Self-determination and denial of destiny characterize modernity

Bhagavatam class at ISKCON Chowpatty

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. So, today morning, we are discussing the Srimad Bhagavatam’s 82nd chapter, wherein this is the background to one of the most emotionally riveting incidents from the whole Bhagavatam. That incident is, of course, the reunion of the Vrajavasis with Krishna.
And the background to that is who all have assembled there and what are the discussions that happened between the other parties who were involved. So, this specific incident is describing when Kunti met with Vasudev. And so, the chronological, the Bhagavatam, especially from chapter 55 onwards, the 10th canto is not chronological.
So, it is more of inspirational recollection. And the positioning of this incident is somewhat intriguing. We have actually both the Pandavas and Krishna, their lives are somewhat parallel.
Both of them were born Kshatriyas, but both of them lived disinherited. They lived in forests. Krishna lived as a Vaishya.
The Pandavas lived more or less like Brahmanas. And then both of them came to the kingdom and both of them had to undergo power struggles to gain back the kingdom that was theirs. So, of course, for Krishna, the power struggle almost immediately when he dethroned Kamsa.
But for the Pandavas, the power struggle went on for a significant amount of time. And at this particular time, the power struggle is not over. So, Krishna has enthroned Ugrasen as the king of the Yadu dynasty.
And they have all shifted to Mathura. From Mathura, they have shifted to Dwarka. In the meanwhile, for the Pandavas, at this stage, they are living in a state of uneasy peace.
In a state of tension. What has happened is, as it’s mentioned in this paraphrase, Yudhishthira Maharaj has performed the Rajasuya Yajna. And he has been enthroned as the emperor of the world.
And soon after that, the gambling match took place in which they lost everything. So, long after this, when the war gets over, the Pandavas will perform another Ashwamedha Yajna. In fact, they will perform three Ashwamedha Yajnas.
The commentators explained that it was not that they performed three distinct Yajnas. Rather, they performed one Yajna with giving thrice the oblations, thrice the donations. And because the quantity was thrice, it was like they performed three Yajnas.
But at this stage, the Rajasuya has been performed and the Pandavas have been enthroned. Yudhishthira has been enthroned as the ruler of the world. But Duryodhana and others, they are just scheming how to dethrone them.
And soon after, when they come back, the gambling match will happen. So, at this stage, Yudhishthira Maharaj is enthroned as the king. Now, prior to this, what was described was Vasudev and Kunti’s meeting.
And life is the best introducer of people. When we meet someone, say two people know each other and third person is there. One of them may introduce the third person.
Or sometimes the person may introduce themselves. Like that, we get to know something about people. Or nowadays, if you want to know someone, we Google and find out about that person.
Now, all those are ways in which we can know something about people. But life is the best introducer of people. Because life puts us in all kinds of unpredictable, uncontrollable, unforeseeable situations.
And then, at that time, how people respond, that reveals the fabric of their character. And that’s how, actually, we see people as multi-dimensional beings who have many facets to their individual personalities. So, Kunti Maharani, in the first canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam, she is introduced as an exalted, selfless devotee, who offers inconceivably astonishing prayers.
She is saying, Krishna, let the calamities come again and again. Vipada, santuta, shashvat. And those prayers from 1.8.18 to 42, they are all built around the 1.8.25. Let the calamities come again and again.
That is her mood. Of course, now that incident, although it has come first in the Bhagavatam, it has not happened over here. Right now, when Kunti spoke, this incident has not happened.
So, what is Kunti saying in the previous verses? She meets Vasudev and she is apparently complaining. She is saying, you know, I have been through so much difficulties and you didn’t care, no one cared for me. No one cared for me.
And he says, Alas, it seems that when we have misfortune, everyone turns away from people. And then Vasudev, how does he defend himself? Actually, there is a series of verses in which Kunti speaks and just a couple of verses in which Vasudev speaks. And Vasudev, his main defence is that actually I was helpless.
That ultimately, Ishwara ishashya hi vashe loka. That we are all controlled as if puppets by Providence. And then he explains how I was also imprisoned by Kamsa and we were also going at various places.
First we were in Mathura, then we had to go to Dwaraka. And Dwaraka was more or less cut off. So, Krishna, for the security of the Pandavas, he ensured that the Dwarkavasis stayed in what was like an isolated water-bound city and the Yadus would usually not come out.
So, the Yadus, most of them, they had not come out for many occasions. And that’s why now Kunti, she is meeting. Krishna himself was there for the Rajasuya Yajna.
