Sthita Prajna 1

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
my brother is here, he works in America, Harshal Pujari, so, he works in Detroit, he’s just visiting Bangalore, exploring possibility of diversifying his company here, so, we had a meeting today morning, that’s why we got delayed, I would like to welcome Harshal also here, thank you for coming.
It’s just typical when I was in Detroit, we look very dissimilar, so, we had come to Detroit temple, and there were several people, so, there’s one American devotee there, and there’s an Indian, our combination devotees, so, a devotee asked me, is he a real brother? So, and after that an American asked, do you Indians have imaginary brothers also? So, the real brother, the typical Indian English usage, we use the word brother for cousins and others also, for them, what is the opposite of real and imaginary? Do you have imaginary brothers? Like, we also have this, what is your good name? For Americans, do you mean I have bad name also? So, it’s actually here, in Bengal, they have Bhalanam and Dakkanam, so Bhalanam is like your good name, Dakkanam is like pet name, whenever you are mischievous, your parents call you by that name. So, let me translate that in English, it doesn’t work so well, at least in American here. So, here, we are going to discuss from one of the old often quoted sections of the Bhagavad Gita, this is 254 to 262, actually not 262, 272.
Now, this is the last part of the first chapter. The Gita has how many chapters? 18 chapters. Good.
How many verses? 700 verses. Which is the longest chapter? 18th and 2nd, I am good at competition. 18th has how many verses? 78.
Second? 72. So, only these two chapters are the 70 scorers in the Bhagavad Gita, above 70. Now, in one sense, the first chapter is like a summary of the Gita and the last chapter is also a summary of the Gita.
It’s in different senses. In the first sense you could say it’s an introductory summary. And the last chapter is like a concluding summary.
When Krishna and Arjuna start speaking, it is not that Krishna plans to speak 18 chapters. It is not that when Krishna is speaking, Krishna says, It’s an organic conversation. And eventually that conversation is put into a chapter-wise form by Vyasadeva when he composed the Mahabharata.
And in the Mahabharata there are no chapter titles. There are too many chapters to title. So, even sometimes if you see novels, you just have chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3. They don’t have good titles for novels.
So, like that, the Mahabharata chapters don’t have titles. Now, some traditions of the Mahabharata, they may have titles. But generally they don’t.
So, the Gita originally did not have chapter titles. The specific chapter titles are given by different commentators. And those are what may cause some variation.
Now, emphasising the importance of the Gita, Srila Prabhupada chooses the chapter title, Contents of the Gita, summarised. Quite often, another title for chapter 2 is Samkhya Yoga. So, now, this last section is especially significant.
There are many places where Krishna is describing the characteristics of spiritually evolved souls, of self-realised souls, of the kind of person who will be spiritually connected, spiritually evolved. This is the first time Krishna does that. Why is this noise coming again? Or other way? Now, it’s not.
So, in this particular section, when Krishna describes, okay, whenever I move it comes, is it? No. I don’t know when it is coming. Anyway, somehow it is coming.
Right? So, in this particular section, the first time Krishna is going to describe the explanation in terms of the characteristics. And this is in response to a specific question by Arjuna. Arjuna is asking, what are the characteristics of a sthita pragya? Now, this has, as we can say, 19 verses.
We are going to go through each verse one by one, but we will focus on the section. So, let’s recite the verse. Arjuna Vacha sthita pragya sya ka bhasha samadhi sthasya keshava samadhi sthasya keshava sthita dinkim prabhashe ta sthita dinkim prabhashe ta ki ma sito vrajita kim ki ma sito vrajita kim So sthita pragya sya ka bhasha Now, this is a clear example of non-literal usage.
In common, our language, there’s a lot of metaphorical usage. Say, for example, recently, there’s a Tirupati ladoo controversy. So, I made a video about it.
And there, views now, for whoever is responsible for mixing serious contaminants in the ladoos, heads need to roll. So, one comment came to me, do you mean that people should be killed for this? No, heads need to roll. That’s a non-literal usage, you know.
Not literally, head has to be cut and it rolls away. That’s how it originally started. But heads need to roll.
