Gita study Mumbai 2012- 04.01-06 How the parampara is continued or lost

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Vivasvate, I spoke this to Vivasvan Abhiyan, am I audible behind, otherwise how am I, so this knowledge of yoga, proktavanaham avyayam, avyaya here refers to that knowledge is imperishable, this knowledge of yoga which is imperishable, I had spoken this earlier to Sun God and then he spoke it to Vivasvan, Manave, Ibraham, Ikshwaka, Vaibhavi, so like that it came down in, in this Abhiyan Satsang, Krishna will tell in the next verse, so before we look at the specifics of this particular verse, let’s look at the overview of the 4th chapter, so the 4th chapter has 42 verses, the previous chapter had 43, 3rd chapter, the 4th chapter is divided into 5 main parts, so Krishna teaches and establishes dharma, that’s verses 1 to 10, then verses 11 to 15 is, Krishna is the goal and creator of all paths, so dharma in this context refers to one particular path, but actually Krishna is the goal and creator of all paths, that means all paths are made by him and all paths are meant to take us back to him, then for Arjuna at his particular level of Adhikar, for him his dharma will be Karma Yoga and then Krishna talks about how a part of Karma Yoga is to perform sacrifices and by performing sacrifices as a part of Karma Yoga, one will achieve Jnana and after one achieves Jnana, then Krishna talks about what is the glory of a person who has achieved his Jnana, so in this way Krishna is basically taking what was taught in the previous chapter forward, he taught in the previous chapter was Karma Yoga, now he is talking in this chapter about how Karma Yoga leads to Jnana, how Karma Yoga leads to development of knowledge in the heart of the practitioner, in the previous chapter Krishna told Arjuna that the practise of Karma Yoga is the best for you, both for your individual advancement as well as for setting an example for others and Krishna also explained how the Karma Yoga is different from the Karmakandi, but Karma Yoga is not the ultimate goal and now how Karma Yoga will take us to the ultimate goal is what Krishna will analyse in this chapter, so this chapter is called, titled by Shri Prabhupada as Transcendental Knowledge, in another version of the Gita sometimes it is titled as Jnana Karma Sanyasa Yoga, so this previous chapter, third chapter is called as Karma Yoga, the next chapter by Shri Prabhupada titled as Karma Yoga Action in Krishna Consciousness, so that is sometimes titled as Karma Sanyasa Yoga, whereas this is titled as Jnana Karma Sanyasa Yoga, so what does it mean that actually by the practise of Sanyasa within one’s Karma, not Sanyasa of Karma, not renunciation of action, but renunciation in action, there is a difference between the two, Karma Yoga is not renunciation of action, but renunciation in action, that means so how the process, so how the process of knowledge, process of Karma Yoga will lead to the development of knowledge, that is the theme of this chapter, so Krishna is telling Arjuna here, that don’t think that you will be deprived of the fruits of Jnana Yoga, Krishna does not explicitly recommend Jnana Yoga in this chapter, but he tells Arjuna that whatever fruits you would have got of Jnana Yoga, that is ultimate development of Jnana, that you will get over here also, and now what exactly is the connection between this and the previous chapter, the previous chapter does anyone remember, what was the topic that was the conclusion of the last chapter, lust, how to control lust, and that concluded with the verse, evam buddhe param budhva, with intelligence control yourself, so now suddenly this verse goes into sun god, it seems a little odd, but what Krishna is telling Arjuna is, that the knowledge which I am giving you, this knowledge is not just contextual, it is eternal, that’s why I think it’s avyayam, it is not that I just gave you this knowledge, so that you could have, I can make you fight, no, this knowledge is what is always available, and it is co-eternal with the creation, and I am giving you this knowledge, so that you can apply it now, at the present time, so now Krishna will tell how I gave this from the beginning, and then in two words later he will tell, I am giving it to you again, so this knowledge of how to discipline oneself, how to protect oneself from victimisation by lust, is an extremely important knowledge, and Krishna gives it again and again, right from the beginning of the path of religion, beginning of the time when human existence is created, so now it’s very, this is a very interesting definition of what is the duty of the royal order, the duty of the royal order is to protect people, Prabhupada writes over here, we know kshatriya means, one who protects from hurt, but here Srila Prabhupada explains, so Srila Prabhupada explains that one should understand the science of Bhagavad Gita, or rather therefore the royal order should understand the science of Bhagavad Gita, in order to be able to rule the citizens and protect them from material bondage to lust, so the duty of the kshatriyas is not just to protect the bodies of the citizens, but also to protect their souls, and the greatest cause of bondage to the soul is lust, so the kshatriyas