Gita study Mumbai 2012- 02.55-61 Becoming a sthita prajna

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you very much. So, if I have only been hearing these problems in a spectator or a witness mode, I don’t have to do anything to solve these problems. But, Raghupat, you have to deal with these problems.
You have to try to solve all these problems. And yet, we never saw that you were depressed, you were dejected. How much must have been your confidence, your faith in Lord Krishna and Lord Chaitanya? So, you were like a commander who had bent on victory and you had soldiers with you who were weak, untrained and falling.
Still, even the soldiers were falling. The dragons were along and you were marching towards them. So, he said, despite our fallen condition, you kept marching ahead.
And if Rikhi path came with you, you would also march along with me. You will take us along. So, the Raghupat, actually demonstrate this in life.
Now, the next verse is about, this basically is just, now, I said 56 and 57 are talking about how does he speak. So, the previous verse is talking about the mental state before one speaks. If I am related, and if you see a tennis match, when the match ends, one person jumps up like a monkey up and down and the other person swings to the ground like a mountain has fallen on him.
You can see the duality of the two sides. So, before this duality comes, first there are certain emotions in the mind. There is an emotion of elation and there is an emotion of devastation.
First, 56 is describing how in a devotee’s mind there is no elation and no devastation. And then, that’s why, whatever we speak, first there is an internal speech that happens. We get some mental thoughts about a particular thing and then we speak it out externally.
So, this is to describe what happens internally in terms of how one perceives and how one feels. And this was to describe how one speaks. So, Shubham and Ashubham One gets Shubha and Ashubha Na Abhinandati Na Dveshti So, when he doesn’t say Abhinandati means he doesn’t and Dveshti means he doesn’t envy.
So, Chakravarti Kalam’s commentary says that actually, there is a person, he goes for begging alms and at that time, somebody gives him a very opulent food. He doesn’t say, Oh, may Krishna bless you, may you have a lot of wealth, may you have a lot of children, may you be happy. And if somebody doesn’t give him any food, drives him away, he doesn’t curse him.
May you go to hell for rejecting and offending a Mahabharata like me. But he didn’t think like that. He says, Equal poise in both situations.
Na Abhinandati Na Dveshti Tasya Prajna Pratishta That person is equal poised in both situations. says, there is always some upheaval in the world, which may be good or evil. Now, it’s interesting, Prabhupada says, even the good is an upheaval.
Normally, we think of upheavals in terms of evil. When things go wrong, then we say, heck, it’s upheaval, what do we know about it? Prabhupada says, even good is an upheaval. Why? Because even the good of this world can distract us from Krishna consciousness.
When things happen wonderfully in life, then one gets into the illusion that, yeah, I don’t need Krishna, I can be happy here only. So, Prabhupada explains that. But one who is fixed on Krishna consciousness is not affected by good and evil, because he simply comes with Krishna who is all-good absolute.
What does this mean, all-good absolute? That a patient is under treatment from a competent doctor. When sometimes the patient may feel good, sometimes the patient may need an injection, which will make him feel bad. But in both cases, actually the end result that is going to come to him is good, because he is under proper care.
So like that, a devotee sometimes good may happen, sometimes bad may happen. A devotee doesn’t get disturbed by that because he is connected to Krishna and he knows that actually what is going to happen to me is the best for me. So he is not disturbed by that.
This is samadhi, connected to Krishna. Now, after describing this, Krishna is describing about kim-asi. How does the person control his senses? yada samharte chayam yada samharte chayam purvam dhanim sarva-saha purvam dhanim sarva-saha indriya indriya dhevya indriya indriya dhevya tasya prajna pratishtita tasya prajna pratishtita So, kurma, kurma is an autolyse.
This is a standard example. The autolyse withdraws his senses with him. So now, remember this is the situation when the senses don’t need to be engaged.
For example, we are walking along the street and going to some programme. At that time, we don’t have to look here and there. So, withdraw the senses.