It means that there has to be punishment. There has to be a penalisation of those who are responsible. So, in our native language, there’s a lot of metaphorical usage that we do.
And it’s undisturbed from context that it is metaphorical. That what is being literally said and what is actually being intended are two different things. So, Tirupati is a Ka-Bhasha.
The word Bhasha can lead to many languages. So, what is the language of the enlightened souls? Does it mean that there’s some special language we all have to learn? And only when we learn that language, then we become enlightened in the Buddhist tradition. Even in Tantra tradition.
There is the idea that there is a secret language in which the mystics communicate. And unless you earn their trust, they won’t teach their secret language to us. So, is Krishna referring to anything like that over here? Not at all.
He’s in the middle of the battlefield that he’s speaking. So, it’s a publicly available knowledge. So, Ka-Bhasha does not refer to literally the language.
So, in general, the word Bhasha comes from the word Bhashyate, that which describes. So, the tool that which we use to describe this language. But here it refers to descriptive sentence, Ka-Bhasha.
What are the characteristics of a self-realised person? And then, Kim-Prabhashyate. So, first he asks symptoms or characteristics. And then he’s asking three specific characteristics.
How do they speak? Kim-Prabhashyate. Now, again, how do they speak? What does it mean? Is it that all self-realised souls are going to speak softly, loudly, firmly, gently? Now, how does they speak? The implication, if you look at the context, just what comes before that, what comes afterwards? Is that how do they respond to life’s ups and downs? That some people complain a lot whenever things go wrong. Wherever they come in, some people bring like a breath of fresh air into a room when they come.
And there are other people who take all the air out of the room when they come in. So, there are different kinds of people. Some people are so gloomy.
They spread gloom everywhere. So, how do they respond to life’s ups and downs? And Kim-Asita, Prajita Kim. This is the most stark difference between the literal and non-literal.
How do they sit? How do they walk? So, we are talking about self-realised souls here. We are not like talking about fashion ramp walking models. What is the point of saying how do they walk? How do they sit? Krish Krishna talking about yogis, all enlightened souls have to sit in a particular asana.
And when somebody is sitting like this, this person is enlightened. This person is not sitting like this, not enlightened. No, it’s not like that.
Asita and Prajita, Prajita has non-literal meanings. Sitting is used to symbolise the restraint of the senses. So, when we are sitting, our working senses are restrained.
And Asita is symbolising the working of the senses when we walk. So, Kim-Asita, Prajita Kim. How do they sit? And how do they walk? So, there are four questions over here.
Bhasha. Bhasha refers to their characteristics. Then there is Prabhashita.
How do they speech? That is, their speech specifically. Their responses. It’s coming and going.
So, how do they respond to life’s ups and downs? Then there is Asita. What does Asita refer to? Their sense regulation. So, when there is temptation, how are they able to restrain their senses? Prajita.
That refers to their sense engagement. How do they move about in the world? How do they function in this world? So, we will focus on some of the verses. I will give an overview of this section before and after what is going on.
One of the key symptoms, what Krishna described in the next verse is that if somebody is self-realised, somebody is spiritually evolved, their characteristic is that they are looking for inner happiness. That is what they focus on, not outer happiness. Inner happiness, not outer happiness.
So, there is one diagram that I will come back to again and again in this whole session. That if somebody is a materialist, in contrast with that, somebody is a spiritualist. I am talking about a materialist, personally not an atheist.
But for most people, the world is big. And God is small. So, maybe God exists, but how does God matter? When I started sharing Bhakti, I started contacting my various relatives and talking with them and telling them about my spiritual journey and exploration.
So, one of my relatives showed me, yeah, I believe in God. He is happy there, I am happy here. So, the idea is that God seems to be irrelevant.
But as we grow spiritually, what happens is the world becomes small. And God becomes big. So, the result of this, the world becomes small and God becomes big.
The world is always filled with ups and downs. And when the world is big for us, then the ups and downs of life also become very big. That means whenever something good happens, we become elated.
Whenever something bad happens, we become rejected. And this is what makes people go emotionally extreme. They become emotionally unstable and unreliable.
When the world is very big, anything good happens. If somebody is into football, their team wins, they are on top of the world. If their team loses, the world is on top of them.