are also meant to protect them from that, so now of course modern administration don’t even protect the bodies of people, so many terrorist attacks and so much starvation and so many epidemics, so what to speak of doing the spiritual duty, but even if kshatriya doesn’t do their duty well, even if the state government protects the bodies of people that is not enough, kshatriyas are meant to protect the body and the soul, and that’s why for the purpose of protecting the soul, they have to have knowledge that they can implement the policy accordingly, and Mr. Prabhupada explains that how are they meant to protect the people from the lust, he says the executive heads of all states and all planets are obliged to impart this lesson to the citizens by education, culture and devotion, the three important points, let’s look at what they mean, education, culture and devotion, so education, culture and devotion, so I’ll give a simple example to illustrate what this means, so education means to understand for example that I am not the body, I am the soul, then culture means to train people to behave in such a way that their bodily consciousness doesn’t get influenced too much, that is culture, and then devotion would be okay, I am not the body but still I have bodily desires to enjoy, but then there has been facility by which people can experience higher taste, and by that they can forget the lower taste, so these three together help people to become free from the bondage, in one sense among all these three which is the most important? Devotion, without devotion everything else is a waste, Bhagavad Bhakti Hinasya, Yadhi Shastra Japa Tapa, Aprana Sivadevasya Manmanam Lokaranjanam, Hari Bhakti Surodaya is quoted by Shri Prakrishnan Pada Dinuvaya and he says that Manmanam Lokaranjanam, that if a dead body is decorated very beautifully, of all uses that, similarly without Bhakti or even not just materialistic activities, but even the religious rituals are like decoration of a dead body, so among all these three, devotion is the most important and ultimately every soul has to individually strive to develop devotion, but others can provide the significance, so one is knowledge and the other is culture, even in Vishnu Consciousness Movement, what can the temple managers do, temple and movement leaders do at best? They can actually provide education and culture and each of us has to individually develop devotion, each of us has to individually develop devotion and of course, to the extent we are going to develop the devotion, so the education is what is provided by the brahmanas, through facilitating the brahmanas, they arrange for the brahmanas to be maintained, they provide the brahmanas arrangements so that they can give that knowledge to the common people and they also themselves sit and receive the knowledge from the brahmanas, that is all how they give the education and culture is the Kshatriyas are also meant to maintain a proper behavioural code in society, because it is this behavioural code that maintains people in proper consciousness and proper values, so we discussed earlier how Lord Ramachandra was ready to even ask Sita to leave his palace, just so that he could set an example for others in society, so the culture has many aspects to it, one of those aspects is that everybody behaves in dignified ways, everybody behaves in dignified ways, so in our modern society we see that, there is no education that I am not the body, I am the soul, even if there is education, the culture is extremely infatuating one with quality consciousness and therefore it becomes very difficult to practise, so when both of these together are there then the devotion is easier to develop and easier to sustain, so this is the ultimate purpose of the Kshatriyas ruling. Narasimha Prabhupada further explains that, now he quotes about how Vivasvan, the Sun God, he quotes Brahma Samhita to explain that the Sun God is actually the eye of the Supreme God, the Chakshuresh, now what does it mean he is the eye, that actually in the Vishwaroop or in the Virata Roop which we see in the second canto that is described, there it is said the Sun and Moon are the eyes of the Virata Roop of the Lord, that is one way of understanding, another way of understanding it is that, that actually the eye is what enables us to see and the Sun is what enables everyone of us to see, even if we have eyes we cannot see without the Sun, so in that sense Prabhupada says before we can see, Krishna has to see, when Krishna sees, when Krishna glances at the world through the Sun, then we can able to see things, we may say we can use electricity, but electricity ultimately nothing but recycles sunlight, that way electricity whatever way it is made ultimately source of all energy on the earth is the Sun, so ultimately we depend on the Sun, now Prabhupada goes into quite a serious historical analysis over here about when the Bhagavad Gita was written, so you can read this it’s technical but it’s a little simple to understand, so Prabhupada explains two things over here, that there was a time when was Vivaswan born and when was Vivaswan educated, Prabhupada talks about that first and then when did Manu get the knowledge, so Manu is the progenitor of mankind, if you