SB 01.09.09 – Be dharma jna to separate the central from the peripheral

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you here bhishma pitamaha is lying on his arrow bed and after yudhishthira maharaj has been coronated as the king the pandavas along with krishna have come to receive instructions from bhishma pitamaha and krishna also has the intention to be present when bhishma pitamaha departs from the world so to see this momentous occasion of bhishma pitamaha’s departure and krishna’s bestowing of mercy on him during his final moments sages from all over the universe have assembled and bhishma pitamaha sees all of them taan samay, taan maha, bhavakam so all those greatly fortunate, greatly powerful sages when he sees them assembled upalabhya means he received them, he welcomed them he was the best among the vasus why is he considered vasuttamaha? because actually the eight vasus were supposed to be born on the earth and eventually it was decided that seven of them would go back immediately and that’s how seven sons of ganga were thrown into the ganga by her and when they decided that all their power would be invested in the nation the last vasu who would remain on the earth and that vasu is bhishma so so this vasuttamaha the best among the vasus received all the great sages who were assembled there and he offered worship to them dharmagyam, dharmagyam one who is the knower of religion and he understood that according to time-place circumstance the application of the principles of religion can vary and because he was lying on an arrow bed he could not offer obeisances physically to the great sages so what he did was he offered obeisances by just moving his head slightly actually even his arms were sealed to the ground through the arrows that appears through them so when he had to offer good wishes or blessings he would just barely lift the not the arm but just the hand the palm of the hand and similarly when he had to offer obeisances he would slightly nod his head so he offered obeisances in this way this is an important verse which tells about how scriptural principles have to be applied according to time-place circumstance and this was the expedition of Shri Prabhupada also how he transformed the distribution transformed the tradition of brahmacharis begging for arms into book distribution in the west and like that Shri Prabhupada though completely though faithful to the scriptural essence was also brilliantly innovative in terms of ensuring that the scriptural message reached to newer and newer people more and more people so when we are practicing the chanting of the holy names it is important for us to be with dharmagya sometimes when we are trying to follow certain scriptural guidelines maybe there is maybe some wondering what is the particular etiquette maybe we are having some relationship problems and with some devotee and we’re trying to resolve that or there is some managerial issue which needs to be dealt with or there is something in our practical life which needs to be dealt with and which also has implications in our spiritual life so at such times our mind can get totally caught up in these things and if the mind gets caught up in these things then the mind is no longer available for the chanting of the holy names and if the mind is not available for the chanting of the holy names then it then our chanting becomes largely unproductive so when we are dharmagya we are able to separate peripheral issues from central issues and we are able to recognize that ultimately everything else that we do is meant to remember Krishna that the purpose of all rules and regulations is to help us to fix the mind on Krishna so we may have to adapt according to time, place, circumstance so that we can focus on chanting suppose a devotee because of some accident some damage in the throat or whatever becomes unable to speak either temporarily or or God forbid permanently then dharmagya one has to be dharmagya and recognize that the essential principle is to chant the holy names is to remember Krishna and that remembrance of Krishna can be done even by chanting in the mind or we can chant Upanishad that means softly so that way if we our mind comes up with various distractions while chanting many of them are about sensual pleasures often sinful pleasures but often the mind also comes up with pious distractions you know distractions about the nitty-gritties of how certain things are to be implemented now we may need to think about them at other times or in some cases there is no need to think about them but because they are not relevant according to time, place, circumstance however this differentiation between the technicality between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law that differentiation can be understood by dharmagya and by the blessings of the great souls like Bishu Pitamah who exemplifies the discrimination we can learn to focus our mind on the essence and absorb ourselves in Krishna as he manifests through his holy name thank you