Knotty Verse Series 6 – 11.33 – Is the Gita’s call for violence literal or metaphorical?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Today we continue This discussion on the Naughty verses from the Bhagavad Gita Naughty is complex One thing which I will discuss is Is the Bhagavad Gita’s Call for violence Neutral or metaphorical Is the Bhagavad Gita Literally asking everyone to fight Or is it symbolic So I will discuss based on one verse In the second chapter Krishna repeatedly talks about fighting He urges Arjuna to fight But therein he describes basically that You should Fight because the soul is immortal And you will not get sinful reactions But the most direct call to Fighting comes in the 11th chapter 11.33, 34, 35 Let’s look at these verses Briefly Recite the verse Recite the verse So This verse Therefore Arjuna Arise And Attain victory Conquer over your enemies And enjoy a prosperous kingdom By my arrangement your enemies have already been killed Just be an instrument So This seems to be a very direct call For violence along with A reassurance of victory also So this sort of reassurance Of victory Krishna doesn’t Give earlier When he talks about Urging Arjuna to fight We see that Let’s go over I won’t go over all the numbers I have another seminar for that But I will just look broadly at Where all Krishna talks about A calling upon Arjuna to fight Significantly This is the last Call in the Bhagavad Gita for violence This and the next verse 11.33, 34 The same thing basically The enemies will be killed, arise and fight Without any hesitation But after this There is no reference to fighting at all Literally And at the end also When Arjuna agrees To do Krishna’s will At that time also he doesn’t say I will fight He gives a more general statement Karishe Vachinanda In 18.73 he says I will do your will So there also if you look at it The references to fighting Are not there Now actually speaking If you look at the Bhagavad Gita in terms of Three sections, the first section Talks about how karma leads to Navte Second section focusses on Bhakti itself And the third section talks about How Jnana leads to Bhakti So in the section of How Jnana leads to Bhakti There is no explicit call for violence Absolutely no call The nearest that it Comes to in that section is In the 18th chapter In 18.16, 17, 18 Then he says If one is in such a consciousness Even if one kills One is not a killer So that is basically talking about How one is not a karka This is not a literal call for violence In fact even in the 6 to 12 chapters There is no call for violence Except this section 11.32, 33, 34 There is no Other reference to violence Krishna is talking about Bhakti Yoga And the principles of Bhakti Yoga So the explicit calls for violence They come Only in the first section And actually even in the first section 6 chapters There also there is no call for violence But there are Calls for violence Calls for fighting basically The word violence Has a slightly negative connotation Fighting is a beauty So it starts literally With Arjuna ready to fight in the first chapter And in the second chapter There is an indirect call In the second and third verses But after that when Krishna talks about Immortality of the soul Repeatedly he says therefore You should fight And then later on when he introduces Karma Yoga also he says you should fight In the third chapter Krishna is again Explicitly referring to fighting But in the fourth chapter at the end There is a Exclusive call to fighting The last verse itself He says So again there is no literally fight But Uttistha is something like fighting So Basically let’s see Again in the fifth chapter also there is no call for violence So if you see There are explicit calls for violence in the second chapter Indirectly in the first And a little bit in the fourth chapter So now is the call for violence That Varunika gives literal Or metaphorical Now as As the followers of Srila Prabhupada And Prabhupada was very strongly against The metaphorical explanations Our default reflex would be to say it’s literal Yes there was a war And Arjuna fought the war That is definitely true So in that sense if somebody Wants to deny the historicity Of the setting Of the Bhagavad Gita Then that is definitely something which is wrong So in that sense We definitely say that the Bhagavad Gita’s Call for violence is literal But Does it mean that every Student of the Bhagavad Gita has to fight If we say literal means That is a call for fighting? No And interestingly we see a very significant Paradox if somebody argues There was a Indian nationalist thinker He said India’s greatest Mistake is that Post independent India did not Follow the Bhagavad Gita So he said what was his idea of Following the Bhagavad Gita? He said if India had followed The Bhagavad Gita you know