look at the history of how the various species are created, various living beings are created and the universe is populated under the guidance of Brahmaji, then actually speaking we have, so Yamuna and Manu, who occupy a large part of the human body, so Yamuna and Manu and his descendants practically go on to the almost 7th canto of Bhagavata and then 8th canto after Vyajendra’s pastimes, then suddenly things move forward and a large number of Manus are talked about in the 8th canto itself and then in the 9th canto onwards we have Lord Ramchandra’s pastime, we have Vishwaram’s pastimes at the 9th canto, so basically the Bhagavatam, how is the integral flow of the Bhagavatam, it is according to the Manus, different rules of the Manu, according to which Manu is ruling, so who are the incarnations of the Lord who appeared to be that Manu, that is the way the Bhagavatam is flowed, so the 8th canto is a transition where a large number of Manus get covered and then the 10th canto is talked about, starts from the 9th canto itself, last chapter of the 9th canto is like a summary of Krishna’s pastimes, so there is before that if you see, he is describing, so I am Vyavasthu Manu, the one that we are currently having is Vyavasthu Manu and Lord Krishna appeared during this Vyavasthu Manu’s time, so Krishna is telling I gave this knowledge to Vyavasthu Manu, so Vyavasthu Manu and Vyavasthu Manu are two different things, Vyavasthu Manu and Vyavasthu Manu are two different things, they are actually father and son and Vyavasthu Manu exists from a long, long time, actually for one Brahmaji’s time, there is one Brahma or rather for one universe life span, there is one Brahma, but within one Brahma’s day, there are how many Manvantaras? 14 Manvantaras, correct and in each Manvantara, the Devatas change, so if you see in the 8th canto, it will be described that during this Manvantara’s time, this person was Indra, this person was the, was say this particular Devata, this person was this and in this incarnation’s time, this particular, in this Manvantara’s time, this particular Devata appeared, this particular incarnation of the Lord appeared, so basically the point is that the posts of the Devatas normally keep changing, so the analysis which the Prabhupada does is that he describes, let’s read this through, make it very clear to you, so it’s interesting, there are these two main Vamshas, Raghu Vamsha and Yadu Vamsha, so Raghu Vamsha is Surya Vamsha, is also called as and so in Surya Vamsha, Lord Ramachandra appeared, in Chandra Vamsha, Lord Krishna appeared, so now actually in this particular dynasty tracing, Krishna is going across these two dynasties, because Ikshvaku is the, is the ancestor in the Raghu Vamsha, famous ancestor in Raghu Vamsha and Krishna is telling that So, Manu being the father of mankind, gave it to Maharaja Ikshvaku, so Prabhupada is correlating what the Bhagavata is saying and what the Mahabharata is saying, so now let us see what Prabhupada is saying over here, so this particular line of, out of the Kaliyuga, 5000 years have passed right now, this is the Aparayuga, this is Pratayatitta Yuga, let’s show this, I don’t know how much you can see over here, this is how things work, most of you know it, maybe some of you know it, you can see it from there, I am going to come here, see this chair is also empty, I am going to sit directly, so we see that there is, on top is the life of Brahma, so this is being depicted in expanding scale, so life of Brahma is large, if you take one microcosm, one small sample within life of Brahma and expand it, so like that, that is the Kalpa, that is the day of Brahma, and like that Brahmaji has 36,000 Kalpas, 36,000 Kalpas, there are 100 years and 360 days, so now within the Kalpa, there are slightly more than, there are 14 Manvantaras and there are Yuga Sandhyas also, Sandhya is like a junction, so we do Sandhya Vandan, so there are 3 phases of the day, and junction is 3 phases, so basically generally speaking something like 9, say 9 o’clock to around 9 o’clock night, to around 5 o’clock is the Tamoguna time, or you can say from 7 o’clock to 3 o’clock is Tamoguna time, it will change from season to season, sometimes it will be from 5 o’clock to 1 o’clock, whatever, 8 hours, then there is Satoguna time, then there is Rajoguna time, so this keeps changing, so the Gayathri is done to seek higher blessings, so that this time, when the influence of the modes changes, we can make the transition safely, without harming our consciousness, and remembering Krishna during the transition, so that we can continue our service to him, so Sandhya basically means junction which links together, so now within the Kalpa, there are 14 Manvantaras, now within one Manvantara, there is one particular set of cosmic government, there are particular Devatas, there are particular Rishis, a particular person becomes Indra, and a particular incarnation appears over him, now within that we have the Diveyuga, we have the 4 Yugas, Satyugas, Hidayas, Aparayogas, so now this is our current age, so we are in the 28th Diveyuga, in the 7th Manvantara, 7th Manvantara is Vaisakha Manvantara, and we are in our Brahmaji’s 51st year, 1st month, 1st age, so we are currently living in Kanyuga, at one corner, so