But from the way Kunti Maharaj is talking over here, at that time, Kunti and Vasudev had not met. So, it is now that they are meeting. So, Krishna had, because he had many enemies over there, he had to take emergency defence measures.
And one of them was he had kept the Pandavas, kept the Yadus isolated in Dwaraka. So, here Vasudev is saying that actually we were helpless. We have now only been freed from the atrocities of Kamsa.
Actually, the freedom from the atrocities of Kamsa has come a significant amount of time earlier. But Kamsa was not just one person. Kamsa had his many associates and those associates continued to be threats even after Kamsa had been dethroned and destroyed.
So, now here it’s interesting that both of them use the word Providence. Kunti uses the word Providence and she says that Alas, when Providence is unfavourable, even one’s loved ones turn away from one. And then in response Vasudev says, actually in front of Providence we are all like puppets.
And therefore, his subtext, there is a text and there is subtext. Text is directly the word that are spoken. Subtext is because of the context in which something is spoken, certain words have certain meanings.
So, that is the underlying message. Subtext is that it was not that I didn’t care for you. I should care for you, but we were helpless.
We could not do anything in the situation. So, he also uses Providence. Oh, because of Providence we were just like puppets.
Now, this whole point of Providence is something which is often seen as antithetical to the modern ethos. If modernity can be defined in various ways, now there is the technological changes which have happened in modernity. There are cultural changes which have happened in modernity.
But underlying all these cultural, technological and other changes, there are several intellectual conceptions that have changed. And that what defines modernity is self-definition and self-determination of the individual. That means I define who I am and I determine who I can become.
So, the driving ethos of the current times is that basically we determine our destiny. We determine who we are, we determine who we will become. And to some extent this has its positives.
In the past whether it was in India or whether it was in the West, the society was largely divided according to social stratification. In India it might have been the caste system. In the West, in Britain and in France they also had their division.
There was aristocracy and there was the gentry. And people who were general people, they lived almost lifelong like underlings, like lower caste people. So, basically people’s role in life was more or less defined.
This is what you are and this is what you will become in your life. And intellectually the way modernity broke away from mediaeval times was through self-determination. And of the first inventions that led to self-determination, led to the ethos of self-determination was spectacles.
Why spectacles? Prior to the development of spectacles, the idea was anatomy is destiny. The way you are biologically, that’s what you are. If your eyes get damaged, you get blind.
If your eyes become weak, your vision gets impaired. But when spectacles were developed, the idea was that anatomy is not destiny. That even if your eyes are not functioning, you can by artificial means get something to supplement your vision.
And by supplementing that vision, you can go actually against anatomy. That was the idea. Now, of course, if we go back to Ayurveda, Ayurveda had also means of healing people in various ways.
There was surgery also. But now, right now, I am not contrasting modern times with ancient times. I am contrasting modern times with mediaeval times.
I will come to ancient times and the ethos of that a little later. So, from the development of devices, just spectacles, which seem to counter the sentence that biology puts on us, that anatomy puts on us. So, variously, people started having this idea that the role of destiny, what was earlier considered destiny.
So, humanity started pushing against the limits of destiny. What was earlier considered unchangeable, people thought that we can change it more and more and more. And today’s ethos, the idea that something is destined, that something is unchangeable, that is referred to in a derogatory sense by the word fatalism.
Fatalism means you people think that ultimately nothing is in your control. Nothing is in your control. And you just accept things without doing anything to change them.
And in fact, when the Britishers came to India, one of the characterisations that they offer of the Indians is that Indians are inveterately fatalistic. They said that if Indians had not been fatalistic, it would not have been able for us, a tiny minority, to be able to rule such a large number of people. And, now we have to understand, Bhaktisiddhanta Thakur, he responds to one of these criticisms in one of his first books, the Bengali Samajipta.
And he says there that progress is defined according to people’s conceptions of what is important. That means, if somebody considers money to be very important, then they will think, oh, a person with a lot of money, they are progressing. Somebody considers education very important.
Then somebody who is very well educated, oh, this family is progressing. Some place where people are not educated, they are not very progressing. Somebody else may say, you know, ultimately high education does not lead to big money.
As long as you have big money, even if you are just less educated, it does not matter. So, basically, based on what we consider important, we determine, we define what is progress. So, he said that western civilisation is characterised by an over-emphasis on the Karmendriyas.
