SB 01.15.25-26 – Our spirituality protects our humanity from degenerating into bestiality

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
which is forever beyond all tribulations thank you arjuna is informing yudhishthira maharaj further about how the yadus destroyed each other and he is giving an example from nature that just as an ocean smaller active aquatics is the one that is those who live in jala so mahanto is the more powerful one dantya is the weak mahan so danti is to swallow and durbala those who are weaker so he says similarly the stronger yadus destroyed the weaker yadus and evam balishthe yadubher like that the stronger yadus they destroyed the yadus now the yadus are transcendental but under the influence of intoxication and by the will of the lord they acted almost at the level of the platform of animals where might is right and where people fight with each other brutally and with the intention of just destroying each other so this analogy may seem to be actually disturbing that those who are transcendental how can they just act like animals but basically arjuna is demonstrating explaining here that whatever happens in nature that is what happened over here also in nature there is always what darwin called the survival of the fittest now survival of the fittest is a valid observation from nature but it is not a complete observation especially with respect to human nature now firstly in nature not every no matter how fit a being is it never survives forever it may just survive longer than other others of its species and secondly survival of the fittest is not our higher nature we our higher nature is sacrifice of the fittest we see that we often sacrifice selflessly say firefighters may sacrifice selflessly by going into the fire to rescue those who are victimized within so what we see in nature is sacrifice of the fittest and generally the healthier the stronger the person are people are they actually cherish this value of sacrifice of the fittest and it is this value which is expected of kshatriyas but unfortunately the higher values get compromised and even slaughtered when there is the effect of intoxication and in general when there is delusion so we can see this in our own lives when we succumb to temptation we just act so unconscionably not caring for any of our values and that is because we just become blinded to them we the mind slaughters those values and then we act in ways which are reprehensible so of course in the case of the yadus it was all by the arrangement of the lord an inconceivable arrangement but still it illustrates the point that actually without a spiritual connection we all descend to the animal platform and act like animals not just in terms of just seeking eating sleeping meeting defending but also sometimes succumbing to the savagery and the brutality that characterizes the animal realm if you want to avoid that then it is important that we act on our distinct human faculty that is our capacity for spiritual inquiry and develop our higher self the best way to develop our higher self is by our prayerful connection with Krishna so through prayers through meditation through chanting we bring out of the spirituality within and thereby we are able to curb and conquer the lower bestial side within us and we are able to act more nobly more selflessly more in a principle-centered way that does good to ourselves as well as to others so when we are praying and chanting it is good to remember that we are doing this for our own ultimate good because this will help us to move forward in acting more responsibly and doing better not just in our spiritual life