SB 11.23.51 – Our sufferings are self-induced like one limb hurts another limb and must be self-rectified

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you krudhye takasme purusham svadehe so here the avanti brahmana is explaining how we shouldn’t misplace responsibility on factors which are not responsible for our sufferings and normally this misplacement of responsibility happens in most of our lives in a social level we either blame people because that person didn’t cooperate that’s why I didn’t succeed because that thing went wrong that’s why I failed whatever so normally around in our social circles in our immediate causes we try to find scapegoats but in a religious context people may try to find out scapegoats according to their religious perspectives and here can we blame the devatas for our suffering for example in the greek tradition it is said that whom the gods want to destroy they make that person angry so when the person becomes angry the person acts in self destructive ways and then in this way the gods destroy so would this mean that the anger is generated by the gods yeah certain circumstances may be created which may provoke but becoming provoked is a choice which that person makes and that person is responsible for that that provokes that violent action and its resulting consequence so if so here the avanti brahmana goes into a deeper philosophical contemplation and says if it were that my devatas are responsible for my suffering but then he has now come to the level of self realization he is thinking that actually where is the atma in this even devatas with all their power can only affect the body they cannot affect the soul the soul is transcendental whereas the devatas have jurisdiction on material things so transformation, change the change is happening at the material level and that change can be controlled by the devatas for example by higher power sometimes there can be floods, there can be droughts so we can say these are happening by the arrangement of the devatas so that is true but where is the soul involved in such thing actually the soul becomes involved because of attachment because of misidentification created by attachment just as a person becomes involved in a movie now if a movie is made by a lousy director then we may feel let down and irritated even frustrated on watching the movie but is the movie director responsible for our frustration no, it is our choice to watch the movie that caused our frustration similarly how can the atma be involved in the transformation that is happening at the material level the atma becomes involved because of the atma’s choice and desire and placing responsibility on oneself, we will use the example if one beats one limb of the body with another limb sometimes we are trying to hit a nail with a hammer and we are holding the finger nail in the finger and we hit the thumb instead of the nail we hurt ourselves so who is to be blamed for this I am not angry but whom can I become angry towards so here by this kind of deep and sobering analysis we can learn to stop finding scapegoats certainly we cannot change our mentality immediately but often the blaming mentality causes us to not face the solution rather just keep in pointing the problem but when we understand that ultimately it is our attachment that is causing suffering and we become determined to free ourselves from that attachment then we are able to get the determination to go to the root cause of the problem and solve that problem so this is important when we are chanting because while chanting we are actually not doing anything practical if we define practical at the practical meaning material so when we are in the material world we do have responsibilities and we have to do them but chanting is a time when we want to go to the root of things and address things at the root so all our problems are coming because of our attachments and the karmic reactions which have come from our past attachments and the actions which we did due to those attachments and the ultimate solution to all our problems is becoming free from our attachments and developing our spiritual attachment to Krishna and that is what we are doing in chanting so by remembering how this is our most important activity because it is going to deal with the problem at the root we can get rid of the feeling that oh I am not doing anything worthwhile and I am doing the most worthwhile thing and then we can wholeheartedly absorb ourselves in taking shelter of the holy name. Thank you.