Gita Study Mumbai 2012 08.23-8.28 Bhakti is superior to the paths of devayana and pitrayana

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Nithyananda Gaura Premamandi. Very beautiful. So, now we will discuss from verse 823 of the 8th Chapter.
So, this last section is entitled as a devotee doesn’t need to worry about the time of devotion. How basically bhakti helps us attain the supreme more easily. Bhakti is preferable at the moment of death.
Somebody might have the doubt. Okay, you said bhakti is easier. Bhakti will take us back to God and Sula Bhakta.
But then at the moment of death, one has to precisely remember. So, how exactly will bhakti help one at the moment of death? So, Krishna is coming back to the last point now. So, essentially the focus is on how attaining the supreme becomes easier through the path of bhakti even at the moment of death.
Not only is bhakti easier to practise, but bhakti is easier to help us remember Krishna at the time of death. And for that, Krishna talks about, you will have to visualise a lot of things here because we don’t have bhakti. So, Krishna will talk in reference to Deviyan and Pitrayan.
So, after the class, one is going to ask an interesting question, which is relevant here. He says when we are studying the Bhagavad Gita, we can get a wide variety of questions. So, what should be the focus that we have? Generally speaking, the question that we get can be related with various things.
See, our focus while studying the Bhagavad Gita is to understand the flow of the Bhagavad Gita. Understand the structure and the flow. The structure refers to the basic contents of the Gita.
Just like the structure of these houses, there are side walls, there is a roof, there is floor and this is structure. So, for example, first six chapters are talking about karma to bhakti, second six chapters are about dhyana to bhakti. This is structure.
Structure refers to the components and the flow refers to how the components lead to each other. So, we are focussing primarily on the structure and flow of the Bhagavad Gita. So, this is the message of the Bhagavad Gita.
In one sense, the message of the Bhagavad Gita is eternal. At the same time, when the Bhagavad Gita message is spoken, the eternal message is spoken, it is spoken in a particular culture, at a particular time and it assumes certain knowledge among the audience because that knowledge is familiar at that time. So, you can visualise that this is the eternal message of the Bhagavad Gita.
This is the time 5,000 years ago and this is the time right now. So, the Bhagavad Gita message at one level is eternal. At the same time, because it was spoken 5,000 years ago, it assumes a lot of knowledge of the situation 5,000 years ago, of the cultural knowledge, philosophical knowledge.
So, now there are questions about what the Bhagavad Gita assumes as the knowledge of the audience. So, now we try to understand that at a basic level. We don’t have to go into the details of that.
Why? Because that may not be relevant to us. So, one kind of question would be the question about the message of the Gita itself. What is the structure? What is the flow? That we need to clearly understand.
Another kind of question might be, what are the concepts the Gita assumes and how much do we need to understand them? Not too much, little bit is enough for us. So, that is not directly relevant to us. Another would be, see the eternal message of the Bhagavad Gita, how does it relate with what we already know? And how to make sense of that? So, for example, some people may have the question, Krishna says that, in the 8th and 10th chapter, Krishna may say that, among the nakshatrana, among the stars and the moon.
So, now this contradicts what we seem to already know. We consider the stars are one body or one kind of celestial object which is devoid of light and the moon is another kind of celestial object which is not devoid of light. So, this raises questions.
So, now this is that among the stars and the moon is not the central message of the Bhagavad Gita. This is just an example to illustrate the beauty. But it may raise some questions.
So, among these three types of questions, I hope the three types of questions are clear. One is the direct questions about the Bhagavad Gita, its structure, its flow. Second is the concepts which are not focused on in the Gita but are referred to in the Gita, which are assumed to be known to the audience, to Arjuna.
And the third is questions as they relate to our knowledge. So, the Bhagavad Gita may reference certain things which do not make sense. How does this work out? So, these are more important because these will help people to gain faith.
So, how do we understand nakshatrana, mahamsa and shiva? Actually speaking, the scriptures describe that there are different kinds of fire. Saptarchi, saptarshi, one of the names of, the series of names of Lord Vishnu, the Vishnu’s ashram described that. Saptarmi, saptarchi, saptarshi described.