now, okay I will not go into Sandhyas right now, it will be very technical, let’s focus on what we want to discuss, so now basically how it works is, that there are 14 Manvantaras, 50 Sandhyas, that make it 1000 Mahayugas, so now let’s look at our present age, so this is Brahma’s time unit, 1 day is 4.32 billion years, 1 night is equal to 1 day, so Brahmaji’s 1 minute is 6 million human years, his 1 second is 100,000 human years, his 1 year is, sorry, which one? 12 hours, 12 hours, so generally speaking in the Vedic literature, Vivas and Ratri, the word day can have 2 meanings, it can refer to the time when the sun is there, or it can refer to the time when 24 hour cycle is completed, generally speaking in the Vedic parlance, the day refers to the time when the sun is there, so day is normally 12 hours, so even in our cycles also, sometimes we have AM, PM, and sometimes we just have, so then in that case we have 1 PM, 2 PM, sometimes we have 13, 14 PM, 13, 14 PM, whatever like that, we have hours going on like that, so we also have this 2 meanings, here it is being used in 12 hour sense, so now let’s look at the age of our earth, and then we’ll look at the age of the universe, so 6 Manus have already passed, so therefore 6 Manvantaras are over, and then at the start of every Manvantara, and at the end of every Manvantara, there is Sandhya, therefore we have 7 Sandhyas, and then as we are in the 28th Mahayuga, so 27 Mahayugas have passed away, so 6 Manvantaras plus 7 Sandhyas plus 27 Mahayugas, so this works out to be, now here K is a symbol which we have used to make things simpler, and K refers to what here? It’s the duration of one Kali Yuga, so one Divya Yuga has how many Ks? It’s 10 Ks, Divya Yuga Mahayuga has 10 Ks, one Manvantara has 710 Ks, now Sandhya Tal has 4 Ks, now how the Sandhya works normally is that, here you will see, normally the Sandhya has a particular duration, that is actually 1 10th, 1 12th of the time of the Yuga, so there are Sandhyas which are equal to 1 12th of the time of Yuga, therefore if we have 3600, then it’s 36 before, 36 after, transition, there can be severe environmental, cosmic upheavals, in fact that is one of the reasons why most of the, many of the signs of the spread of Vedic culture all over the world have lost, been lost, because we used to have ruling all over the world, and now we don’t see so many symptoms, so many signs of that rule all over the world, so severe climatic upheavals occur, and even according to historians, the period of around 5000 years ago, that was the time when huge upheavals did take place, because what they also see is that, for example in the Egyptian civilisation, they have made the pyramids, and the pyramids still now are a mystery, how they could have been made with the technology that was available at that time, they have these huge stones, which have been, single stones have been lifted up to big heights, so how they had the technology at that time to lift up such big stones is a mystery, so now their original idea of the Egyptian civilisation was that, it was a linearly growing civilisation, suddenly people came and stayed at one place, then gradually they developed, and then they gradually built the pyramids, but as they have done this history more and more, they have found that actually, it’s not a linearly going upward going civilisation, actually it was at the peak, suddenly it came down and then it started slowly growing again, so it seems that there are some big upheavals during which a lot of things were lost, so Devamrit Maharaj has written a book called Searching for Vedic India, which makes a good case for the existence of ancient civilisations in the world first, and then the existence and the possibility that those ancient civilisations were expatriate civilisations from India, that won over India, so here Shri Prabhupada is describing how long is the age of Brahmaji, and this is elaboration of the calculation that Prabhupada used in the Partho, so we have 4567 K plus 5108, that works out to be 1.972949108 billion years, so I think most of you have not lost any love for mathematics, so it doesn’t matter, how many of you loved mathematics in school? Oh, really, good, so you’ll enjoy this, most people, one of the things that has happened in the Indian history tradition is that, mathematics was not too much importance, the mathematicians were developed, Aryabhatta was there and others were there, but in the western tradition, I think it was the idea that everything is numbers, and since that time, mathematics was exalted a lot, and that’s why every theory now it becomes seriously accepted only when it is expressed in mathematical language, in physics, so coming back to what Shri Prabhupada is saying is not good, so the Gita was spoken at least 120400000 million years ago, and then it is 120400000 million years ago, and it has been extinct for 2 million years, this is what we discussed, and of course this is the history of the Gita as it was spoken, but the Gita’s message itself, 4 principles are eternal, let’s move forward, In this way, in parampara, this knowledge was received, by the Mata, by the greatness of Ka, that knowledge was lost, so Krishna is interested in not using the word Gyanaha, he is using