Within 24 hours of the creation of Pakistan India would have conquered Pakistan Fight! So that was his Idea of applying Bhagavad Gita Now that is not at all The message of the Bhagavad Gita But you see even if somebody says Literal violence, there is a curious Paradox That Krishna calls upon Arjuna To surrender Ma ekam sharanam And then the Bhagavad Gita That is 66 words, we are almost close to the End of the Bhagavad Gita In fact this is another one Is as far as Instruction is concerned, the last Instruction in the Bhagavad Gita What comes after that from 67 onwards To 71 is followership Krishna describes who will speak To this, who will speak about this And what happens to those who preach Those who study And those who hear And then there is enquiry, so that is the last instruction Surrender And the last verse of the Gita is Ketra eveshwaram krishna Ketra partha dhanur dhara So Arjuna has picked up his bow Dhanur dhara means he is ready to fight That is the idea at the end of the first chapter 1.26 Isyutya sasaram chaapam So tasam viknamam He has put aside his bow So now Arjuna’s raising up the bow Indicates his readiness to fight So now if we see Krishna’s last instruction is surrender Surrendering And the last image that the Bhagavad Gita Leaves us with Is fighting Now in normal situations Surrendering Is the opposite of fighting When two people are fighting And they surrender That means no more fighting So normally Surrendering means giving up fighting But it’s curious that Krishna is Telling Arjuna to surrender And there is no indication After that Arjuna defies Krishna But Arjuna says Yes I will do your way But Arjuna is surrendering by fighting So normally surrendering means Giving up fighting Two armies are face to face And one army realises that I am overwhelmed now I can’t fight anymore So that means ending of fighting So it’s curious that Krishna calls for surrendering And Arjuna responds By surrendering and fighting So what does this refer to At one level We understand that Arjuna’s Literally Arjuna’s duty As a Kshatriya, Swadharma was to fight So when Krishna Tells Arjuna to surrender At that time he is telling Arjuna To surrender to Krishna’s way And the specific way Krishna surrenders or Arjuna surrenders Is by doing his Swadharma So that is one understanding That when Arjuna is fighting He is doing his Swadharma He is surrendering by doing his Swadharma In this case his Swadharma Is the same As what is required for surrendering For many people For example somebody is a young man And that person If he wants to join full time Then the material Swadharma Is to take care of the parents And if one wants to surrender to Krishna At that time one may have to Keep aside the responsibility So not in all cases One’s material Swadharma And one’s spiritual Swadharma May agree In Arjuna’s case it agrees But there can be conflict When there is conflict one has to choose the spiritual So It may be required in that case So again the Bhagavad Gita’s call is not Literally that everybody Should become a Kshatriya and do the Dharma of fighting Because everybody does not have that Swadharma And even if everybody has that Swadharma It’s not always that everybody will have to fight So then what is the Call for violence Referring to? If you look at this particular Verse which we just saw Arjuna is being told fight Now When he is told fight This is preceded by the Darshan of the Vishwaroop Now in the Vishwaroop Krishna shows the Vishwaroop Several times.
He shows it to Mother Yashoda In fact Yashoda shows it to Mother Yashoda Twice. Once as a Once he is hit in mud And another time when he is just on the Lash. He opens the mouth This is the Vishwaroop And he also shows it to Guru Raghuna At the end of the war also he shows it to After the war he shows it to a sage So like that there are many places But this is the only place where Krishna Shows it.
Along the Vishwaroop He shows the Kala Roop And the Kala Roop is very Fierce. Actually Damshra Karala is very Fierce So all of them are entering into the Mouth with fearsome teeth And as they are entering The warriors are Entering and then What is happening? They are crushing Against the teeth and the tooth is Being shattered apart. As if that were Not bad enough.
Then what is the Virat Roopa doing? Leliyase Grasama. Leliyase means Licking. So whatever blood is Sprinkled away.
I think that blood is a delicacy Licking the blood So when there was The court case in Russia To label the Bhagavad Gita as Extremist book. So at that time The ROC The Russian Orthodox Church They were behind the whole thing. So One of the arguments they gave that This is Hare Krishna.
They are worshipping a cannibal God. When they are Worshipping a God who is a cannibal Cannibal is somebody Who eats women. Now As per international law For a long time.