We can just walk along with him down or we can chant the holy names and just look straight ahead and not look here and there. So, withdrawing the senses. Later on, we shall talk about how to engage the senses.
But withdrawing the senses is extremely important because, see, for the male body, there is a strong visual hunger for beautiful forms. In the male body, biologically, there is such a way that there is a very strong hunger for beautiful forms. And, actually, the female body is different.
Female body doesn’t have that much attraction. Although that may also be there to some extent. But women primarily get their gratification through relationships and through emotions.
But men get through seeing. And that’s why male going to pornography is far more than female going to pornography. So, actually, our modern society just exploits this tendency totally and makes the weakness of the male in terms of attraction for the feminine forms and it exhibits all the good looking forms that are there for the visual consumption exploitation by the male.
So, just as a person may eat some food, eat some food, that is consumption through the mouth. But like that, when a person is looking at form, that is visually consumed in the form, visual consumption of the form. The visual consumption of the form is also quite detrimental because it agitates the mind.
So, samaharate jayam, samaharate jayam, one, withdraws the senses. Now, how can we withdraw the senses? There are two kinds of obstacles which are unknown and known, others are unknown. That means, not known and unknown, foreseeable and unforeseeable.
Foreseeable means, for example, if I am going on a bike and I know that there are potholes over here. So, I know, I go on on that regularly and I know there are potholes. So, what will I do? In advance I will plan, I will stay in my vehicle like this, so that I won’t go over the pothole.
So, just as we would plan to negotiate in the vehicle in such a way that the foreseeable potholes can be avoided. Similarly, we need to plan our lives in such a way that whenever there are foreseeable temptations like, okay, when I go along this road, I know there is a big pothole over here. When I come here, okay, these are the situations where there are temptations.
And I plan, I don’t even look in that direction. So, we have to plan. Actually, it’s a bad one.
And if we are naive, we will be spotted in the potholes. We will be spotted in the potholes, that’s all. So, foreseeable obstacles, we have to plan such a way that we can withdraw ourselves.
And there are sometimes obstacles that are unforeseeable. And we get into situations where we may have to withdraw. So, at that time also, at least, in our culture context, we have the, we don’t look at matters at all.
So, in the best of our practise, people feel that we are interfering personally. So, they don’t like it. But in India, it’s possible for us.
So, withdrawing the senses. When we withdraw the senses, then we can move on. We’ll talk more about this when we come to the section on karma that is there in the third chapter.
But, in general, withdrawing the senses can save us a lot of unnecessary agitation in the mind. Because at one level, once we have committed to taking decisions to ours, we are not going to go about gratifying our illicit desires. So, then all that is going to happen is we expose ourselves, expose our eyes to certain things it only agitates our mind.
So, what happens is for us, if we let our mind get agitated, we are not going to go in that direction and gratify ourselves. Therefore, it is only all pain, no gain. It’s only all pain, no gain.
It’s just agitation and that’s all we get. So, therefore, we avoid it. Now, it’s the same point, what I was talking about before.
Prabhupada has taken the principle about it. A yogi is one who controls his senses according to a plan. It’s very interesting.
That means first of all we have to make a plan. We want to control our senses and we want to make a plan to control the senses. And then we have to implement the plan.
So, that means there is the intention, there is the planning and there is the implementation. So, for most people, there is no intention of controlling senses. Their intention is to gratify the senses.
But, even as a devotee is, sense control is not an easy thing. And there has to be, a devotee controls his senses by a That means what all is there in the plan? First there is intention. Then there is planning.
Then there is implementation. So, when all these things are done, as devotees we do have the intention to control our senses. There is sometimes there are phases when our mind gets carried away.
At that time we think, oh, I want to indulge in this. But, in general, we have the intention to control the senses. But, along with the intention there is a situation when I get into this situation when this problem comes up.
I say, oh, I should deal with it. So, it’s like a war. And, in a war, actually, most wars are won not just by momentary inspiration.