Yogo, he does not say Gangasvate Gyanam Praptavanam, because there can be so much Gyan, so Krishna says I want to talk to you that Gyan which helps one to develop Yoga, so now obviously Krishna is not talking about the Asanas over here, because he did not talk about Asanas in the previous verse, the previous chapter is that this is going to be a continuation of Yoga, Krishna is using the word Yoga because this is knowledge that connects, knowledge that enables us to reconnect with the knowledge, Yogo Nashtaha, that knowledge was lost, now in this purport, Shri Krishna Prabhupada’s expository expertise, expository means explanation according to time, place and circumstances, so Prabhupada repeatedly points out how in the present times the knowledge is lost because of so many unauthorised commentaries, all the Bhagavata verses are available, but different people have interpreted the Bhagavata in their own ways and because of that the message of the Bhagavata has been lost, Krishna Prabhupada is taking the basic principle of what Krishna is talking about and explaining it over here, so now how does the knowledge get lost, when we say the knowledge gets lost, it means the knowledges live in verses, in manuscripts, in India manuscripts don’t last for long, in the Indian weather, sometimes people ask do you have the original Vedas, do you have the original manuscript of the Upanishads, original manuscript of the Bhagavata, actually practically speaking, the original manuscripts are impossible to see, because the weather of India is so hot that it cannot be seen and that’s why within the Indian tradition itself, there was a system of Pathantam, Pathantam means the betrayed scribes who would copy, who would copy, this is here, copy it as it is and through these scribes the manuscripts, the books were passed on, but scribes were never elevated to a very exalted position, scribes had their importance, the really exalted positions were to those who were living those teachings, the great spiritual masters, because this is not just a knowledge that is to be understood through some simple books, the books are important, but that means that the knowledge of how this is to be lived is lost, the knowledge of how this is to be practised is lost, because people were practising it, they used to not practise it, so now we have the verses of Bhagavata, there is not much debate about Bhagavata’s verses itself, because we have Shankaracharya’s commentary which was almost 1500 years ago, almost 400 years ago and that has the same verses that are there today, so practically speaking there is no difference in the Bhagavata’s verses, but the meaning is lost, so yes, manuscripts are very important, manuscripts are not all important, what is important is that the verses we made were hard scripts, they stripped the heart of people, people live according to them, people stop living according to them and knowledge gets lost, now there are, when we talk about a tradition, how this knowledge gets lost and how it needs to be preserved, so there are two words here, so rejuvenators and renegades, so rejuvenators means juvenile, juvenile means young, juvenile is connected with young people, and rejuvenate means those who make the tradition young, those who make the tradition fresh, those who make the tradition relevant, so rejuvenators are extremely important, they keep the tradition alive through their actions, through their words, so among the rejuvenators and the renegades, both in one sense claim to be following the tradition, but when they are following, they reject the tradition, so we had at the time of Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Tapasamparadas, none of them rejected Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, all of them accepted Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, but what they were teaching was actually contrary to the example that he gave Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, so when we talk about renegades, they are not rejecters of tradition entirely, they reject the essential message of the tradition by practising something else, so in that sense they are like deviants, they deviate away, so how the tradition continues, it depends on the fidelity, faithfulness of the present teachers, as well as their sensitivity, how they can connect, you remember I talked about this in the Vishwamitra’s class that the fidelity, faithfulness is what connects the preacher to the tradition, the sensitivity is what connects the preacher to his audience, so when both are there, then only the preaching is proper, so fidelity and sensitivity, so when either is lost, it’s a Kaalene Mata Yoga Anashtakam, that is the power of time, so it’s interesting that if we read the Mahabharata, at the time of the Mahabharata, we see that a certain kind of culture was there, and you would think that that is Vedic culture, Krishna is saying, in the next verse he will say that, actually that knowledge is lost for you, now Krishna is talking about the time of Mahabharata, he is not talking about our times, so Krishna is saying even at this time the knowledge is lost, and how do we understand this knowledge is lost, it is because in the Mahabharata times, yes there were people who were practising