For many many Decades cannibalism has been outlawed. It is considered To be a unpardonable violence So Now this is Again if this is Such a superficial understanding The same Gita is telling Just a few verses earlier In the 5th chapter Krishna says I am Sudham Sarvabhutana Not only he says he is Sudham Sarvabhutana In fact at the end Of the same chapter This is 11th Description comes in 11.25-30 But in the same chapter Where Krishna is telling Arjuna fight The same chapter Ends in 11.55 With Nirvairaha Sarvabhuteshu Nirvairaha Sarvabhuteshu So Nirvairaha Sarvabhuteshu Means do not have Animosity or envy Towards anybody So Krishna is telling that He is the Balvishah of everyone And he is telling that those who are following Him they should also not have Animosity towards anyone. In fact 11.55 Says Nirvairaha But 12.13-14 Is even more positive Not only Nirvairaha means Adveshta Sarvabhutana Maitrava Karuna Not only should we not be envious But what is told in Nirvairaha That is reiterated by Krishna But then he goes further Maitrava not just a friend but what Compassionate Karuna So Anybody can take anything out of context And Grotesquely misrepresent it But what does actually This Nirvairaha do for eating everything Devouring everything Symbolise Or what does it represent Yajna Is both a literal And a symbolic Yajna When a fire sacrifice is done Actually What it means is The Ahuthi is being offered And Agnideva Rigveda says that Devanam Paramo Vishnu Avamo Agni Pratantara Sarvadevata So Rigveda says that Devanam Paramo is Vishnu Avamo is the lowest Is Agni Pratantara Sarvadevata In between and all the other devatas What this means is Not that Agni is the least powerful But it means Agni is the most Accessible among all devatas That the sacrifices Sacrificial offerings that are made to the various gods They go through the root of Agni So among all the devatas Vishnu is the most difficult to access Because he is transmittable Other devatas are in the material realm Vishnu is transmittable That’s why Paramo, Avamo is Agni So Agni is literally As a fire sacrifice in which in fire Ahuthi is offered But that also means that Agni Is accepting that and is transmitting it To the Higher gods, whichever gods Are intended to be offered as Sacrifices.
But along with that Often The idea of Fire sacrifice is also Used metaphorically In the Mahabharata In the Vanaparva When the Pandavas are in the forest At that time Bhishma tries to When the war is nearing the When the exile is nearing the end Bhishma tries to make Duryodhana see good sense So and Duryodhana says He is very confident because of the powers of Karna and Bhishma Minimises the power of Karna. This is actually A virtue, valour And skill. Karna Is no match to Arjuna So when Karna Hears this, Karna becomes very angry And he says, Oh Arjuna Give me an army and I will go around and conquer the whole world For you.
Just then Arjuna conquers the whole Yudhishthira And he goes around and he actually Conquers everyone. So When he conquers everyone then Arjuna comes Then Duryodhana says, he brings tribute From all the kings and Duryodhana Says now I will do sacrifice. So he wants to do Rajasuya sacrifice.
Because The envy Which is already there right from the childhood That became especially inflamed On seeing Duryodhana, Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya Sacrifice success So he wants to do Rajasuya. So the Brahmins tell him at that time that Actually Only one person can Be alive who has done the Rajasuya sacrifice So as long as Yudhishthira is alive you cannot do the Rajasuya Sacrifice. So he is Disappointed.
But then the Brahmins tell him That there is another sacrifice which you can do Which is almost Equivalent to the Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya Sacrifice. And that is called the Vaishnava Sacrifice. And So then the celebration starts for that So at that time Duryodhana just to Gloat in the misery of the Pandavas Sends a messenger To the Pandavas who are living in Dwaitavan, outside the kingdom There is a big forest called Kamyak In Kamyak there is a Pandavas go deep inside and there is a Huge lake called the Dwaitavan.
So there On Dwaitavan the Pandavas are residing So he sends a messenger over there saying that You are invited for the sacrifice So Yudhishthira Says, Yudhishthira is very polite And gentle manly always. He Says it’s very good that Duryodhana is increasing his piety Increasing the glory of our race By doing the sacrifice. But I regret That I won’t be able to come Because as long as the Period of exile is not ended I cannot enter into a kingdom So Yudhishthira is very Polite.