He is the seven kinds of fire. So, some kinds of fire give out heat and some kinds of fire give out cool kind of air, cool kind of, they get a cool influence also. So, when we say nakshatrana, mahamsa, shiva, so basic principle is that they all give out some kind of light, some kind of flame.
Now, modern science says that one is the flame, other is the reflection. That may be part of the explanation. That is not the complete explanation.
So, the point is that the sun gives out one kind of flame and the stars give maybe a similar kind of flame. But beyond that, there is the moon, which gives an entirely different kind of light. So, the moon may reflect the light that comes from the sun.
But in addition to that, the moon gives another kind of light also. So, in the sense that among all these light emitting sources, the moon is the most prominently visible to us, apart from the sun of course. So, moon is the most prominent among the nakshatras.
So, therefore, in a broader sense, there are many light emitting objects, among them the most prominent is the moon. But when we say light emitting objects, Vedic culture understands that there are different kinds of lights. Some lights are cool, some lights are hot.
Modern science understands that there is only one kind of light and that light comes from the sun and goes to the moon. That may be part of the explanation. That is not the complete explanation.
The moon may reflect some light to the sun, but additionally, it gives some other light itself also. So, here we are discussing something about how the Gita’s passing concepts refer to our current body of knowledge. So, in general, we will focus on the central questions, the Gita’s own structure and flow.
Secondly, we will focus on where the Gita seems to raise some questions with respect to our current body of knowledge. And thirdly, we will refer occasionally, briefly, to get an introductory understanding of what other concepts the Gita refers to. Even if they are not directly relevant to us, we won’t go much into it, but we will just get a cursory understanding.
So, the section that comes now will fall in this third category. Third category means questions which are related to earlier culture, which don’t have much to do with how we practise bhakti right now. So, let’s recite the verses.
So, you recite all the verses, then I will explain this. So, the first verse is about the fiery God. He is alive at an auspicious moment of the day, during the fortnight of the Vibhuti month or during the six months when the sun travels in the north.
The mystic who passes away from this world during the night, the fortnight of the running month or the six months when the sun passes to the south, reaches the moon planet again from the sky. So, at the time, Krishna says, the first verse is 23, 24, 25, etc. So, I will tell you at the times when a yogi passes, he will return and he will not return.
So, now, this set of verses have been explained differently by different acharyas. We will focus on Valdemitavachana’s explanation, which Prabhupada mainly follows. So, now, Valdemitavachana has some interesting questions and then he proposes to answer them.
If you look at the next verse, Krishna seems to be talking about Yatra Kaale. Kaale literally refers to time, the time at which you pass. But then in the next verse, when he is describing the time, Agnir Jyoti Aha Shukla, Shanmasa Uttarayana.
So, Shanmasa Uttarayana would refer to time, the six months when the moon is in Uttarayana. Shukla Paksha, Shukla could also refer to time. But actually, Agnir Jyoti Aha, Aha refers to day, that could refer to time.
Agnir, fire, does it really refer to time? Not necessarily. Jyoti would refer to illumination or light. So, Aha, day, there is automatically illumination.
So, Aha, it does not necessarily, it would seem redundant, Aha and Jyoti both coming together. So, he explains that actually the word Kaale means not just time in Sanskrit, it also means path. That actually what is being referred to over here is not just specific time.
Specific times are important. But when the soul departs in this world, it can go along two paths. And when it goes along the two paths, there are certain predominating deities that assist the soul in that journey.
So, when it is Agnir Jyoti Aha Shukla, so what is referred to is, that actually it is referred to the predominating deities, the deity of fire, the deity of light, the deity of daytime, deity of the Shukla Paksha. And there are predominating deities for this. And they assist the soul when he departs.
And in our next word, Dhruma Radhastha Krishna, so there are other set of deities which assist the soul when he departs. And the Vedanta Sutra, this is elaborately described in this Vastra. These two paths are called as the Deva Yana and the Pitra Yana.
The Deva Yana path is when the soul takes the path, he doesn’t return. Pitra Yana path, when he takes, he returns. So, what are these paths actually referring to? Essentially, actually it is described that now Pitra Yana doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Pitras.