Dharma properly, but there were also so many people who were practising opposite of the Dharma, Duryodhana himself had faith in Vedic rituals, but he did not have faith in the purpose of those Vedic rituals, so like that there were many people, so Krishna is going to say over here, knowledge is received in parampara, now somebody may say, Prabhupada expresses the point that one has to give parampara to receive this knowledge, to teach this knowledge, now somebody may say that actually, you don’t say that parampara is important, but Krishna is talking about parampara only in one fourth of one verse, he doesn’t speak anywhere in the Bhagavad Gita that without parampara you cannot get this knowledge, so if parampara was so important, then Krishna expresses it more, but the point is, we may not understand the importance of a word just like milk, or a message just like the milk which is occupied by milk, that is one way, but if you look at the context, Krishna has told, I am giving you this knowledge, Krishna gave this knowledge, this knowledge with which you conquer lust, you attain liberation, and then he says, I gave this knowledge right at the beginning of creation, and then this is how it came down, and because it was lost, I am giving it to you, that means Krishna is very clearly saying this is the standard by which the knowledge of the Vedic literature is achieved, parampara, without parampara, whatever knowledge we achieve, is at best speculative, at worst destructive, it is at best speculative, I think it is like this, like this, like this, I get some benefit, at most it will be destructive, so now Prabhupada says, it was very heavy, this spirit is demonic, because demons do not believe in God, but simply enjoy the property of the supreme, now you would think this is referring to a person like Ravana who wants to enjoy Sita Devi, but Prabhupada is saying this also refers to the commentator in the Bhagavad Gita, so Bhagavad Gita is the property of Krishna, and they take the property of Krishna, and they want to enjoy it for themselves, this spirit is demonic, so Prabhupada would say that, Krishna can speak for himself, you shut up, let Krishna speak, you shut up, let Krishna speak, so people will just speak everything of their own idea, in the name of Krishna, so in 1785 was the first English translation of Bhagavad Gita done by a person called Charles Wilkins, and since then there have been more than 1000 translations of Bhagavad Gita done, and all these translations have in their own way basically reflected the mentality of the people who were translating, because everybody who was translating the Bhagavad Gita had their own agenda, this is what I want to find in the Bhagavad Gita, so we have, even within the Indian tradition itself, we have people like Gandhiji who was saying that he is non-violent, and we have people like Savarkar, who says that Bhagavad Gita is a call for action for violence, so both of them swore by the name of the Bhagavad Gita, then there are Christian commentators of the Bhagavad Gita, and some Christian commentators they said that actually this is, there was one famous Christian, Edwin Anand, he wrote a book called Light of Asia, Light of Asia he said Buddha, and the Buddhists were very happy, he called it Light of Asia, then he revealed, he wrote a book on Jesus called Light of the World, so okay, Buddha is Light of Asia, Jesus is the Light of the World, so he was a proponent of what Christians call as the Fulfilment Theology, Fulfilment Theology means, so all of the religions are good, because they are stepping stones to Christianity, so all other religions attain their fulfilment in Christianity, so there are some Christian commentators who wrote the Bhagavad Gita, interpreted the Bhagavad Gita according to Fulfilment Theology, yes, Bhagavad Gita teaches some basic principles by which people can come and surrender to Jesus, and there are other Christian commentators who wrote how this Bhagavad Gita is a book of total paganry, and it has to be destroyed for people to see the light of Jesus, so we are with Christian tradition, there are people who are completely or radically opposite ideas, now there are other set of people, there are academic scholars, some academic scholars say that this Bhagavad Gita actually is a book that is profoundly confusing, that is profoundly confusing, so there was one miner, he compiled sort of 108 commentaries in the Bhagavad Gita, and he said okay, what does this commentator say, what does this commentator say, what does this commentator say, he gave a summary of all of that, and then finally he says, the Bhagavad Gita actually is profoundly inconclusive, profoundly inconclusive, so what happens is, without Shatrughna Parampara, no matter how much scholarship one has, one doesn’t understand the import of the Bhagavad Gita, so Krishna is saying that now I will give you this knowledge, this knowledge is lost, who can understand it, Krishna will give you two qualifications of it, that same thing, I will give you Arjuna now, now why am I giving it to you, because you are my devotee and my friend, Rasa and Gita, the best of all Rasa’s, Prabhupada Gita explains that, this is the qualification, first qualification is one has to be