They are buried underground, they feel like that. So, what happens is that externals affect us too much. And this can make us unstable.
Now, by contrast, if the world itself becomes small, then even its dualities become small. So, that’s how at this stage there are two things that happen. Material steadiness comes in.
Now, some people say it might become materially steady. But these ups are what make me happy. If I become steady, then how will I be happy? What is the source of my happiness? Now, the problem is that in the middle of the world, everything is always coming in balance.
The extent to which we get happiness from some material thing, eventually that very thing will give us distress. But because that is the only thing we know as a source of happiness, so we take the positive side and we hope the negative side will not come. Or we hope that we can push off the negative side as long as possible.
If our favourite team wins, that’s great. But sometimes our other favourites also lose. So, the problem is that material happiness brings distress as a part of the bargain.
But if that is the only happiness we know, we accept the bargain. Because there is no other bargain available for us. So, the key point is, this stillness, it can’t be sustained if the material dimension is the only dimension in our life.
If somebody is watching a movie for enjoyment, they stay away. Don’t become happy when the hero is winning and don’t become sad when the hero is losing. What is the point of watching the movie? I want to experience emotions over there.
So, unless somebody has some other source of enjoyment apart from the movie, they don’t want to get involved in the emotions of the movie. That’s the very reason they are watching the movie. So, when this material steadiness is sought by itself, it just makes our life very dry and emotionless.
And that’s why there is a second part to it. That Krishna or God doesn’t just become bigger for us, our connection with Him also becomes stronger. Is this colour visible? So, when this connection becomes stronger, there is spiritual happiness or spiritual joyfulness.
So, we are materially peaceful and spiritually joyful. If we are not spiritually joyful, we can’t be peaceful. Because that peacefulness is itself pointless.
It just won’t last. So, that’s why we need to focus on what we are trying to do in our lives. That we don’t just want to be materially still, we want to become spiritually connected.
And these are two points that are talked about in this particular verse. That is the answer that Krishna used to argue for that. Let’s look at the verse.
Shri Bhagavan uvacha Prajapati yada kamaan Sarvaan partha manogataan Atmanye vatmana tushtaha Sthita pragya sthalok chate So, Prajapati yada kamaan, kamaan is desire. Prajapati means to give up. Sarvaan partha manogataan All the desires that arise from the mind for material pleasure, kamaan, one gives up.
And what happens? Atmanye eva atmana With the mind turned inwards, in the self, in our spiritual side, tushtaha, one finds happiness. So, that is, materially, one is not looking for happiness. One becomes steady.
But spiritually, one is finding happiness. These two, material detachment, material non-investment of emotion, and spiritual happiness, these two are the characteristics. It’s very interesting over here.
First thing Krishna says, he’s talking about, see these series of verses, they are both descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive means, this is how the seers are. Those who are spiritually evolved, they are like this.
And prescriptive means, to the extent seekers can behave like this, they can also grow. So, it’s a description of those people, it’s a prescription for us, how we can become like this. So, here what Krishna is telling is, what he is telling us to give up, is not so much material objects.
He is not saying prajahati, prajahati yada vishayaan. He is saying prajahati yada kamaan. It is material desires.
And here there is a significant difference, say between renunciation and frustration. When I was in Pune, one time one boy came to me and he said, I want to become a prajahati. What is the process? I said, okay.
I had not seen him very often come to the temple also. He said, why do you want to become a prajahati? I said, on Sunday I will be deciding. On Sunday I will be deciding whether I will become a brahmachari or not.
I said, what is going to happen on Sunday? He said, I have proposed to a girl. If she says no, I will become a brahmachari. So, I told him, frustration is no qualification for renunciation.
Actually, the difference between frustration and renunciation is like the difference between fasting and starving. So, what is the difference between fasting and starving? Fasting is voluntary. It is voluntary.
Starving is forced. So, there are two things. There are material desires or rather you can say desires for material objects.
Desires for sense objects. And there is availability of sense objects. So, if you consider this to be a table.
So, when there is frustration, is there, which of these two, availability of objects, is it there? Look at this. There are, if you consider, in renunciation, is there material desires? No. Availability? It may be there, even if it is there.