It may, it doesn’t have to necessarily. Deva Yana also doesn’t necessarily have to do anything with the Devakasakas. What it refers, it is the path of the gods and path of the Pitras.
Generally, path to the gods and path to the Pitras. It’s path of the gods. So, Devas, what is described in the Rig Veda, that Sada Vishnu Paramampadan Sada Pashyanti Suryaha, that the Devas are constantly fixing their mind on the lotus feet of Lord Vishnu.
What this means is the Devas ultimately aim to return to Vishnu. The path of the Deva Yana, the path of the god refers to the path which goes out of the material world to the Param Yuga, to the eternal world. That’s why Krishna is telling, Brahma Brahma Vidho Jana, one who departs in step A, he goes to that Brahman destination.
He doesn’t come back. On the other hand, the Pitra Yana, so the Deva Yana path is the path of the spiritualist. And the Pitra Yana path is the path of the pious people.
They are doing some Punya, but they are not necessarily pursuing transcendence. Punya means they are Dharma Arthakam. They are not really pursuing Moksha right now.
So, what happens, such a people, they make, here Krishna is saying, Tatra Chandramasamjyoti. They will attain the moon planet, but they will come back again. So, what does this refer to? That means, if we are on the earth over here, there is one path which goes, one doesn’t come back.
Another path, it goes to some heavenly planets. It does not necessarily go to Chandra Loka. It can go to other heavenly planets also, depending on the karmic capacity, karmic level, karmic account of the soul.
It will go there, but we know, as Krishna has already told in his chapters, Abrahm Guna Loka Punaravati Nivaraja. Wherever one goes, one returns back. So, yogi prapya nivartate.
Nivartate means comes back. These are two paths and what is described as the assistants or the predominant leads who assist the soul on the journey along that path. So, now the timing is important, but the timing is not all important.
So, it is described that the soul departs at a particular time, then that is one indication that the soul’s departure will be auspicious. In general, like I was telling yesterday that death is a process and not an event according to modern science. Even when death, there are no support systems and when a person is in terminal decline, actually the doctors can say this person will die soon, but they can’t really predict the exact moment that he will die tomorrow at 7.30 or something like that.
They can’t predict. Why? Because actually it is unpredictable. Sometimes they predict the doctor will die within a day and he may live for one week and sometimes he may live for one week and may die within a few hours.
So, the exact moment of death can’t be predicted. Now, if this were just literally, that you die at this time, then you attain Brahma Brahma Vidho Jana. So, if that were the case, then earlier verses in the Bhagavad Gita describing that Anta Kaalecha Maa Meva, Tasma Sarveshu Kaalecha, all would become unnecessary.
So, just die at the right time, you will go back to normal. So, it’s not like that. So, this is a supplementary principle.
That is a primary principle. Primary principle is that we have to cultivate thoughts and attachment to the transcendence, to Krishna ultimately or to some other manifestation of Krishna which is transcendental. So, that is primary.
Now, supportive along the way are all these things. So, if one departs at a particular time, that is considered auspicious. So, the exact moment of departure for a soul is not something that happens by chance.
There are higher factors that govern that. And just as from the modern point of view, when a person is born, that is just a matter of either arbitrariness or it’s a matter of medical decision. If it’s a natural delivery, then whenever the mother starts getting the labour and then she has a delivery.
Or if they have caesarean and they do some sort of surgery, then they say, okay, the doctor will determine it. Now, this is just one way of looking at it. Beyond this, now this may be true from the material point of view, but as we described earlier that the karmic principles work through the material way they inject.
That means what? Suppose A kills B, now A may have killed B because of A’s own desires to kill B. But actually, B’s killing is also ultimately arranged by B’s own karma. A simply becomes an instrument for the killing of B. Like that, the moment of birth, from our point of view, it is A who caused the death of B, which is true at one level. But at a karmic level, it is B’s own karma which A enacted.
So, like that, from our point of view, it may appear that, okay, it was just when the pains became intense or when the doctor said, now we should do the caesarean, then the child is born. But it is not only that. That is a part of the factor, but there is only one part.
Beyond that, there are other factors involved also. That’s why when a horoscope is determined, the moment of birth is important. Somebody may say, okay, the moment of birth is decided by the doctor.