Whereas Indian civilisation focused on emphasising the Jnanendriyas. So, Karmendriyas means that we have to do something. We have to run here, we have to go there.
One of the complaints that people often have is that Indians are not very good at sports. And one of the reasons they say, so, Mahatma Gandhi could anticipate that, and he says that cycling, climbing, running, all these are defined as markers of progress by those who think the Karmendriyas are very important. He says the sages of India, on the other hand, considered the Jnanendriyas more important.
He says we observe and we learn. Whereas, in the western definition, it is what you do. Go here, do this, do that, do that.
Now, interestingly, actually, if we consider Karma, Jnana and Bhakti as the three broad phases of Vedic thought, then modern science, although it requires, it uses a substantial amount of intelligence. The scientists who worked hard to come up with the inventions and discoveries, they definitely had a lot of intelligence. But science, technically, does not fall under Jnana.
Technically, it falls under Karma. Why? Because the basic definition of Karma, rather than going into the specifics of the rituals that were performed in Karmakandha, the basic definition of Karma is trying to change material nature for the better. So, for example, if there are no rains, then perform some yajna by which to get rains.
This is basically Karmakandha. If somebody does not have a progeny, try to perform some yajna, Putrakameshti yajna, by which they can get a progeny. This is basically what is being done is, the Karma is used to change material nature for the better or for what is thought of as better.
And the whole purpose of science is to do the same thing. The method by which science tries to change material nature may be different from the way Karmakandha does it. But the purpose is the same.
Both of them are intending to try to change material things for the better. And so, scientific progress in that sense is not the progress in Jnana, it is progress in Karma. It is progress in the basic methodology, in the basic attitude that defines Karmakandha.
So, in Karmakandha, the idea is that by doing rituals, we can try to change the things. If somebody does not have children, then do some yajna and try to get children. So, whether it is through the performance of Karmakandha rituals or whether it is through scientific progress, the essential attitude is what? That we can change things.
And we should change things. That is why I said modernity is defined by self-definition and self-determination. Now, of course, today that self-definition is going to bizarre limits.
So, for example, we have, normally human life is defined by the limits of birth and death. That a person is born at a particular time and a person dies at a particular time. And birth and death are very clearly incidents which are not in human control.
Even when a mother is expecting a child, you cannot really give a precise moment, this is the moment the child is going to be born. And similarly, even if a person is in terminal disease state, we cannot define when exactly the person will die. But today, say through euthanasia, what is called as mercy killing, but what is actually convenience killing.
So, through euthanasia, people try to define their death themselves. They try to define, this is a dying, I want to die. And similarly, with respect to birth, through artificial various measures, right from how conception happens, how the gestation happens to when delivery happens, all of that we try to mechanically intervene and control.
And not only that, what to speak of the time, the duration, when life begins and when life ends. Now, of course, this whole idea is further aggravated with abortion. So, life begins when the mother or the parent decides that life has begun.
If they don’t want that child to be born, they decide the child is not a person. Child is not a person. So, this attitude of self-definition has gone to such an extreme.
And recently in America, there was an advertisement of some chips, some fried chips. And they showed that when the chips were presented to the mother, the mother ate it and they showed in a visualised sort of thing that the embryo in the mother’s womb is also reaching out the hand, I also want to eat it. So, when this advertisement was shown, there are two groups of people, there is a pro-life and the pro-choice.
Pro-life people say that the abortion is wrong. Pro-choice say that no, we should be born, the mother has the right whether to give birth to the child or not. So, the pro-choice lobby, they made a court case against this advertising company saying that you are perpetuating the conception that the embryo is a person.
So, by saying that the embryo has a desire to eat the chips, you are miseducating people that the embryo is a person. Well, the embryo is a person. It is biologically speaking, it has all the potentiality of a human person.
But the point I am making is this self-definition. And this self-definition goes further where nowadays there is this whole increasing phenomenon of gender bender. Gender bender means people feel that I am uncomfortable with my gender.
So, they want to change their gender. So, I was just in America a few months ago. So, one of the devotees who regularly hears my lectures, he told me that the day he went to his office, when I was there, he said that yesterday our boss came and told me that there was this so-and-so person, he was a man yesterday, today he has become a woman.
So, he should address her as a female and she is going to use the ladies toilet. So, I just don’t know how to deal with this. So, now the point here is that there is from the philosophical perspective, we understand that the soul goes through various different kinds of miseries.