In frustration, what happens? Material desires? They are there. Availability is not there. So, it is a categorical difference.
So, what Krishna is talking about is, not that just because something is unavailable, okay, I will just, I don’t have it, so I will turn to something else. Okay, that may be initial starter, but that does not qualify one for renunciation. It takes time in that matter.
So, Krishna is talking here about a person who is finding inner happiness and has given up not just our sense objects, but even the desire for chasing out objects. So, it is, sometimes people are very eager to renounce their responsibilities, their obligations. And, okay, that could well be a schism.
What is important is to renounce the desires. And at least a sincere attempt to renounce the desire has to be there. And then one may renounce the world.
Sarva-sankalpa-sannyasi, in the sixth chapter Krishna says, not sarva-karma-sannyasi, but sarva-sankalpa. Sankalpa means also desires. Prajapati-adatma.
So, it is when we desire something, then that object becomes big in our mind. So, when I said earlier, the world is big or God is big. Actually, God is far bigger in the world.
And that is how he always is. But, I was talking in terms of our experience, our perception. So, for somebody who is an avid cricket fan, then cricket becomes a very big thing.
I was in Canada. I met some people. There was a boy came to me.
He seemed like an Indian boy. He told me he was an avid cricket fan. And then, between 2011, 2015, 2016, Srilanka came to the finals and lost all of them.
So, he said, we were all avid cricket fans. And after the third time it happened, two of my friends committed suicide. And a third one attempted, but it didn’t happen.
That’s when I became shaken. I love cricket. Why do men work for that? I started exploring something else.
That’s when I discovered the Bhagavad Gita. And then, he came to Canada. He met devotees over there.
So, it’s after all a game. It’s important. We may have got some pleasure in it.
Bhagavad Gita becomes so big. Oh, my favourite team lost. What is the point of cricket? It’s just become disproportionately big.
Somebody is an alcoholic. Just like a devotee sees Krishna everywhere, they see alcohol everywhere. They meet the office, talking with their boss.
And suddenly, their boss’s voice changes into a bottle of alcohol. So, now, something, when we desire it, and desire it strongly, that object becomes bigger and bigger in our consciousness. So, when I say that the world is bigger, or Krishna is bigger, that is a reflection of how we desire it.
If our desire for the world is big, then the world will be big in our consciousness. If our desire for Krishna is big, then Krishna will be big in our consciousness. So, when the desires are given up, that’s when the world becomes small.
And this is the defining characteristic of Krishna. After this, he goes on to answer the next three questions. So, basically, in his answer, the 55th is the answer to the first question.
56th, 57th is the answer to the second question. 58th to 60th It depends on the commentator, I will analyse it differently. 58th to 63th 58th to We can go to 63th.
I will focus on this way of analysing. I will explain another way of analysing also later. This is the answer to the third question.
The third question is, how do they restrain their senses? The second question is about speech. And 64th to 71th is the answer to the fourth question. And then 72th describes the destination.
If somebody is self-realised, if somebody lives in that state of being self-realised, what will they attain thereafter? So, we are right now. We have discussed the answer to the first question. We will move to the second question.
Today we will discuss these two. But today evening, I will be discussing the third question. And tomorrow morning, I will discuss the fourth question.
Now, it is interesting that speech is considered so important. Arjun specifically asked the question and Krishna answered the question about speech. Now, there are two ways of looking at speech as a characteristic of a person.
Sometimes we may say, oh, this person is a sweet talker. This person just flatters and deceives. Somebody is good at marketing.
Then, they say that the expert, advertiser, promoter, marketer is one who can make a Eskimo that they need a refrigerator or air conditioner. So, if we say, speech can deceive and speech is often used to deceive also. So then, if speech can be used to deceive, there are many places where speech is almost de-emphasised.
So, de-emphasised means that if somebody is a sweet talker, don’t get carried away by their talk. Then also, there is a state, walk your talk. That is, you can talk big things, but what you talk doesn’t count much.
How you leave matters much. So, speech can be de-emphasised. So, that, it does seem that if we evaluate a person solely by their speech, then we couldn’t deceive.