There is a systematic planning. This attack comes over him, this attack comes over him. So, actually, what are our weapons? At one level, our weapon is the holy name.
We chant the holy name. But, along with the holy name, the main problem that comes when maya happens is that we don’t feel like chanting. We feel like enjoying it.
So, when the feeling takes over, then what happens is our intention gets destroyed. So, at that time, we will look at this in the higher levels. So, they would have lockets and they would put Jagannatha around them.
They would have lockets and then they would go out. At that time, whenever any temptation would come up, they would say, Oh, Jagannatha Swami, I am going to die. Oh, Lord Jagannatha, please come in the path of maya.
Please save me from maya. So, they had to say, this is great. We pray to the Lord like that and the Lord will come and rescue us.
Because they had to pray, the Lord will rescue them. So, there are different ways in which different plans will work for us. But we have to make some plans and that’s how we will be able to deal with this.
And interestingly, Prabhupada says that a yogi or a devotee must be very strong to control the serpents like a snake charmer. Normally, a snake charmer is not strong in terms of body building. It’s not that a devotee has to be strong in terms of he has to have a strong skill.
How should I remember Krishna? How should I take care of my consciousness? You do that, then you will be able to deal with serpents. Now, Krishna will start from the negative level to reach the positive level. First, he will resolve with withdrawal senses.
But then, actually, the question will come up, how long can one withdraw the senses like that? Not really to happiness. And then, another question comes up is, okay, when a sick person is there, he is also withdrawing his senses. The person is having certain emotions, the person is having certain sickness.
He is not enjoying his senses. Just because of sickness, he is withdrawing his senses. So does he become… Isn’t it? No.
Then Krishna explains the next phrase. Vishaya Vini Vartante Niraha Rassidee Nahan Rasa Vajam Rasa Upyashya Anand Vishwani Vartate Vishaya Vini Vartante We use the word Niraha Rassidee Nahan The Vishayas are like the Aahaar of the Devi. The sense objects are like the food for the Devi.
We have the food for the body which comes to the tongue, but all the sense objects are like food for the senses. And just as when we are starving, it’s called Ekadashi, we might starve as a feat of sense control or as an offering of devotion to Krishna, but still the hunger is there. So similarly, the conditioned soul is clearly hungry for sense gratification and it cannot go on for very long.
Prasadachana, he gives it up. He gives up the enjoyment, but still the desire remains. Param Vrishtva Nivartate This is a very interesting phrase.
Now Krishna has not yet explained what is this Param. Now Prabhupada translates Param Vrishtva as higher taste. Now if you see, Vrishtva refers to the seeds.
So I explained this earlier if you remember that actually the experience of Krishna is transcensory. It is not in the senses, it is beyond the senses. It is in the heart.
So Param Vrishtva means one who gets a higher vision, a higher experience, a higher taste. So you know, understand this. All this, reality is not what it seems to be.
This is not a sense of pleasure. There is some pleasure beyond this. This is Param Vrishtva.
So that Param Vrishtva can happen sometime at one moment. Like say it happened where Dhruvamangal Thakur mentioned Param Vrishtva. The same interaction that you had to me, you had to my body, you had to Krishna, you will be self-realised by now.
Param Vrishtva. So sometimes for some people that Param Vrishtva may come as a flash of lightning at one moment and that flash of lightning becomes a permanent sunlight of illumination. For other people, that may come as a flash of lightning but then, as Dhritarashtra says, yes, your words are like a flash of lightning but the sky still remains dark.
So that attachment keeps telling. Sometimes the ray doesn’t come but after that it disappears. So that depends on what you do, Dhritarashtra.
When the flash of lightning comes, if we go towards the light, if we try to act in light, then Krishna will be more light. Krishna will call the sun to rise within our heart and the sun will still be illuminated. But if we, despite the flash of lightning, go towards mental enjoyment, then what will happen is, we still are in mental enjoyment.