So, just as some people may have a body, they may not have eyes or they may not have legs or they may be physically handicapped in some ways, all that is the result of karma. So, one result of karma is that the soul doesn’t properly integrate with the body which it is in. To misidentify with the body we have is bad enough.
To misidentify with the body we don’t have is worse still. So, this is what sometimes happens. And then, yes, people may have a sense of identity crisis.
So, a soul might have been a female in a previous body and the soul is a male in a previous body. But the soul is not integrated with the male body right now. The soul has a, like sometimes people have jet lag.
So, the soul has a lifetime lag. So, the soul’s subtle body is still identifying with the female body that was there in the previous life. And because of that, people just have an identity crisis.
Now, when this identity crisis occurs, the whole idea is, if you look at Greco-Roman accounts, there have been people who always had this feeling. There are men who are sometimes feminist. There are women who are sometimes masculine.
And this is there. But the idea that we should go about surgically trying to change one’s gender. This is typical of the modern ethos of self-definition and self-determination.
Where we don’t want to acknowledge that anything is beyond my control. Whatever is unpleasant, whatever is uncomfortable, I will just change that. And this, at one level, it claims to make people free.
Oh, whatever you don’t like, you change it. But the very thing that claims to bring freedom, that very thing quite often creates a burden. What does it mean? That suppose, now say there is a young player who goes on to become a champion cricketer.
And the other player who was with the two, these two are friends. And the other person doesn’t become a champion cricketer. Now, what is the difference between the two? Now, there is, in today’s ethos, there is something called starting talent, which people have.
And this idea that some people are talented and some people are not talented. This seems to make things discriminatory. Oh, why should this person be talented? Why should this person not be talented? So quite often, today’s ethos holds that actually the key to success is not talent.
It’s only hard work. And if you just, you know, why did this person become a cricket champion? Oh, because he practised so much. You know, he did so many workouts, he did this, he did that, he did that.
And yes, it is important to work hard to succeed in any field. But actually, to deny the reality of talent, to deny the reality of talent, if somebody is a superb singer, and another person is tone deaf. Now, even if this person who is tone deaf practises for 18 hours daily for 18 years, still that person is not going to become a musical genius.
So what happens when we deny the reality of talent? Then the people who fail to succeed, their failure becomes their responsibility. And not responsibility in a positive sense, responsibility in a negative sense, that you are not diligent enough, you did not work hard enough, because of which you are not succeeding. And that is tremendously psychologically damaging.
Now, talent is again a matter of destiny. By destiny, I’m using it in a general sense to refer to anything that is not in our control. So I’ll talk more specifically about what daiva means.
But acknowledging that there are things which are not in our control is the beginning of focussing on that which is in our control. Only when I acknowledge that certain things are beyond my control, then I can start looking, okay, what is in my control? What can I change? If I think that everything is in my control, then basically, which is simply not true, and then I keep struggling to change things which I can’t change, and it leads to tremendous psychological damage. So people who can’t succeed for whatever reasons, when they don’t acknowledge that destiny plays a substantial role in everyone’s life, and that role is in terms of talent, starting talent that is there.
There are popular sayings like which they say that success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. You say like that, oh, you have to work hard. Yes, that is true.
But without that 1% inspiration, that 99% perspiration will only be perspiration. You know, without that starting talent, I’m not saying here that hard work doesn’t matter or that people can’t succeed in the field that they want. But this whole ethos that anybody can achieve anything in their lives, this is not only untrue, it is damaging.
Prabhupada would give the example that so many people work hard, but not everybody becomes a Henry Ford. No, it is not that everybody becomes a millionaire or a billionaire. So as it says, ईशस्यरी बशे लोगा that we are ultimately under the control of destiny.
And many things in our life are determined by factors which are beyond our control. And recognising this is actually the beginning of optimising our endeavours. Now, paradoxically, today, while on one side, the ethos of modernity is that self-determination and self-definition, but on another side, the same ethos has led to its opposite.
So modernity has rejected any conception of higher destiny in terms of some higher beings or some higher powers controlling us. But modernity has paradoxically accepted destiny in another form. And that idea of destiny is what is called as genetic destiny.
Genetic destiny means, as science is progressing more and more, many scientists today hold the idea that we are all determined by our genes. So everything from how much we can remember, to the pigment of our skin colour pigment, to whether we are introverts or extroverts, whether we are fluent in our speech or whether we are stuttering in our speech. So everything about us is determined by destiny.