Bhima Knows what is the intention of Duryodhana in sending this message Now Duryodhana himself had set the Conditions for gambling and he knew That the Pandavas could not come But he just wanted to Flaunt his glory And delight in that. So at that time Bhima says, tell Duryodhana that When we come, it will not Be to witness a sacrifice. It will be To perform a sacrifice And the fire of that sacrifice Will be our Weapons.
And The offering in that sacrifice Will be All the Kauravas. And the ghee That we will put to increase The flame of sacrifice Will be the fury that we have Withheld in our hearts for 13 years And He says Tell Duryodhana That he is inviting us as a spectator For the sacrifice. But in that sacrifice He will not even be a Spectator.
He will Be the victim So The idea is The sacrifice metaphor is again used by Karna also. After Krishna Performs his Role as a peace messenger And returns because of Duryodhana’s adamance. Then The next morning Duryodhana Krishna requests To meet Karna.
And Krishna Informs Karna about his Heritage. About how he is Actually a Pandava And Not directly a Pandava. But indirectly Pandava Is in some way A stepfather.
But he is Kunti’s son. So Karna says I know it. I Know it.
If you know this then you don’t Fight on the side of Heritage. So at that time Karna also says I know that the Kurukshetra is going to Be like a sacrifice. And That sacrifice The Arjuna’s Gandiva bow Will send out arrows which will make All of us like sacrificing We are all going to die.
But His adamance is such that He says how can I It is based on Duryodhana’s Confidence in my prowess That he has decided to wage this war. How can I abandon it. So again The point which I am making is sacrifice Is also often talked of as Metaphor.
So now in this case When it is shown That the Virata Rupa is Taking in All these warriors What does it represent? The Kala Rupa is Taking in all these. So actually Krishna talks about Yajna. He introduces the concept Of Yajna in the Bhagavad Gita in the third chapter.
Yajna Atha Karma That is the first chapter 3.9 And after that again it comes in the fourth chapter Also. Yajnaya Charata Karma Samagram Vibhravani The important point here is that Yajnaya Charata Karma I do work for Yajna. And so there The next word that comes Brahma Harpana Brahma Harpana Brahma Harpana Brahma Harpana Brahma Harpana Brahma Karma Samagram 4.24 The Mayavadis use this as their Their Version of Mahaprasad They say this food is Brahma We are Brahma.
Brahma Harpana Brahma Harpana That is their idea. But what is Krishna telling in this verse Brahma Harpana Brahma Harpana This is as I have explained This war that you are going to fight This is also Yajna And in this Yajna you are meant to be The Yajni Priest You are going to perform the sacrifice In which you will offer the Kauravas As your offering. Using The Yajna Kutta Is Kurukshetra.
Offerings Are the Kauravas And your arrows Your bow and arrow is the spoon By which those offerings will be cast into the fire And the fire Is the war So the war The fire burns in the Yajna Kutta The war is going to be fought In Kurukshetra. And in that you are going to offer this So now At that time the Acharya will describe that What kind of fire is this? What kind of sacrifice Are you doing? I will offer this. There are different kinds of Sacrifices.
And then Daipo Viva Kareyakya Yoginath Kareyapasth From 4.25 Krishna offers Different kinds of sacrifices. But What Krishna tells in the Fourth Chapter. That you do This sacrifice and it will be good So that what Krishna Tells in the fourth chapter Krishna demonstrates In the Yajna So the Kaala Rupa devouring The Kaurava warriors What is it? It represents That Agni is the mount Agni is the mount of The Supreme Lord.
So when what is offered Into the mount is accepted What is offered into Agni is accepted. So that is Demonstrated in this vision That the Kauravas entering into the Mount of Virat What it means is that they are All entering into That the sacrificial offering is being Accepted by The Supreme Lord in this Extraordinary form. And that’s why In that purport Prabhupada quotes a curious verse From the Srutis He says that ultimately the Supreme Lord Devours everyone The Rakshasas and the Brahmanas also.
Now what does it Mean that the Supreme Lord devours everyone? As time ultimately everyone Is destroyed. So The Vedic culture does not The Gita’s Vision does not fight shy Of the Ghastly side of nature Now God is also Constantly destroyed. But the purpose Of destruction is Redemption.