So Shatrughna says, her quotes are nice over here. She says that when somebody is going to lose, the patient neither likes the rules nor loses his taste for it. So both, he doesn’t like the rules, he doesn’t lose his taste for it.
But similarly, that’s what happens with the negative processes. Now Prabhupada is giving us, what Krishna will tell you later, he is a positive person of Krishna consciousness. So he loses his taste for pain things.
Pain means, in tikka, you say, this particular item, salt and spices and all that, it’s tikka. So like it’s pain. So like that, what happens is, when you practise Krishna consciousness, then as you get a higher taste, mental enjoyment becomes pain.
But liberation becomes pain and state. The state means, it becomes rotten, it’s not so attractive. But Krishna describes now in the next, he says that, actually, Karantrishtva Nivartakas, 59 is describing, that just by withdrawal, one cannot continue, but by experiences of a higher level, one can continue.
So this 59 is expanded to 60 and 61. 60 describes the negative part, why one cannot continue. And 61 describes, how one can continue.
So, this verse is actually not described in the Sanskritifier. The Karmakandi Sanskritifier, has been left far behind. And the gross sense enjoyers, who are completely erudite and godless, they are no longer in question.
Here, Krishna is talking about a person, who intends to control the senses. Remember intention, planning and implementation. So here the person is, intending to control the senses.
Yato. He is endeavouring to control the senses. He is, Vipashchitaha, he is discriminating also.
Still, Indriyai, Brahmai, these senses are so wide in, that, they drive away, they carry away the senses. Krishna will describe later, why and how this happens. But here he gives the example of, how Vishwamitra is also, attracted and, he, succumbs to the senses.
Now, there are many similar instances, in the history of the world. At Ropakpuram, on the other hand, we get a higher case, he was a Yamacharya. You know, sometimes we wonder, how does this happen? Somebody, Vipashchitaha, somebody, Yato, how can a person like that, have the senses, carry him away? Actually, it is not that the person is, wanting to indulge in this.
It is not that the person is, you know, unintelligent. He has the intelligence, and he has the, intention also to control. But still the senses carry away.
Why? Because, the soul is ultimately, seeking pleasure. The soul is seeking pleasure. And once we, give the soul, when the soul says, okay, I will pleasure you, then, it is good.
It is like, there is a Krishna channel, and a Maya channel. So, as long as Vishnu, is in the Krishna channel, then we are in the, Vishnu consciousness. And he is going forward.
At that time, Vishnu says, she is stupid. Who will do stupid? Who will do stupid? There was one devotee, who was, a brahmachari for almost, 10-15 years, and then he got married. And then, a lot of complications.
He was telling me that, when I was a brahmachari, who will get married next? Who will get married next? And then he said, when I got married, I was thinking, who will get married next? Why am I getting married now? And what happened was, that actually, when, one is in the Krishna channel, the Maya appears completely senseless. But if one contemplates, on self-realisation, one allows Maya to creep in, then what happens is, the channel gets switched. Once you move into the Maya channel, then Krishna consciousness doesn’t make any sense.
It’s like two different ways of looking at the world. And, once I am in this way of looking at the world, that way doesn’t make sense. But if I come in this way, now when I say, I am talking about making sense, it is not about intellectual sense.
It is emotional sense. See, Maya doesn’t attack us through intellectual. If it attacks, that’s doubts.
That’s emotions. So, once a person is caught up in the emotional gratification, at that time, sensibility control, renunciation, it just doesn’t make any emotional sense. So, the key is, to not let our emotions get triggered.
Once we let our emotions get triggered, after that, it carries on. So, the earlier it does, the better it is. But once that gets triggered, it is like a giant dam.
And that is, allowing thousands of gallons of water to be stored. But, one hole in it. One hole, nothing seems to be happening.
But by that one hole, and then slowly as the flow of water comes out, at one particular point, the whole dam it blows away. So, everything starts getting flooded over there. So, although, actually, the eruption and the destruction of the dam happened at a particular moment, but the origin was not at that moment.