So then what is the use of the horoscope? But actually, even the doctor, the super soul is within the heart of the doctor also. And the doctor gets prompted accordingly. Similarly, when a person dies, things won’t happen arbitrarily.
There are higher factors involved. So, to the extent, for a person to die in a particular way is considered auspicious and to die in another way is considered inauspicious. So, for example, we look at, suppose somebody may die at the moment of birth, that is considered auspicious.
Somebody dies at night, that may be considered inauspicious from a material point of view. But for a devotee, it doesn’t matter. Whenever the devotee, why are we discussing this? It’s not just chance or fluke that the moment of birth is determined.
It’s not just chance or fluke or just human will that determines. The yogis, they may practise prana and prolong their birth so that they can leave their body at a particular time. They will not be able to determine the specific moment.
They will not have the predilection of Isha-mrityu. But they can predilection prolong or shorten their lives. Bhaktivinoda Thakur talks about his own grandfather.
He was a very religious person and he was very affectionate with him. One day, his grandfather just called him and said, please come, I am going to die soon and I want you to be with me. He was very surprised to hear this.
He came there and he saw his grandfather was completely normal. He said, you look quite healthy. He said, no, I am going to die.
Just be with me. And then he said, tonight I will be done. And that night, he sat down in meditation and left his body.
Bhaktivinoda Thakur says that I have not seen a death like this. So he was, of course, a religious person and he had, some people may have that, what is called as pre-mortission, ability to do something in the future. The point is that the moment of death is neither arbitrary nor entirely determinable or determined by just human technological means.
It is actually arranged by higher powers and if a human being endeavours on the spiritual path, that human being can alter the moment of death to some extent, not entirely, but to some extent. Now, what is fixed when we are born is the number of breaths. We can’t change that.
But we can prolong our breaths and that way we can adjust the amount of time we may live. So here, Krishna is saying that these are the two paths and on these two paths, the path of Deviyan and Dhriyan, the moment, the time when one departs is important. But it is not all important.
It is one important factor that determines the result. But it is not an all-important factor. So, this is an important factor, but not an all-important factor.
So, this is the background. We can go into Deviyan and Dhriyan more in detail, but it will take time and be a distraction for us. So, any questions further specifically about this? You said that people, to some extent, can alter the time, but the number of breaths are fixed.
So, if we say that Prabhupada said, you know, let me just stay a while, let me live longer, and then the breaths are fixed, then it means that human breaths can be changed longer. So, I said that the number of breaths is fixed, but people can change their time. But Prabhupada said that I can live longer.
Well, generally, his material principles don’t apply to devotees. Devotees directly interact with Krishna. And if devotees petition Krishna and Krishna signatures, the devotee can live much longer.
So, no, even the breaths can be changed. For the devotee, breaths cannot be changed. So, for devotees, to some extent, now to what extent and for whom Krishna may change that, we can’t say for sure.
But Krishna can do that in general. That’s the broad principle. So, the moment of death or the time of death is one factor, important factor, but not all important.
But still, it is known in general in Vedic culture that there is actually what is called as a good death and a bad death. So, if it is said that if a person departs, you know, if at the time of departure, the person responds to nature at that time, then that is considered to be inauspicious. That’s why many times the yogis, when they know that they are going to die, they will fast before that.
So, of course, that in itself doesn’t determine a good destination. But the idea is that the less physical distractions are there at the physical level, the more one can concentrate at a higher level. So, death is a fearsome moment.
And if one can have less distractions at the physical level, the better it is. So, there are certain symptoms which can describe what is a good death and what is a bad death. But these are not so important for Prakriti-Bodhi point of view.
Prakriti-Bodhi point of view, the important thing is the remembrance of Krishna. And even what is called as good and bad death, that is all as a supplementary additional factor which I have indicated. But what is decisive is whether one is remembering Krishna or not.
Everything else contributes. If a person has done some good, bad karma, accordingly he gets the next body. So, is it that before that he will go to heaven or hell? So, how do these two things balance out? It’s a good question.
