot become happy by gaining more and more, activities in the mode of passion are simply miserable, so why is that actually when I am in the mode of passion I may feel, oh if I just get a new car or a new house or a better job or a promotion or increment then I will become happy now that is the mentality and people strive very hard to get that most of the time they don’t succeed but even if they succeed the problem is that it is not that particular thing that was lacking, it was the mentality, the psychology of looking for what one is lacking and by acquiring what one doesn’t have, that mentality doesn’t change in the mode of passion, because the characteristic is लोभा one constantly keeps looking for what one does not have and I feel because I don’t have this I am not happy, if I get this I will become happy but the problem is even after I get that, the mentality of looking for what I don’t have, the mentality of greed has not changed and that’s why I don’t become satisfied, no matter what I have or what I don’t have if I have the mentality of looking for what I don’t have I will never become satisfied if a person wants to become happy, that person cannot become happy just by earning more money, we need money for living in the world but just by earning more money the person’s mentality will not change from passion to goodness that will change only by purification that comes by Krishna Consciousness so only when a person becomes purified and comes to Krishna Consciousness, then the person understands that actually these more, more, more things they are not going to make me happy, one becomes free from greed and then one can understand that these are my needs and these are my greed, let me put aside my greed and let me focus on my needs so that’s why at a material level it’s just a no-win situation material life and people are trying to pursue and become happy it’s a no-win situation because no matter how much they get that mentality of wanting more doesn’t get cured by that that will get cured only by spiritual purification that’s why it’s like a game that people can’t win and they can’t stop playing suppose a person is in a boxing match and he has to fight with a formidable boxer and he’s told that he’s such a small person that there’s no way he can defeat that big boxer but he’s told you are not allowed to go out of this ring so for the rest of your life what do you have to do just keep getting beaten, keep getting beaten so life in the mode of passion is like that because one has so many desires, one cannot possibly fulfil the desire, the craving is like a giant you cannot bring it down, you cannot satisfy it but on the other hand you cannot get rid of it also because even if I get what I want I’m still in that same ring I still have that same mentality, I still want more and more so material life in the mode of passion is like a game which one can’t win and one can’t quit it’s simply miserable that’s why the only way is when people feel greedy or people feel lusty then the solution is not just indulgence the solution is actually tolerance so that one can come to transcendence indulgence will never solve the problem so let’s conclude with this point here because the craving for more never goes away you can never be satisfied no matter how much more we get so the way to peace is not through indulgence but through tolerance and transcendence so if I want to become peaceful how will I become peaceful, not by fulfilling the craving but by tolerating the craving, tolerate it and if I keep tolerating it, I rise to a higher mode then I become free from that craving through tolerance and transcendence any questions about this? is this knowledge material or transcendental? the word jnana can have many meanings just in the previous chapter Krishna has categorically defined what he refers to by jnana that’s in 13.12 and before that also in 13.3 he says so now there he is referring primarily to either transcendental knowledge or the process by which one acquires transcendental knowledge now in the 18th chapter Krishna will talk about jnana in sattva guna, rajo guna, tamo guna that’s true now here when Krishna is going to talk about he is talking about a knowledge that is born through goodness so obviously that cannot be knowledge in passion or ignorance at the very least that has to be knowledge in goodness and the focus of this whole chapter as we will see from the beginning Krishna has said you want to go beyond the modes so in goodness itself one does not get complete transcendental knowledge but goodness sets the ground for transcendental knowledge and here actually speaking even material knowledge when one has to apply it if one wants to apply principles of goodness for example Stephen Covey talks about 7 habits of highly successful so he may talk about seek first to understand then to be understood now a person in the mode of passion or ignorance cannot do that that person just wants to impose his or her own will on others so even to apply holistic principles for living at a material level one needs some amount of sattva guna this is the problem with many self-help books the principles that they talk about may be sensible may be valuable also but knowing those principles alone doesn’t enable one to get the willpower to apply those principles for that one needs a process for inner transformation so sattva sanjayate jnanam refers to even in worldly life people value not just theoretical knowledge they value experience when people want to go into companies why experience? because on the field knowledge is deeper and deeper is more valuable than just theoretical knowledge so that’s in the material field also Krishna is telling over here that sattva sanjayate jnanam this refers to the primary knowledge in the mode of goodness which as we discussed earlier is the knowledge of artist, philosopher a poet, a writer and of course a transcendentalist one who is seeking transcendence so these people, generally sattva guna is at the very least at the jnanamaya or even at the vijnanamaya level so these are elevated people so for this kind of knowledge some amount of living is required