Now God Destroys the temporary To make way for the eternal So God destroys the Temporary so that by Seeing this vision of the destruction Of the temporary we will redirect Our attachments from the temporary to the Eternal and thereby attain The eternal. The purpose Of the vision Is not destruction It is redemption. Redemption means Reinstating in the spiritual Reality.
So When the Hiratrupa is Displaying this, it is not actually A literal vision of God In his ambience. No It’s indication of A very profound mechanism Which is very deeply philosophical The idea of all activities Comprising the eternal So here we see at least From the point of view of the Hiratrupa Accepting that Is not to be taken literally So now beyond that If you look At the Bhagavad Gita’s call for Violence. It also uses Terminology that is related to violence Fighting, killing Repeatedly with respect To the anapanas Repeatedly with respect to the anapanas If you see He does it in two Ways.
In 2.17 The Bhagavad Gita Krishna says He says The Atma is Avinashi But then in 16.21 He says Trividhama Narakasetam Dvaram Nashanam Atmanaham So now earlier he said Atma is Avinashi And now he is saying Nashanam Atmanaham. So destroying The soul. So what is this destruction? This destruction obviously Is metaphor So normally if two Statements in the scriptures Are contrary Then in the Vedanta scripture it is described that what should one do? Tattu Samanvaya The first sutra Vedanta sutra is Atharva Brahma Jijnanam Second is Janma Adhyasya Third is Shastra Nivrtva and fourth is Tattu Samanvaya So Shastra Nivrtva is that absolute dependency to Shastra But in somebody there is no objection But in Shastra there are so many contradictory statements They are often mutually contradictory He says one has to reconcile Tattu Samanvaya Tattu Samanvaya Now how do we reconcile Avinashi to Tattu? This is definitely not Metaphoric.
The soul’s indestructibility Is literal. Soul is really Indestructible and is repeatedly Asserted by Krishna. Therefore When he is talking Nashanam Atmanaham That is to be taken metaphorically And actually this is also This taking it metaphorically Killing of the soul There is corroboration For this, there is support for this Elsewhere in the scripture In the Bhagavad Gita The word is Atmanaham Killer of the soul The concept of Atmanaham Is also used in the 11th Canto Where it talks about one who Resents So Killer of the soul.
So what it refers to is That these Anurthas Can kill So lust, anger, greed Can kill And then Krishna also uses The word kill So at one level they can kill the soul But if we see when Krishna is talking about lust From 3.36 to 3.43 Then he concludes that In 3.43 he concludes that Evam buddhe paramrutva Samsthavyatmanam Jadhishatrum mahabhava Kamarupam durasadam So he is using Two terms Which directly talk about war. One is shakti Enemy means your foe And then he is using jabi. Jabi means win over So This winning over Of the Anurthas Is the actual vial In the Bhagavad Gita talks about What the Bhagavad Gita talks about Essentially is that We practise dharma And dharma is the means By which We will be able to conquer over Anurthas The word dharma Has many means So The Bhagavad Gita talks about Paradharma is pure democracy At a material level what is dharma It is said that at a material level Dharma is that which Increases sattva And decreases rajendra So whenever anybody Varnashram Whatever dharma they do What is the result of that dharma They become elevated Anurthas become suppressed And purified They become purified Anurthas And they rise upwards Even in the material Disposition From the lower most to the higher So actually Bhagavad Gita if it calls for any violence It is the inner violence The inner war Against our Anurthas And That war is fought How Why are we discussing all this Surrendering and fighting So normally In the outer war When we can no longer fight We surrender But in the inner war Only when we surrender can we truly fight Because in the inner war The Anurthas are so powerful That they will overpower us We may think that I can keep fighting for some time But that fighting When we do with our own Endeavours that cannot be sustained For very long But when we surrender to the supreme lord Then we get his divine power And based on The divine power that we get from him When we fight Then nothing can Cheat us So this particular verse So you will attain victory So here In an immediate literal context It is referring to Arjuna fighting against the Kauravas And defeating them But in a general sense this verse refers to that We will win Against our enemies Arjuna fight And winning And then in this verse also What happens Actually when we surrender and fight There is All of us We have a mind and intelligence Some commentators Refer to as lower nature and higher nature So Now In this battle Between the lower and the higher nature Actually our higher nature In and of itself is not Necessarily always more powerful Quite often it becomes Overpowered by the lower nature And that is also All the more so in today’s culture Because today’s culture Nourishes and fuels The lower nature This conflict between lower nature and