That’s what is the mainstream attitude today, that we are genetically determined. And the idea that we are genetically determined, then it basically again places the fact that there are things which are beyond our control. But the notion here is that we will accept any controller except God.
So we will accept any control except God. So God is the controller, God is in charge of everything. No, that is unacceptable.
But genes, yes, genes are there. Genes control us. That is what today’s mindset is ready to accept.
Now, of course, whether genes control our behaviour, and how much they control our behaviour, this is a matter of big debate within the philosophy of science. But the idea that genes control us. So there is the idea that, okay, if genes control everything, then why do we try to do anything? A, everything is controlled.
So for example, the two scientists who discovered DNA, they both got Nobel prizes afterwards. But then they say, actually, life is purposeless. We are not here for any purpose.
We are simply puppets who are driven by our genes. So my genes made me into a scientist, somebody else’s genes made that person into something else. Okay, then if we are all driven by our genes, and then why claim credit for what you have done? Isn’t it? Why do you take a Nobel Prize yourself? Because your genes made you do it.
So don’t take the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize should go to your genes. So it’s like, actually, everyone is controlled, but I worked hard to get my Nobel Prize.
You cannot attribute my Nobel Prize to genes. I worked hard. I was so brilliant.
I was so creative. So the idea is, we cannot do away with the notion of human initiative and human industry. When Prabhupada in Life Comes From Life, he is told by one of his disciples that there was a scientist who got the Nobel Prize for saying that everything happens by chance.
So Prabhupada simply replies, if everything happens by chance, then even your book has come by chance. So if your book has come by chance, why claim to be the author of the book? Why claim to have to credit for that book? So the idea that everything is destined. So now I’ve talked about two extremes here.
One is the moral ethos where nothing is destined. And even within that moral ethos itself, the idea is coming up that everything is destined. But everything is destined is completely counterintuitive and counter experiential.
Now we do feel in terms of intuition, yes, I am doing some things or I’m not doing something and counter experiential. We can’t say that suppose if I am sitting here and I suddenly go and slap someone. And then, hey, why did you slap me? I said, you know, it’s your destiny.
If I say it’s your destiny, then they will slap me back and say it’s your destiny. So if we attribute everything to destiny, then the whole concept of human accountability is nullified. Human accountability, the idea that we are responsible for our actions, we are accountable for our actions, this becomes nullified.
So now one of the most prominent thinkers in modern times in terms of the field of science was Albert Einstein. And Einstein was profoundly troubled by the implications of scientific predestination. So he said, if I simply follow the ideology, follow the worldview that is created by science, then the Nazis who killed millions of people, no, they killed because they were driven by their genes to do so.
So now he says, this is what science says, but I can’t accept this. So he was himself conflicted by the whole thing. So we have an innate sense of accountability and human life would not function without accountability.
Yes, somebody may have, so that we could say the Nazis, they were programmed by Hitler, but still they had choices. Even among Nazi Germany, there were people who did not participate in the Nazi programme. There were people who resisted it passively, some resisted it actively.
So the understanding that we have free will, we have initiative, we have our capacity to choose, this is also ingrained very deeply within the human psyche. And Baldevidya Bhushan, in his commentary to the fourth pada of the Vedanta Sutra in Govinda Bhashya, he analyses what are the factors that initiate action. And there he analyses various kinds of statements.
So the statement like this over here, ईशस्यः वशे लोका, so he quotes over there, प्रकृते क्रियमाणानि गुणि कर्माणि सर्वश्यः, आंकार विमुदात्मा कत्ता हमितिमन्य, 3.27. And he says there are statements like this in scripture, which state that actually we are not in control. That everything is, that material nature is the doer of things. And he says, now, if you see material nature is like a superset or a metaset.
So material nature, in the past, people may use material nature to refer to, okay, if a big storm comes, why does the storm come? It’s because of Daiva. So today, people use that material nature as a rubric in terms of genes. So why do people behave like this? It’s because of their genes.
That’s ultimately we are attributing it to material nature in whatever way it is. So now he says that if these statements alone were the complete truth, that the morals are the doer of things, then scriptural statements, which tell us do this and don’t do this, they would become meaningless. Because this very fact that if scripture tells us we should do this, scripture contains prescriptions, scripture contains proscriptions, that would indicate that we have capacity to do things.
We have capacity to choose this and we have a capacity to choose that. And here, I will conclude by talking about the difference between a programme and a manual. A programme and a manual.