without that this knowledge doesn’t become very deep so we discussed earlier also that there are certain principles which may not be directly relevant to the context of that verse but they apply to our devotional context like I gave the example of yagya shishta asini santo but prabhupada says we can apply it to bhakti also similarly sattva sanjayate jnanam it refers to sattva guna knowledge but that principle applies even to bhakti the principle that knowledge will come through sattva initially prabhupada writes in response to the in 3.36 arjuna’s question what causes people to do sinful activities in 3.37 prabhupada in the parpot of kamasya krodasya says that actually one has to rise from passion to goodness by the prescribed way of living and acting the prescribed way of living and acting that is what sattva by that one will come to sattva one will understand how lust is an enemy and then one will fight off that enemy so that principle applies even to the devotional path and to spiritual knowledge material knowledge is not permanent are you referring to spiritual knowledge at our level of consciousness or are you referring to material knowledge if we develop knowledge it is material i was asked this question on my website can we experience spiritual happiness in the condition stage that person and we had a long discussion he said no we can’t experience because the happiness that we experience is temporary whereas spiritual happiness is permanent so that is true and then the person said actually spiritual happiness cannot be experienced with material senses and our senses as long as we are in material existence are material so we cannot experience spiritual happiness so now this is not our acharya’s explanation yes we cannot experience lasting spiritual happiness right now because we are not at the spiritual state of consciousness so this is ignorance, passion, goodness this is transcendence because our steady state consciousness is not transcendental right now that’s why we may not we don’t steadily experience spiritual happiness but our consciousness moves up sometimes sometimes by Krishna’s inspiration from within sometimes by our resolute determination and chanting sometimes by the sheer force of the devotee association our consciousness gets dragged upward and we are peaks of our consciousness that touch transcendence and we get devotional experience at that time but we are also following a process by which our consciousness will get raised upwards so right now just as our experience of spiritual happiness is not lasting, similarly our experience of spiritual knowledge is also not lasting that’s why sometimes I may remember, I am not the body, I am the soul but after sometime I may just start thinking, yes I want to enjoy at the body level it doesn’t matter whether I am the body or the soul, I want to enjoy right now so that may happen because we have not yet realised it but we get glimpses of it by sattva guna we are moving in that direction by cultivating sattva guna we are moving towards that that becoming our steady state of consciousness bhakti rishabham siddhi talks about a staibhav, a steady spiritual emotion that we will attain over a period of time by the practise of bhakti so now Krishna will give a summary of the general direction of what people will go urdhvam gacchanti sattvastha madhya tishthanti raje saham madhya tishthanti raje saham jaganya guna vratistha adho gacchanti tamah saham adho gacchanti tamah saham so it’s very simple, urdhva is upwards, gacchanti is go sattvastha so those situated in goodness go upwards madhya tishthanti, raje saham they stay in the middle and jaganya guna vratistha so jaganya is actually abominable those who are having this abominable mode of ignorance, guna vratistha adho gacchanti, they go down so now this up and down can refer either to lokas or to species also so downs can mean either lower planets or it can mean lower species, it can refer to animal species also now after describing this general direction is the earthly planetary system the only place for karma yes and no yes in the sense that the law of karma in terms of say this action will produce this reaction or rather every action will have certain reactions that is in the earthly planetary system but that doesn’t mean that others are entirely free to do what they want see other living beings for example Indra in swarga when he enjoys with the apsaras there is no bad karma that happens over there but that does not mean that Indra is entirely exempt from responsibility for his actions Indra if he offends the sages has to suffer, if he is careless in battle if he gets defeated he suffers so the principle of being accountable for our actions applies everywhere throughout the universe but the law of karma as we know it where every single action bears a reaction that is primarily in the earthly planetary system so it’s like if you imagine visualise the circumference of accountability is much smaller in the earth that means every single action we are accountable for it whereas the circumference for accountability is much greater in the heavenly planets there is a wide variety of actions that they can do without having to bear karmic consequences but ultimately everywhere people are responsible for their actions but certain actions they are not directly immediately responsible, they are given because by the past karma they have done the punya by which they are also allotted certain kind of enjoyment but then the disadvantage in swarga is swarga one cannot create further punya just by being in swarga one cannot create further punya so the demigods when they please the sadhus or they please the sages and they get the kingdom back actually there are two different things over here one is we cannot say that action doesn’t produce reaction anywhere if Indra is fighting, if Indra doesn’t throw his weapon properly against Bali then Bali will counter attack and Bali will kill him so the action-reaction correlation is there everywhere in terms of what I do and what I get but when we are talking about a broader action-reaction correlation based on karma for example