higher nature Has always been there And it is always there The nature of the material world But In this situation in the material world In Kali Yuga especially Giving Into the lower nature Is glamourized Sin is considered Passionate Actually in Kali Yuga To become hot with lust is considered Burn Burn with lust Dushpureanane Dushpure And it is curious that the word Something Creates sizzling passion And burns them with it Is it fool? Well it is not fool at all You say that fool is a fool It is not at all fool But the idea is that In Kali Yuga sin is glamourized Sin has always been there It is always there But the idea is Sin is not considered glamour Sin is not considered glamorous In the sense of The whole social Culture Putting it on a high pedestal As if it is something which everybody should Look for That is very unfortunate and undesirable But the inner war is there And the culture is meant to Empower us In winning the inner war Devotional culture What it does is it nourishes our higher self It nourishes our higher nature And then that enables us To conquer our lower nature So devotional culture We have Krishna We have Bholi, we have Shastra And all this Enables us To gain strength And when we gain strength internally Then we can conquer over the lower nature So Let’s look at this point a little bit Our how the Bhagavad Gita talks We can win over Our lower nature In When we are fighting a war There are three things that are required One has to be Trained, one has to be equipped And one has to be alert One has to be trained, Equipped and alert I remember the acronym T So Many times Especially when two countries Go for war Then what happens is Sometimes people are utterly untrained And they are sent For fighting No matter how good their Spirit might be for fighting But if they have no training They can’t fight In the history of European history There have been what is called as big wars Between the Muslims and the Christians They consider the holy wars So the Christians wanted to Conquer back the Holy land, Jerusalem So they fought several wars None of them were successful And there was one Pope who was particularly fanatic He had called He was supposed to Be affectionate towards children Many children would attend his talks And he made a In one of the Big programmes of the children He made a call If the adults Are so cowardly That they do not fight the holy war Then let the children fight the holy war And then he got Thousands and thousands of Children with weapons And they decided to march Across And they marched across Country after country We have guns, we can’t fight No training It is brutally slaughter Brutally slaughter It is considered From that time onwards Religious violence started getting a very bad name Especially not just religious violence But religion being used As a means to incite people Towards violence That is a fiasco So even if somebody has a spirit to fight And he doesn’t have it to be I have a gun But he doesn’t know how to shoot a gun Actually Some of my friends Take a gun and if you don’t know how to use a gun You shoot the gun The gun comes back and one will get thrown away So one gets thrown away So it is a very important history Now Arjuna is a pure devotee But we see Arjuna How fiercely he did You all have seen all that pastime Once he is eating at night A lamp of stimulation And I get Fight also So he did not Take his devotion As a justification For escaping to Between the evil sea So now In this war Which we are fighting The weapon is Krishna uses the word actually In the Bhagavad Gita For this inner war he uses the weapon In two ways In the second chapter In the fourth chapter He says Knowledge as the sword And then in the Fifteenth chapter He says Asanga Shastre Chitva Asanga Shastre So Krishna uses Genetic word over there Prabhupada translates that as axe But it is logical To translate it as axe Because what was previously we talked about Is a tree So we don’t use a bow and arrow Or a sword to cut a tree We use axe So Prabhupada used axe translation over there Asanga Shastre So knowledge And detachment These are considered to be the weapons Now the Bhagavatam if we see It describes in 1.2.7 That both knowledge and detachment Come from devotion Vasudeva Bhagvatam Bhakti yoga prayojitaha Chidivityasu vairagyam Jnanam cheda Bhakti Here is actually metaphorical It is what he is saying Janayakti is birth So when there is a union of devotion and the lord That leads to the Begetting of children Jnanam vairagyam Janayakti And therefore in the same section Part of dharma section 1.2.6 to 1.2.22 In 15th verse There is another page 11th verse Anudhyasinam uttaha Karmagranthi nivandhina Chintanti kaunitastasya Kona kundiya Anudhyasinam That remembrance Anudhya, systematic remembrances Are seen So with this word Of the remembrance of Krishna What one does is Karmagranthi nivandhina Very fine bond of karmagranthi Cut it off Go with us Who will not be eager to hear Because only when we hear Will we have substance to remember Otherwise we are not able to remember Krishna So here this word The weapon metaphor is developed to its fullest And essential weapon that we have is Remembrance