Parampara, second qualification is one has to be an Akta, and one has to be striving to develop a relationship with Krishna, to the extent we develop a relationship with Krishna, to that extent we can understand the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavad Gita is not different from Krishna, otherwise a person can get some superficial knowledge, just like if there is a child, who is sick, now the mother is caring for the child, and mother, then the child goes to the doctor, now among the two, the doctor does a thorough medical checkup of the child, so among the two, who will know the child better, the mother or the doctor, mother, isn’t it, there is a difference between knowing God and knowing about God, there is a big difference between knowing God and knowing about God, so regarding the example of the mother and the child, the mother knows the child, she loves the child, she has a personal relationship with the child, and she knows the child personally, she knows their emotions, likings, dislikings, on the other hand, the doctor knows about the child, about the child, the doctor may know even better than the mother, the doctor may know, okay, this is the blood pressure, this is the heart beat, this is the urine composition, this is the stool composition, and this is the whole body analysis, that is fine, but does that really tell much about the person, the doctor, right from his beginning, the doctor is beginning his investigation about the child, not with the purpose of developing a relationship with the child, because the doctor’s knowledge is not invalid, but that is not useful for developing the relationship with the child, so similarly, the mundane scholars, those who don’t have bhakti, they can get a lot of historical, geographical, textual knowledge about God and about God’s words, but they can’t connect with God, because their whole purpose is different, so as devotees, we approach Krishna as a living, loving person, not a dead historical specimen, you know, the historians, they approach God as a specimen, let’s say the specimen that you investigate in laboratory, you put in the microscope and investigate, so for them, they treat God and God’s words like a specimen, like a dead historical specimen, and then they try to analyse it, so they may get some knowledge, but they don’t develop any relationship with Krishna, so Krishna has to be, I might give this knowledge to him, don’t see me as an archer, so there are many scholars of the Bhagavad Gita, who are very deeply learned in the Bhagavad Gita, in the sense of knowing about its verses, knowing about its concepts also, what is talked about where, but we see this difference between knowing God and knowing about God, in the past time of the South Indian Brahmin, there were other people who actually were reciting the Bhagavad Gita precisely, and this Brahmin was not even able to pronounce Bhagavad Gita properly, now actually speaking, this is quite an extreme example, because a Brahmana is supposed to be learned, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is not talking about Shudra only, a Brahmana is expected to have learning, and if a Brahmana doesn’t have learning, that’s a serious deficiency, but that deficiency was more than compensated for in his age, because he had to do Shudra, so other Brahmanas were proud that they know Bhagavad Gita, but what they were knowing was only about Bhagavad Gita, this was, this was, but what this particular Brahmin knew was, this is Krishna in the object of love, and he said, you have actually understood Bhagavad Gita, so now after this, Krishna will be asked a question by Arjuna, so Arjuna heard, you immediately got a question, that how could you help him in this moment, because he existed long, long ago, but you are just, you are a contemporaneous with me, we are equals more or less, and now sometimes when a question comes up, the question may get answered a little bit later, so we may not ask, we may wait, we may wait to watch, but in this case, Arjuna sees that, subject is changing now, Krishna is saying, I will give you this knowledge, so he starts giving me this knowledge, in the subject of how he gave Krishna the knowledge of Sun God will be lost, so he waits for, he does not immediately after verse 1 ask the question, he waits for verse 2, verse 3 also he waits, but now he sees the subject is changing and he is going in a different direction, so he says, pause, pause, pause, I want to ask the question, so he asks the question, you know this question, Arjuna Vacha, Arjuna Vacha, Aparam Bhavato Janma, Aparam Bhavato Janma, Param Janma Vivasvata, Param Janma Vivasvata, Pratham Ekad Vijaniya, Pratham Ekad Vijaniya, Kamadau Proktavaniti, Kamadau Proktavaniti, So, Aparam Bhavato Janma, Your Janma is Apara, it is more recent, so his question is, in one sense it is quite demanding, in another sense it is very suppressive, so how, he is not saying you are just bluffing all your life, Param Janma Vivasvata, how can I understand it, so how did you speak it, so now this begins, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, the purport that even an eternal associate of the Lord is not equivalent to the Lord. Although Arjuna is also an eternal associate but he doesn’t remember that.