You know, when a computer operates, a computer operates by a programme. And when it operates by a programme, it is basically more or less its behaviour, its functioning is defined. If I press the power button, then this programme will happen, this function will happen, this function will happen, that’s more or less clearly defined.
A programme is something which more or less controls everything about the functioning of a device. Whereas a manual is not meant to control the operator. A manual is meant to guide the operator.
And the difference between the two is that the programme is meant for a machine which is not conscious. The manual is meant for a person who is conscious. And Baldevidya Motion doesn’t use the word programme and manual.
But he talks about it in terms of a wood cutter and an axe. He says that scripture contains statements which say that the modes are the doer. But scripture also contains statements which tell us do this and don’t do this.
So, we see at the end in the Bhagavad Gita also, Krishna tells Arjuna that one who thinks you are the doer, they are the doer, therefore they are ignorant. As I quoted this 3.27. But then in the same Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is telling Arjuna at the end, yathe chchita tha kuru, in 18.63 he says, as you desire, so you do. That means Krishna is acknowledging Arjuna, you are a doer and as you desire, so you do.
And at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, when it comes to Krishna, Arjuna speaking in 18.73, he says, karishe vachanam tava. Karishe is actually just a variant of kuru. It means do.
So, Arjuna also says, I will do. So, the notion of doership is not false. We are definitely doers.
So, Baldevidya Motion gives the example here of an axe. He says, when an axe comes in contact with a tree, the axe is going to cut. That is not changeable.
The axe is going to cut a tree. But it is the woodcutter who determines which tree the axe will cut. So, the woodcutter can cut this tree, the woodcutter can cut that tree.
Or the woodcutter can cut the tree at the bottom, the woodcutter can cut a branch of the tree. So, what this means is that in the composite unit, if we consider the woodcutter and the axe as a composite unit, then there is an element of predestination and there is an element of choice. So, we cannot use the axe to, say, heal a wound.
I cannot use the axe to sew things together or fix things together. So, what I can do with the axe is in that sense fixed. At the same time, which tree I cut, or whether I cut a tree or not, and which part of a tree I cut, that is in my control.
So, similarly, we all have certain starting points, certain natures, certain set of talents, certain kind of dispositions, which are not changeable. So, just as an axe is going to cut a tree, similarly, certain people are going to be, from the Vedic perspective, we could say, certain people are going to be Brahminical, certain people are going to be Kshatriya, certain people are going to be Vaishyas, or if you want to take modern psychological types, some people may be introverts, some people may be extroverts. So, there are these basic, basic psychophysical nature is not going to change.
That is something which is defined. So, wood cut, the axe function of cutting a tree can be changed. But which tree it cuts, that can be changed.
Similarly, we can’t change our basic nature. But what do we use our nature for? So, yes, if somebody is an intellectual, they can use their intellectual capacities to write books about godlessness and nihilism, or they can write books, they can write or read or whatever, study, teach books about, talking about the glory of god. So, Krishna talks about this determination in 18.59, 50, 60, when he says, that, sabhāva jena kaunteya nibaddhasvena karmaṇā kartuṁ necchasi anmohād kariśiṣya avaśopitād He says, we are all bound by our sabhāva.
And kartuṁ necchasi anmohād, even if you think, Arjuna, you will not do this, still you will do it. kariśiṣya avaśopitād You will still act. So, Shri Krishna Chandra Kapoor explains in his commentary over here that, Arjuna, you may say that you won’t fight as a Kshatriya, but, eventually when you are provoked, you will react as a Kshatriya.
At that time, you will take out your bow and arrow. And at that time, you will be forced to act according to Kshatriya. So, I started by saying that, life is the best introducer to people.
So, that’s the point here also, that Arjuna is being told by Krishna, you may write the thing, you can act like a Brahmana. But, when life’s vicissitudes come up, at that time, your Kshatriya nature will come up. So, rather than thinking that everything is changeable, that I can change whatever I want, that there is nothing which is controlled about me, nothing which is about me which is restrained, which is unrealistic thing, what the Bhagavad Gita says is, accept that there are certain things in life which are unchangeable.
And then focus on those things which are changeable. So, Arjuna, you will have to fight. But either you can fight based with a bodily conception, where you think that you are fighting to win a kingdom, or you can fight with a devotional understanding.
You are fighting to serve the Lord, to establish Dharma, and to move closer to Him. So, by recognising that ultimately in every situation, we have the free will to choose whether we go close to Krishna, or whether we go away from Krishna. That free will, no one can take away from us.