of Krishna So with the remembrance of Krishna Equal to that remembrance We find the inner one Now how exactly does the remembrance of Krishna Act as a weapon It acts as a sword So what does it literally do When we say it is a sword Actually karmagranthi nivandhina Our karma it has two reactions One is it brings us some suffering As a karmic consequence The other which from the scriptural point of view More interesting is that It creates desires within us You know when a devotee Among these two karmic consequences Suffering coming And sinful desires coming Normally if a devotee has a devotional disposition When suffering comes The devotee will take greater sin towards Krishna But when the desires come Those desires can often take the devotee away from Krishna So in that sense From the devotional point of view Sufferings coming is not As dangerous as Sinful desires coming Because another difference is that When sufferings come Our bad karma is getting exhausted Whereas when sinful desires come What may well happen is More bad karma may get created So Now when this Suffering comes Or when the reactions come As desires So karmagranthi Desires pull us So actually Krishna also Asha pashy Desires are the noose that drags You know Krishna says This is about noose When noose is there Noose literally drags Noose is put around the neck Krishna helplessly simply drag He can’t do anything So that way The idea is How do these desires drag us Asha pashy The desires They play On our innate Need for pleasure All of us We are innately happy Nobody can live without happiness So what the desires do is They induce within us The false hope That doing this, this, this Getting this enjoyment Doing this activity will give us pleasure And the desires drag us By that hope And in fact That hope, that drag Becomes so forceful that Just feel You can’t live without this Your devotees, sometimes we say that Bhakti gives a higher taste Then if the taste of Bhakti is higher Why are we still attracted to the lower Taste? Actually most often when devotees Succumb to sinful desires That’s not because That Pleasure is so great It’s because When devotees succumb to satisfaction It’s not because The pleasure is Irresistible The pleasure is not resistible But rather it is because The pain is not resistible What happens is the craving, the angering That becomes such a pull So most people When they get into satisfaction Satisfaction, especially when a person becomes Addicted, initially a person May drink because I think I’ll enjoy, so cheers People celebrate, enjoy drinking But after sometime when a person becomes Addict, the drinking is not So much for pleasure As it is for Relief, because if one Doesn’t drink Then the craving Medically it is called withdrawal symptoms A person Suffers so much physically and mentally I can’t help it I want to I want to do it So once a person becomes an addict Drinking is not So much an activity that gives pleasure As an activity That gives relief Of course the relief is also short lived And one gets some relief But after that the craving Becomes stronger and then one is pulled Forced to withdraw So when Generally when we fall for Satisfaction, it is not so much because Of irresistible pleasure Rather Rather the craving that is there We want to I could do this So that’s why most often When people engage in Satisfaction There is no pleasure There is some relief So the higher Taste actually Completely destroys Our capacity to enjoy the lower taste We can’t enjoy the lower taste That’s what Narguna also tells In the Vyasadevi says that He says One has got rasa Vishwanathji has commented that A devotee gets haunted by rasa And if you are haunted by rasa Then you cannot get any lower taste But If we cannot get any lower taste Why do we still get That’s because The craving is still there And the craving pulls us So Generally we say that if we are not remembering Krishna Or if we are not engaged in Krishna’s service Then immediately there is a disaster Maybe not immediately in terms of Effect But immediately in terms of Initiation And then as you contemplate more and more It starts growing and growing And pulls us down So actually what we Hold mentally, holds us mentally Now the desire that we Hold initially in our mind, eventually it Holds us and it catches us So actually what Happens is this hope for happiness Through which the desire drags us down Yet anudhya If we remember Krishna Then remembrance of Krishna Gives us Some inner fulfilment Now Sometimes the remembrance of Krishna Brings ecstasy We are dancing and singing There is a broad smile on the face Eyes are shining It is a very visible sign of happiness But The happiness of Remembrance of Krishna Is not stereotype It is not that anudhya Is chanting and dancing with a Visible smile or laugh on the face To be relishing the happiness of remembrance of Krishna You see the gopis Are separated from Krishna When he goes away And they are constantly in tears But they are in all ecstasy Because they are remembering Krishna The same way When we are chanting At that time Most people when they come to If they have some Idea of meditation Their idea is to sit in a quiet place