The origin was when the first crack appeared in the dam. And those who were supposed to take care of the dam, they immediately took care of the crack. They were not vigilant enough to see whether the crack has come.
And, now the crack has come. Now for us, the crack doesn’t have to come. We are already cracked in many places.
Or, we have so many cracks. But, you know, we are trying to seal the cracks. We are trying to seal the cracks.
So, we know that there are so many conditions, so many weaknesses. so, if the cracks are there, and if at that time, through the crack, suddenly a heavy flow of water also comes, then it is deadly. If the crack is there, there is no water, that is not a problem.
If the water is there, there is no crack, that is also not a problem. That means, now, first there is a weakness within, and then there is a temptation without. So, basically, fall happens in two ways.
One is, maya can attack externally, maya can attack internally. Ultimately, both have to unite, internal and external. But, the origin can happen either way.
Just like, if there is a steady pond of water, sometimes the pond may get disrupted because of something that was stored from outside. Or, sometimes, because of fermentation, the bubble may come up from below. So, like that, sometimes, because of no apparent reason, suddenly we start getting very agitated.
Suddenly, we start feeling very distressed. So, then, that disturbance makes us go towards some sense of, okay, I want to go and do something. I want to enjoy.
So, then, from the internal, goes to the external. And, sometimes, from the external, we see some sight, we talk with someone, we do something. And, that external comes to the internal.
So, actually, it can happen both ways. Internal to external, external to internal. But, the important thing is, if both happen together, both, the contact has to happen.
If the external is there, but we are not internally, it is not a problem. If the internal is there, but there is no external portion, that is also not a problem. But, if both are there, that is a big problem.
So, as of now, in brahmacharya life, what we try to do is, we know the internal weakness is there. We minimise the external agitation. We try to live within the ashram, and we try to avoid going into situations which unnecessarily overpower us.
But, it won’t come together with the agitation. And, how can we avoid that? By planning. By planning.
Of course, planning alone is not enough. We have to pray to Krishna for help. But, this won’t be possible.
So, for every problem that is there, there is a background issue. There was a crack. And, actually, Krishna gives warning, that this crack is there, you have to be careful.
Because, it is like a bomb. Right? Explodes. So, Krishna described the next verse.
How do we avoid it? rāṇī-sarvāṇi-saidhyamya rāṇī-sarvāṇi-saidhyamya yukta-siddha-matpara yukta-siddha-matpara paśyati-yasya-ndriyāni paśyati-yasya-ndriyāni rasya-dravya-prateṣhita rasya-dravya-prateṣhita So, here, Chakravartipa describes, this was talking about different stages, actually. It’s not just one stage. This was often called as the two-point formula.
Isn’t it? So, Chakravartipa describes that actually there are different stages that we talked about over here. sanyamya That is the first stage. That is, control of senses.
Then, yukta-asiddha-matpara That is, fixing the mind on Krishna. And then there is vashya. Vashya is conquest of the senses.
So, control and conquest are different things. Control means there is opposition, but I control it. That’s my strength.
Conquest means it’s defeated. So, first, there has to be some basic control of senses. For us to even practise brahmacharya, we need some basic control of senses.
With the basic control of senses, we start chanting Hare Krishna. We are fixing the mind on Krishna. And as we fix the mind on Krishna, gradually what happens? Vashya, he is seen.
He conquers the senses. That is how it works. So, we will continue this in our next class.
Any questions? One question. Yes. In the first verse, it says matpara As I said, it’s the first drop of bhakti that Krishna has dropped over here.
So, in this verse, what is happening? Significance of 4.61 Krishna is not just the teacher of sense control, but the object of the control of senses. The object means where I am to focus the senses. So, Krishna is being in this position already for the first time.
Actually, this is the central solution for the whole thing. How can one become free from that position? There is matpara. One fix the mind on Krishna, then one gets higher.
When one gets higher, then one becomes pure. So, we will continue tomorrow. Thank you very much.
Bhagavad Gita. Gita.