Actually, this is the earthly realm. The question is, from the earthly realm, where will the person go? So, there are two distinct principles as you pointed out. One is, according to the good or bad karma, the person will go to heaven or hell.
Those with goodness will go up and passion will stay here. Negros will go down. That’s one principle.
Other principle is, whatever the person thinks of at the time of death, that’s where he will go. So, how do the two get reconciled? Actually, it’s a progressive thing. That means, the intermission between two bodies is not necessarily fixed for all souls.
The intermission between two bodies will vary depending on the difference between the levels of consciousness of the two bodies and various other karmic factors. Let’s say, some people, they become ghosts. Then, you know, whatever they are thinking, that person, when a person commits suicide, that person may be thinking of his girlfriend, say, and he has found himself committing suicide.
But that doesn’t mean that he will immediately become a woman. If he thinks of a woman, he is likely to become a woman in the next life. But he may not become immediately because there is another principle involved.
So, we discussed earlier about how, did we discuss here that there may be two different principles which may determine what will happen in future. So, like I discussed earlier, I think they have it from Ashwasthi, that generally, say, a devotee doesn’t get a non-human body. On the other hand, we say, whatever the person thinks of at the time of death, he attains that.
So, there are two distinct principles. So, in the case of Bharat Maharaj, what happened? He is a devotee. So, he should not get a non-human body.
But he thought of a year at the time of death. So, he has to get a body of his own. So, how are the two different sides? The two distinct principles.
He gets a deer’s body, but not a deer’s consciousness. He will lose the human consciousness. So, generally, in the scriptural speech, they will give us principles.
But just like there are three modes, goodness, passion, ignorance. But in an individual person, rarely we will find one person 100% goodness, another person 100% passion, third person 100% ignorance. They are always mixed together.
So, like that, when the principles of nature act, they never act in isolation. There will always be other factors also to be involved. So, in this case, in the case of suicide, a man, whatever thinks of at the time of death, he should get that.
But then he has committed suicide. So, he cannot get an ex-body. So, first that person will get a ghost body.
After staying in the ghost body for whatever is the period, which he has prematurely cut down, then that person will get a female body. So, similarly, in this case, if a person, say, has lived life like an animal, just the ostensibility of what all that person has been doing, then, say, the person is supposed to get the body of a monkey or the body of a hawk. So, for example, somebody has to get the body of a hawk because of inscriminating things.
Then, there is a transitional period in which he gets a body which is sort of a punishment body or a consciousness-altering body. Because the person cannot go into a hawk’s body and develop that taste of a hawk immediately. Because in a human body, we are repulsed by stool.
A hawk is attracted to stool. So, for a human, for a human to suddenly develop an attraction to stool is not possible. Srishti Prabhupada explained that there is a hell in which a person has a sort of punishment body.
And in that punishment body, the person actually doesn’t die, but the person is put in a sort of hellish place where he gets nothing except stool to eat. And then, because he is always revolted by stool, because there is nothing except stool to eat, the person starts eating it. And by eating, eating, eating, that person develops a taste for it.
We can’t imagine that. But when that person develops a taste, then his soul will be transferred to a hawk’s body. So, that means when we move from one body to another, what we remember at the time of death will give us the next body.
But in the consciousness also, we have to be adjusted to some extent. So, that’s why the intermission may change. Now, for example, somebody thinks of Ganesh at the time of death.
It’s not literally that that person will become Ganesh in the next life. So, when we say whatever a person thinks of, he will attain that at the moment after death, there are qualifications involved in that. If a person is thinking of Ganesh in the mood of a devotee of Ganesh, or he is devoted to Ganesh and thinking of Ganesh as a saviour, he doesn’t know about the Supreme God, he thinks Ganesh is his worshipful God, then he will go to Ganesh.
But then he will get some other body over there according to his karma, according to his punya and whatever. So, there are subtleties involved. So, according to our bhava, the subtle body is a template by which we get the gross body.
But how exactly the template will lead to the manifestation of the gross body, that will vary. So, even if we say that a man is thinking of a woman, he becomes a woman. But what kind of woman? There are some women who are good looking, there are some women who are not so good looking.
So, what is the variation? That’s by their karma. So, that is not just determined by the last moment. So, both the principles combine together.