So, this de-emphasis, the opposite of that is over-emphasis. Now, this over-emphasis is where speech becomes the sole characteristic. That is the problem.
Krishna has given three characteristics over here. Among them, speech is the most important. Why? It is the first.
If you look at the characteristics, that a person is not seeking material pleasures and is finding spiritual pleasure, nobody externally can look at it. How can we observe someone? Okay, during the time when we are interacting with them, they can act as if they are not interested in spiritual pleasures. And anybody can act as if they are enthusiastic about spiritual happiness.
Bhakti Sahaja Thakur’s Guru, Daughter of Shri Raj Babaji would say, what is the price of tears near your people? He said, it is the price of an onion. If you get an onion deep in your eyes, you will get tears. So, it is the price of onion.
Anybody can fake having tears of ecstasy. Those tears are not of ecstasy, but people can think it is of ecstasy. So, the point is, who is actually experiencing spiritual happiness? And who is not? Who has turned away from material reality? And who has not? That is not so easy to figure out.
So, to some extent, these criteria can be applied to ourselves to know how well we are doing. At the same time, we would like to know whom we are following, whom we are taking guidance from, how spiritually we are. And for that purpose, the first criteria by which we generally, at least a thoughtful person, assesses another person is by their speech.
Of course, if you look at how a person is dressed, that person is unclean, untidy, etc., and that takes a relatively down notch. But generally, if we want to assess a person, what do they speak, and how do they speak? That is a very important criteria. So, speech is not given by Krishna as a stone.
But it is… Can you hear me without this? Behind? You can hear me? You cannot? Okay. Let’s recite the verse till then. Oh, you cannot see that.
But most of you know the verse. Those of you who have your phone, you can take it out of the phone also. So, here Krishna is describing that before we can focus on the speeches, which is important, but what is the inner state of mind which leads to their speech? So, he says, the person is not delighted.
The person doesn’t get dejected when there is distress, and the person doesn’t get elated when there is happiness. So, we get this. This does not mean that the person doesn’t experience those things.
When somebody is given delicious food, they don’t find it delicious. When somebody is given dry food, food that is spoilt, they don’t notice that. So, it is the Sukha and Dukha, they descend from sense perception.
You see, the weather is cold, even if a person is self-realised, they want to feel it as cold. That is going to be there. That is simply a reaction of the body to that particular external environment.
But they are not affected by it. They don’t get emotionally emotionally oscillated by it, going up or going down. And, how does this happen? Vita-prartha-vya-krodha.
This same phrase will come again in 4.10. Krishna talks about it. There it is, 4.10. manmaya-maha-pashita-bhavo-jnana-tapasah uttama-bhava-mahabhata There it is, 4.10a. Vita-prartha-vya-krodha. So, these three things can be understood in many different ways.
But basically, prartha-vya-krodha these are three modes in which we may three ways in which we may interact with the world. Prartha-vya-krodha That raga is attachment, desire I want this, I want this, I want this, I want this. Then, bhaya is fear.
What if I don’t get it? Now that I have got it, I lose it. And krodha is why couldn’t I get it? When I got it, why isn’t it as good as I thought it would be? What if I got it and lost it? Why did I lose it? So, basically, when we interact with things in this world, there are these three broad range of emotions possible. Desire, I want it.
Fear, what if I lose it? Alright. And then, anger, why did I lose it? So, in one sense, the interaction Okay, this has come back, good. So, basically, if we consider our interaction with any sense object, it runs around these three lanes.
The lane of desire, the lane of fear, and the lane of anger. So, these three emotions raga, bhaya, krodha So, these three define our interaction with this world. Sometimes, depending on the strength of a particular desire, corresponding to that much fear, there will be that much anger.
So, Krishna is saying that if we are to not be affected by the ups and downs of the world, then we need to actually be aware that these are unhealthy ways of interacting with the world. Desire, fear, and anger. All this comes because the world is very big for me.
So, I want it and if I don’t get it, it’s terrible. If I lose it, it’s terrible in a different way. And these three can be associated with three different worldviews.
So, basically when we talk about this world and there is some other world. So, this world is real, the other world is real. This world is unreal, the other world is unreal.