And have a Beautiful look on the face And that is meditation When they come to Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare You know What is the peace over here? What is the joy over here? It is the same thing Is this meditation? Or is this our imagination? It just makes me so Frustrated But actually The remembrance of Krishna It defies Stereotypical conceptions of meditation So A devotee is shaking his head Struggling and uttering the holy name Vigorously But through it what is happening? Consciousness is connecting with Krishna And when the consciousness connects with Krishna That brings happiness And what happens when we get that Improvement is We are immediately pleasure free So if we don’t get spiritual happiness Then what? We will go to ultimate happiness And when we start experiencing Some level of spiritual happiness Then the material happiness The craving for material happiness Has gone away And that’s why we see that If we are remembering Krishna If we are connecting with Krishna The material desire will progress But when we are not remembering Krishna Then So sometimes when we think that I am remembering Krishna Sometimes we see some sense of this or that I am not able to make sense of it Normally I become advanced in it But no, actually The notes are still there What happens is The Bhagavan says that we have to keep cutting Continuously Continuously the soul has to be cut Prabhupada writes When he is talking about the liberated soul The first sentence is The liberated souls are very Are always alert To not be Captivated by the temptations Of the soul This sequence is paradoxical Normally when we say liberated means The person is gone beyond The pool of mind He will no longer be captivated Prabhupada says the characteristic of liberated soul is Not in terms of Being of Transcendence But in terms of alertness Constant alertness Now we talk about training Training We train, equip and alert So we have been given The equipment, that is the good thing We have the pastimes, we have the shastra That is the equipment, that is how We remember Krishna That is what gives us the equipment But along with the equipment we have to use it As alertness is required And We may have the remembrance of Krishna Or rather we may have The sources for remembrance of Krishna But if you don’t have a training How to use them Then what will happen We may remember Krishna very nicely when we are in association of devotees Or when we are doing devotional activities But when temptation comes Please call for help So training means There is so much that is there Which we can remember Krishna But Not everything Will be equally Potent For everyone Not everything will be equally potent That means Some devotees They chant some 64 rounds 108 rounds 192 rounds in special days Now it is very good if one can chant Extra rounds But one also has to be careful What is one’s attitude towards chanting Now if that chanting just Becomes a Number reaching target And one is not remembering Krishna It is better that one chants 16 rounds and do some other activity Then one is going to remember Krishna As I may be watching the videos Studying scripture So yes we have Chanting as a river of remembrance But that doesn’t mean chanting is the only form of remembrance There are many forms of remembrance Of course I am not saying anything against Chanting extra rounds I am simply saying that we have to remember Krishna So The way I can remember Krishna May be very different from the way Somebody else can remember Krishna So training means Each of us has to individually find out How I am Contesting Each of us has to do it individually And only when We do that Then when the Attack happens we will be good Sometimes we find Like on my website I answer questions So one person asked me this question Chanting doesn’t work We chant and the repetitions will go But when I chant the repetitions don’t go Chanting doesn’t work Chanting works But we should let it work What that means is Chanting is not just a ritual It means we have to remember Krishna So if I am just uttering The sound and I am not remembering Krishna Then what does it mean? It means that I have to find out some other way to remember Krishna Rupa Goswami would very easily Have said that Just chant all this He doesn’t say that He says So one prakar is chanting But there are many other prakars Many other ways of remembering Krishna And that’s why we have so many different services And we have We have so many scriptures We have so many ways in which we can Remember Krishna So the training aspect is How each one of us can find out How I can best remember Krishna So then When we are in this way Train, equip and learn This is the best way I can remember Krishna And whatever is the best way I can remember Krishna I should have that resource with me If I find that okay Kirtans I have those scriptures Or if I find that Verses Then it’s best that I memorise those verses Whenever I want I can record Or there are some passages Some scriptures Or I make some small extracts Some passages Flashcards I have to keep myself And then along the way So Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva Gandiva