So, in some cases, if it’s required, the soul may have a transitional period. The soul goes elsewhere and then the soul comes to the human body, next body, whichever it is, according to what the conception is at the moment of birth. Clear? So, let’s move forward.
Now, Krishna is describing this section. Now, he’s summarising. He says, I’ll give these two parts and he says, I’ll now summarise this part.
According to the Vedic opinion, there are two ways of passing from this world. One is light and one is darkness. When one passes in light, he does not come back, but when one passes in darkness, he returns.
So, this is a summary of what Krishna has given. Krishna has essentially said the same thing. Now, Arjuna wonders, if I fight in this battle or if I die in the battle, will I die in light or in darkness? Isn’t it? So, Krishna says, don’t worry, you don’t have to worry about it.
Mayte sruti pārtha jānanaṁ yogi muhyati kaśyanāṁ tasmāt sarveṣu kāleṣu yoga-yukto bhārjunaṁ although a devotee no peace to part. So, now Krishna uses the word yoga-yukto. So, now the word yoga, which was an interesting question which was asked yesterday, or you’ll have to do some visualisation because you don’t know the proper thing.
So, there are words which sometimes have, as we discussed, multiple meanings. So, here I’ll discuss the word yoga, then I’ll discuss some other word like samkhya. Who had asked this question yesterday? Samkhya and jnana.
So, the word yoga, as we know in a broad generic sense, what does it refer to? Connection. So, connection of the soul with God. So, in a specific sense, it can refer to ashtanga yoga.
But in general, it refers to the principle of connection. And then it is used with a suffix asana, yogasana, then it refers to one particular link between the ashtanga yoga person, that is of postures. So, when Krishna is telling about yoga-yukto bhārjunaṁ, we engage in yoga.
Now, this may not properly translate as engage in devotion. So, now it may seem that Krishna is only telling practise yoga, Krishna is not telling practise bhakti yoga. That is true.
But if we go back, we will see that actually Krishna recommends remembering him as an element, even on the path of ashtanga. And actually somebody is practising bhakti yoga, that person will remember. So, if we say that yoga-yukto bhārjunaṁ, in a broad sense, will stay connected with me, that will stay connected with the absolute me.
The easiest way to do that, Krishna has explained, is by bhakti. But if one considers the word yoga to refer to ashtanga yoga over here. Then also, omitte kākṣharaṁ brahma vyāharan mām anusvaraṁ, vyāharan mām anusvaraṁ, chanting Om and remembering me.
When a person departs, then a person will attain the absolute truth, Krishna’s truth. So, in that sense, either way, the principle is one will have to remember Krishna. So, what Srila Prabhupāda is telling is actually a very accurate explanation based on the full flow of the chapter.
So, essentially, as devotees, you don’t have to bother too much about what is the right time, what is the wrong time. You focus on remembering Krishna. And you cultivate remembrance of Krishna, then automatically the natural result will come.
This doesn’t mean the devotee defies natural laws. But the devotee doesn’t depend on natural laws or other principles that are there. So, some devotees may feel that when they want to depart, they want to go to Vrindavan or Māyāpuram and meet their God there.
Say, that was Shri Dharamahārāja’s jail. On the other hand, when he wanted to depart, he thought of himself. And his mood was that wherever Prabhupāda went, that he made that in the holy place.
He is a great soul. Shravanam Kirtanam has happened also over there. That is also wonderful.
So, for a devotee, one doesn’t get bothered too much by it. One focusses just on remembrance of Krishna. And if one is remembering Krishna, the result is guaranteed for a devotee.
Now, Krishna will conclude this chapter. So, can the Yoga refer to Brahmajyoti also over here? Yes. Yoga broadly means connection with the Absolute Truth.
Whichever manifestation of the Absolute Truth it may be. But the point is, whether a person is going to go to Brahmajyoti or going elsewhere, Krishna is saying, if you are connected with the Absolute Truth, if you are a yogi, you don’t have to bother too much about these things. But in general, there has to be an element of bhakti.