This indicates that there is always a difference between an entity and a Supreme God and this will become more clear in 15.17 and Krishna will talk about the liberated Jeeva and the conditioned Jeeva and both being inferior to the Supreme God. So Narasimha Prabhupada explains in the purport how the Lord descends. So previous verse he said that okay we have gone through many lifetimes.
Now he will describe how he is transcendental to material nature. So here this is a verse over which world wars have been fought. Literally speaking this is because this verse is critical for Mayavadis and Vaishnavas.
Mayavadis try to interpret this verse to mean that actually Krishna is a manifestation of the impersonal Brahman and the Vaishnavas explain how this verse means that Krishna’s form is eternal. So let us look at this verse. So Prabhupada explains a lot of things in this verse.
Prabhupada’s purports are quite coded over here. They seem simple but Prabhupada is addressing a lot of complex theological debates in third stanza. So let us look at Sanskrit.
We will focus on Sanskrit here. Krishna is referred to as Ajah, I am unborn. Now this itself seems to be a contradiction to the previous verse.
We have gone through many lives. So what does it mean? That means actually Krishna exists beyond when he visits the domain of time periodically. Now we will say okay fine, Ajah, soul is also Ajah.
Krishna has talked about the soul in the second chapter. Away Atma. Okay fine, soul is also away, Krishna is also away.
But the next line among all the living beings, I am supreme. So Krishna establishes supremacy with all living beings through this verse. The first time in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is talking about supremacy.
Previous verse, he said okay, I am greater than you, I remember everything. But what is the extent of that greatness, even everybody is able to remember something which we can’t remember. Bhutanam is a generic plural, it means all living beings.
I am the Eshwar of everything. Now the next few lines are most important. So Prakritim, Svam, Atisht, Ajah.
Prakriti means nature. Svam, my own, Atisht, Ajah. Atisht, Ajah means supporting or taking support of.
Sambhavami, Sambhavami can mean create or to manifest. Atmamaya, by my own energy. So now what does this verse mean? There are two critical words over here, three.
Prakriti, Sambhavami, Atmamaya. Sambhava can mean creation and it means creation then that would mean that Krishna is saying I create my form by my energy, Atmamaya. By my internal illusion, I create my form.
Prakritim, Svam, Atisht, Ajah, taking the help of my own Prakriti. But then it would have the fault of redundancy over here. Because Krishna is seeming to say the same thing in Gopas.
I create my form, Sambhavami, Atmamaya, by my energy and Prakritim, Svam, Atisht, Ajah, by taking support of my energy. So why is Krishna saying the same thing twice? That is what the Acharya has analysed over here. So actually speaking, Avaracharya has explained here that Prakritim, Svam, Atisht, Ajah, Sambhavami, Atmamaya means Krishna comes with his original spiritual nature and he manifests within his material nature.
So let us see what Prabhupada is saying over here. Although I appear in every millennium in my transcendental form. So what Prabhupada does in his translation is, to avoid the whole debate, by just giving a short translation, I appear in my original transcendental form.
Of course, if you look at it, Prabhupada translates Prakriti as a transcendental form. And in the translation, Atmamaya does not appear. But we will see what Prabhupada says in the Purport.
This is a little technical. We will complete our discussion with this today. So Prabhupada makes three points basically in the Purport.
First he says is that if Krishna’s form were material, then how time did not age. He did not grow old. You know, when he was 125, he appeared like a young man.
And previous verses already said that he does not forget anything. So now, Prabhupada correlates with the Bhagavatam and then he says that actually, Krishna performed many extraordinary activities that would not have been possible for anybody with a material body. So essentially, Srila Prabhupada, in the Purport, does not go into very technical analysis of Sanskrit words.
What he takes is, Aurobindo Acharya has given explanation of Sanskrit words. And for explaining that, there have been illustrations. So Prabhupada keeps things simple by giving us the illustrations.
We are not going to the Sanskrit polemics only. But suffice it to say that, actually Krishna, if at all there is any creation, there is no creation of Krishna’s form because Krishna’s form is eternal. And that will become clear in the later chapters of the Bhagavatam.
Here also, it is quite clear. Earlier also, 2.12 also Krishna said that I exist eternally. So it is eternal.
So what Krishna is saying over here is basically that by my Yogamaya potency, I appear in my material nature. So Atmamaya is by my internal potency. And Prakriti Samadhishtanam is I appear in my material nature.
So Prabhupada explains that even when Krishna appears in the material world, he is not affected by anything. He is entirely transcendent. This is a theme which will come again and again in the Bhagavad Gita.