Even if somebody has got a terminal disease, where they are bedridden, when they are bedridden at that time, they can choose whether they think about Krishna and go closer to Krishna, or they think about themselves and feel sorry for themselves, and go deeper into Tamoguna. So, that freedom is the essential freedom. The freedom to at every moment to choose whether I go closer to Krishna, or I go further away from Krishna.
And once there is a desire to go closer to Krishna, then, once we cultivate that attitude, then, Krishna will give us the intelligence about how to serve in that situation. How to best move closer to Krishna. What service we can do in our present situation, whatever it is, whatever the constraints are there in that situation, how we can serve Krishna, and how we can move closer to Krishna, that we can learn, if we begin by accepting that, okay, everything in my life is not in my control, but my disposition towards Krishna is in my control.
So, I can either be resentful about why this situation has come in my life, or I can be grateful that at least I have Krishna, I have the opportunity to remember Krishna, I have the opportunity to serve Krishna. And with that grateful attitude, the curtains of illusion that have covered our mind, the resentment that has clouded our consciousness, that resentment dissipates. And then, the way becomes clear.
The more we develop the disposition, Krishna, whatever the situation, I want to serve you. And we’ll find that the road becomes clear. And Krishna will give us the way to move forwards.
So, Vasudev here states that, yes, at that time, there’s nothing in my control. That’s why I couldn’t come to help you at that time. I couldn’t do anything.
But, he says, now, I’m there. And now, there’ll be a reunion between us. So, rather than lamenting about the things which are not in our control, we focus on that which is in our capacity to change.
And thus, we move forward intelligently in our life. So, I’ll summarise. I started by talking about the chronology of the Bhagavatam, the 10th Canto, how this particular incident has happened after the Rajasuya Yagya and before the gambling match.
And in between that, so, here we see both Kunti, I talked about how life is the best introducer to people. So, we see different facets of different people. Whereas, Kunti in the Bhagavatam, we see that in her prayers, she is saying, oh, let the adversities come.
But here, she is expressing her hurt that when I had adversity, no one cared for me, no one approached me. Everybody seemed to have forgotten me. So, then both Kunti and Vasudev talk about providence.
And then we discussed elaborately about the role of providence that the defining intellectual difference between modernity and premodernity is the notion of self-determination that we can by our determination change anything and everything. So, right from changing our capacity of our vision through spectacles, we said that anatomy is no longer destiny to various technological advances which seem to have changed things. So, this idea that by our efforts, we can change everything, that defines the modern thoughts.
And today, in the postmodern time, that has taken forward to self-definition where we think that we can change the moment of birth or we can change the event of birth also. We can change the moment of death. And we can change even things which are biologically determined such as gender.
And this notion, although it may seem to give us freedom that we can change whatever we want, actually, it creates burden. Because if everything is changeable by human determination, then those who are not able to change, that means they don’t have determination. That means they are weak-minded.
But then, it is not that everything can be changed by determination. Determination cannot produce talent. And talent is something which is vital for success in particular fields.
So, that’s one of the reasons why people have a lot of psychologically damaging problems in today’s world. Because the notion of self-determination creates the burden of self-condemnation. Where I think that if I am not able to succeed in a particular field, that means I just don’t work hard enough, I am not determined enough, I don’t have willpower enough.
And that can be very psychologically damaging. And paradoxically, you see, that the more humanity has rejected the idea of some higher destiny, we have to acknowledge that something is beyond our control. And people are ready to acknowledge that in terms of genetic destiny.
Everything about us is determined by genes. That is the idea that comes from the scientific worldview. Not scientific worldview, scientific worldview.
So, then, we discussed in this connection that even within the modern times, people who advocate that everything is determined by genes, still they want to take credit for what they achieve. And the idea that everything is destined, that destroys the notion of accountability. And no society can function without accountability.
I discussed about how Einstein was profoundly conflicted. Were the Nazis responsible for the Holocaust or were the Nazis simply programmed by the genes to do the Holocaust? So, then, that connection, I concluded by discussing about the difference between the programme and a manual. So, there is definitely destiny, there are many things in our life which are controlled, but there are many things which are also in our capacity to change.
And Baldevi Devotion says that if everything were controlled, if they were simply puppets of material nature, then scriptures, statements saying do this, don’t do this, they become meaningless. So, he gives the example of a wood cutter with an axe. The axe function of cutting can’t be changed, but which tree it cuts can be changed.