Without the element of bhakti, it’s either, you know, one depends on human endeavours and material factors or one depends on divine grace and then doesn’t require material factors so much. So, if one is not integrating bhakti as an element of sadhana, one is depending only on human factors, human endeavour, then the material factors play a critical role. On the other hand, if one is integrating bhakti in the practise, divine grace is there, then the material factors are not so relevant.
Because divine grace overrides all material factors. Yeah? What time is the class? No, but what is the option time? 5.15 to 6.15. Okay, in this context, Bhargav was in Kerala. The same principle.
So, Prabhupada connects everything with the ultimate pivotal. Generally, Krishna has to be in 6.47. So, when we understand the meaning, we basically have to refer to what the Acharya has said, because in the verses before this, there it is said that a yogi will be required somewhere during the light and during the darkness. That refers to some individual’s time.
Correct. The whole process, though the earlier verses refer to Ashtanga Yoga, yes, they do. Because the whole emphasis is contrasting the Ashtanga Yoga with the process of light.
And when there is remembrance, then it doesn’t matter. If there is no remembrance, then there is a lot of anxiety over it. There is a lot of uncertainty about it.
I mean, basically, the Acharya has come, there is a lot of uncertainty about it. What happens to those who do not refer to Acharya’s commentaries? How do they understand the Bhagavad Gita? Even without the Acharya’s commentaries, the Bhakti message is quite clear in the Vedas. So many verses like that.
So even if one just studies from the pure Sanskrit point of view, one cannot miss the unmistakable emphasis on Krishna and unmistakable emphasis on Bhakti in the Bhagavad Gita. What may not be clear is, what are the other sections specifically referring to? And how they fit in as a progressive whole maybe? That may not be clear. But the Bhakti influence cannot be denied.
Because it is very, very clear, not just the influence, actually, the Bhakti conclusion and the personal conclusion. Both are quite clear in the Bhagavad Gita. But it is true that the specifics, they will become a little confusing.
The flow, the structure, the overall conclusion may not be, it’s quite clear. It’s unmistakable. Unless one just comes to the Bhagavad Gita with a presumption of some other conclusion and wants to interpret it that way.
But if one just reads the Bhagavad Gita and let its verses speak, it’s clear that it is emphasising Bhakti, it is concluding Bhakti. But then why is it referring to all the other things? And how all those other things fit in, that may be confusing. So let’s read the last verse.
The person who accepts the path of devotional service is not bereft of the results derived from studying the Vedas, performing auspicious practises, giving charity or pursuing philosophical and fruitive activities. Simply by performing devotional service, he attains all this, and at the end, he reaches the supreme eternal abode. So Prabhupada writes in the Purport, second paragraph, second sentence, study of the Vedas is not meant for the recreation of armchair speculators, but for the formation of character.
It is not just meant for speculation, it is meant to form the character. This is talked about in 13th chapter also once again, where Krishna talks about knowledge in terms of qualities. And then the third paragraph, the only one sentence that Prabhupada writes, the beauty of Krishna consciousness, however, is that by one stroke, by engaging in devotional service, one can surpass all the rituals and the difficult orders of life.
Success in one stroke comes by Bhakti Yoga, by the practise of Krishna Consciousness. So what is Krishna telling in the specific words? There are these Veda, Yajna, Tapada, Daan, these are Vedas processes, and they give a Punya. But all the result that will come by that, Atyetita Sarvamidam Viditva, one will get all that and one will get more.
What is that? Yogi Paramsthanam, one will attain eternal destination. So in this way, Krishna will conclude this chapter by a very clear emphasis on the transmittal mode. And if we look at the Bhagavad Gita’s flow, at least in this chapter, Krishna has clearly said that Sulabha is by Bhakti.
So in this chapter, Krishna has contrasted Ashtanga Yoga and Bhakti Yoga and has established how Bhakti Yoga is supreme. And in the next chapter, he will describe the glory of Bhakti Yoga all the more. And he will build the focus on himself more exclusively and on the Vasudha.
So till now, it was more of comparison. Comparison to establish spirituality. So, but in the next chapter, it will be a more exclusive focus on Bhakti.
There will be some comparison also still. But the focus will be more on the glory of Bhakti. We will discuss that in our next class.
Thank you very much.