now if a person eats meat that person may not see any immediate bad reaction happening but there is a karmic reaction that is going to come eventually, slightly later so that way at an immediate level action-reaction always sequence is there and there are certain principles of dharma which the devatas also can tap devatas if they do certain activities for example dharmic activities, they get certain results by that now can you exactly call it punya generally speaking the scriptures don’t refer to punya that way in the 15th chapter, 3rd verse Krishna will say that what is the 3rd verse of 15.3 15.2 only, not even 3 in urdu this earthly planetary system it is bound by karma so in connection with that this rigid law of karma applies to the earthly planetary system but there are principles of dharma which even the devatas can tap into and they can get results by that so it’s not like a 1-0 thing that there is no law of karma there and there is only law of karma over here no, actually the principle of accountability for our actions applies everywhere but the difference is the extent of accountability and the extent of culpability how much am I culpable for my actions that will vary depending on where a person is living so let’s move forward now so after Krishna has said that so Krishna has now said urdhvam but urdhvam is not the ultimate goal in the 8th chapter Krishna has said that 8.15-16 he has said that the whole universe is a place of misery so after telling urdhva one will go to heavens, now Krishna will tell how one can attain transcendence in the next two verses and then Arjuna will ask a question about how can one do that so Krishna will just give a broad principle over here na anyam gunebhyakartaram yada drashtanu pashyati gunebhyasya param vetti madbhavam sodhi gacchati madbhavam sodhi gacchati so na anyam gunebhyakartaram when one understands that there is no other doer except the modes yada drashta anupashyati when drashta the seer sees in this way systematically anupashyati that means Krishna is basically referring back to what he talked about gyana chakshu in the 13th chapter prakrityevache karmani kriyamanani sarvasah yada drashta anupashyati in 13.30 he talked about that same point he is telling over here one understands that actually everything that is happening in the material world is happening because of the modes and then that alone doesn’t free one from it one understands that there is some being who is beyond gunebhyasya param vetti that there is some being beyond the modes by taking shelter it is not stated directly but the implication is by taking shelter of that being one can go beyond the modes such a person will attain my nature and what is the advantage of attaining Krishna’s nature he will tell that in the next verse mukto amrutam asnute gunan etan atityatri when one will go beyond the modes the dehi deha samudbhavan the soul has got the body right now janma mrtyu jara dukhair birth, death and old age these miseries such a person will transcend mukto amrutam asnute so in 13.13 Krishna had said by knowing this you will attain amruta krishna is reiterating that point so the advantage of going beyond the modes is freedom from the cycle of birth and death and the attainment of liberation so again this verse makes it clear that just goodness doesn’t lead to that because goodness is or earlier in the 14th verse he said uttam vidam lokam but that also is not liberation so this is actually very distinctive even in the abrahamic religions the difference between heaven and the kingdom of god is not very clear although it is hinted at but it is not explicitly well defined so in the bhagavad gita and the vedic literature things become quite clear there is a transcendental abode which is eternal and there is a higher planetary system where the enjoyment is more which is more long living than the earth but still it is temporary so krishna tells that you have to go beyond the modes to attain that now arjuna will ask a question, how does one do that arjuna vacham kairlingai strin gunanetan atito bhavati prabho atito bhavati prabho kimachar katham chaitan trim gunanati vartate trim gunanati vartate so linga means symbol, characteristic see the word linga is also used for shivalinga where it refers to the sexual reproductive organ so when a baby is born, when they want to know the gender they look at the linga so linga can specifically refer to the symbol that differentiates between male and female and linga can also refer to characteristics in a generic sense so kairlingai strin gunanetan so by what symbols by what characteristics can one know somebody who has atito bhavati prabho oh master, oh krishna, how can i know somebody who has transcended the modes kimachar, what is the behaviour of such a person and lastly katham chaitan katham means how how can i go beyond the modes so in a sense, what is the difference between the first and second question, linga and achar so there are three questions, what are the characteristics, what is the behaviour and what are the means for transcending the modes so in a sense, the linga, if you see how krishna will answer it linga refers to the internal characteristics how a person feels how a person perceives, how a person senses the world, how a person looks at the world that is kairlingai so that is something which we ourselves have to assess how much am i affected by the difference between heat and cold by the difference between male and female by the difference between honour and dishonour so this 21st verse has three questions and 22-23 is the answer to linga 24-25 is the answer to achar so the questions 14.21 has some questions and where are they answered so 22-23 answers kairlingaha what are the characteristics, these are inner characteristics then 24-25 iskimacharha outer behaviour and 26-27 is kathams chaitan how to transcend and krishna will answer that by bhakti so arjuna asks these three questions and krishna answers them and this answer in the 14.26-27 will lead to the 15th chapter so we will discuss arjuna’s answers in the evening class sorry krishna’s answers in the evening class thank you very much shloka