Similarly, with a particular body, with a particular mind, we have a particular kind of subhava, that cannot be changed. But for what purpose we use that subhava, that can be changed. And the essence of the free will that we have is, we can always choose with what we have, whatever we have right now, with it, whether we go closer towards Krishna or we go away from Krishna.
And then when we seek to go closer towards Krishna, then Krishna will give us the intelligence to understand more clearly what it is that can be changed and what it is that can’t be changed or that needn’t be changed. And we focus our energies most productively. So, thank you very much.
Any comments or questions? Very interesting. Thank you. Even as devotees, often we prefer the programme over the manual.
Because we can kind of relinquish the responsibility and the trouble of having to take initiative. So, we think, okay, let me just get on with the programme. Let’s just get people into the programme and once they’re into the programme, they will just float around and they will end up in the right place at some point in time.
But both scenarios have inherent flaws. The programme and also the manual, they have inherent dangers. So, what’s the determining factor of balance amongst the two besides the Dhamma, Kundalini, Yoga and Dharma? Some people just make their Mahabhakti a validation programme.
It’s a nice Mahabhakti, but what does it mean in actual life? Because again, you can justify anything. And self-justification, self-preservation is the number one business of the mind. So, it’s kind of the easy way out to explain with personal responsibility and initiative.
Yeah. So, sometimes the tendency to go either towards the manual and give people freedom in terms of Deshkala Bhakti or sometimes go towards the programme. Let’s do this thing.
So, how do we balance? In general, in the initial years of one’s life, when one becomes a devotee, it is best to follow the programme. That means one recognises, basically, that desire to go closer towards Krishna. It is not just something which automatically comes in the heart.
It may come in the heart, but it has to preserve. Krishna says in 12.9 that, He says, even the desire for him, that will come by Abhyasa Yoga. So, even the desire to go closer towards Krishna, that requires practise.
And that practise Krishna is talking about here is Sadhana Bhakti. So, certainly, the rules of Sadhana Bhakti are very important to practise so that there is, there is, basically, coming to Sattva Muna. Ramapada writes in the introduction of lecture of instruction that, once one comes to the mode of goodness, then how to advance further will be revealed from within.
So, initially, when the mode of goodness is less, at that time, our own decisions can be very, can be self-deceptive. So, it’s best initially to recognise that this is a programme and follow the programme by which we at least come to the mode of goodness. At least in some part of our life, even if not throughout our life.
We have the capacity for calm reflection. And then afterwards, we will ourselves learn. We have senior devotees whom we consult.
We observe ourselves. And based on our own observation of ourselves, based on observation of others, we learn that, okay, this is the best way I can function. Or this is the best way someone else can function.
And there is always the tendency in the human mind to exaggerate thoughts. That means, whenever there is a, there is an adjustment according to time, place, circumstance, eventually there are, there are alarmists. You know, people who are always sounding an alarm, alarm, alarm.
They say, oh, if you start adjusting, then the luck will remain. If you start adjusting, everything will be lost. But that’s not necessary.
That adjusting a few things doesn’t mean changing everything. On the other hand, sticking to certain things doesn’t necessarily mean giving no room for initiative. So, this is not something which, which can be determined as a matter of policy.
It’s a matter of, according to each individual situation, they will decide how best they can practise. And there is always the senior, guidance of the seniors, which is important, guidance of the spiritual master, the spiritual master’s representatives. But broadly, rather than worrying too much about whether I am, whether I am just letting myself go through a programme without thinking, or whether I am just overthinking.
You know, both, to not think at all, to think too much, both can be problems. So, rather than, the fact is that we do whatever little thinking we can, and the focus is on we keep serving. You know, Prabhupada said that, Prabhupada translated bhakti as devotional service.
So, devotional service means, you know, devotion is the adjective, service is the noun. What that means is, that the devotion is the qualification. We want to serve in a devotional way, but even if we can’t serve in a devotional way, still we keep serving.
And as we keep serving, gradually the mood of devotion comes. And as the mood of devotion comes, then things become clearer. So, the important thing is, ये न के न प्रकारिये न मना कृष्ण निवेश्वित। Somehow or other, stay connected with Krishna, keep serving Krishna.
And over time, by our own self-observation, by others’ guidance, and most importantly, by our purification, so that we come to goodness, we start learning how best we can serve. Any comments you would like to add? So, thank you very much. गंत्राज् किमद भागतं की। श्ट्रप्रभुपाद की। अवरबत्त बिंद की। गौविर्प्रिणा।