Like that, you can have four quadrants. Now, if you consider this world is real, the other world is unreal. Is that a familiar philosophy? That is materialism.
That’s a prominent philosophy in this world. It’s a philosophy. It’s a phoolosophy.
Phoolosophy is the sophistry of fools, the word generally. But most people think the idea of some other world is just some pretty scientific religious mythology. And it’s all become outdated.
This world is all that is real. So, this is what leads to Raag. If this world is real, one life is all that you have.
Yesterday, I was coming back from IIM. There’s a name of a shop or a hotel, whatever it was. It was a brand, I don’t know.
It was just like a big hoarding, I saw, wow, what place. Khao Piyo Eshkar. I mean, people want to do that but to put it so prominently in front of a hotel or whatever it is, that is just material.
This life is all that you have. Enjoy. I saw an ad.
Enjoy before you become a dirty old man. Etymology is a little old. What does the dirty mean? You know, if an old person has materialistic desires for worldly objects, that is not very pleasant.
So, the idea is this life is all that you have. Enjoy. So, this is what leads to Raag.
Now, there is the world view that this world is false, the other world is real. You go to the opposite. What is that world view? Sorry? Oh, that is not, ok, you can call it spiritual world view but that is Mayavada.
Impersonalism, specifically. So, impersonalism holds that Brahma, Sathya, Vijayananda. This world is false.
And, now this significantly is not the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna considers this world so real and so really important that he descends to this world to establish order over here. Again and again.
Not just once. So, the world is real and it is really important. It is not the most important thing.
That is definitely true. So, the Gita’s philosophy falls over here. You could call it Bhakti philosophy.
That is a devotionalism world view. When there is an impersonal world view, the result of that to some extent, is that because this world is false, that is what we think, but the world appears very real. There are so many sense objects and they appear to be filled with so much pleasure.
At any moment, one is just caught by that and entangled by that. So, this world view itself leads to Bhaya. Bhaya of this world.
That the world is filled with so much temptation which is all deceptive, which is all treacherous and I have to be extremely cautious to the point of being paranoid. No temptation should catch me. There is Bhaya over here.
Now, some amount of fear with respect to interaction with the world is necessary. But we look at it how it is deficient little later. So, now there is the third world view.
That is, we come to the third world view. This world is false, the other world is false. This is this is Nahilism.
Prabhupada calls it Voidism. It’s Shoonyavad. And that is associated with Krodha.
Krodha is why do I even exist? This world is nothing of value but I exist and what is the point of existing? There is one prominent existentialist philosopher who was Nahilistic. He John Paul Sartre. So, he said that life is suffering.
The more you try to relieve the suffering, the more you try to find pleasure, the more you increase your suffering. You say, this is actually Bhagavad Gita philosophy? Well, not so fast. That is only one part.
What is the conclusion? Therefore, the only question worth asking is whether to commit suicide today or tomorrow. Life is just pointless. So, there are not many people who are actually active proponents of Nahilism.
Buddhism is becoming increasingly popular in the west but it is Buddhism which is almost made like a non-philosophical Buddhism which more people are concerned with attaining some kind of Zen, peaceful state rather than worrying about what philosophy it is teaching. In India, wherever there is some Buddhism influential, that was political Buddhism. It was adopted by Ambedkar primarily because he wanted to make a statement against Hinduism and its caste system.
So, after he adopted his Buddhism, it was a political device for him and he wrote what he believes in Buddhism. He said, I don’t believe in Karma, I don’t believe in Incarnation. Like the Dalai Lama, under Dalai Lama there are Panchen Lamas.
There is a Panchen Lama of India who wrote back and he says what Ambedkar has adopted is not Buddhism, it is Ambedkarism. It has got nothing to do with Buddhism because he rejected the court and it’s a Buddhism. So, it was a political move for him, not a spiritual move.
This is not to criticise Ambedkar, this is just to point out that most people even when they adopt Buddhism, they don’t know its philosophical implications. The point is, at a philosophical level it is nihilistic and it is not a way a person can live if they really take the implications of nihilism seriously. If this world is not real, the other world is also not real, what is even the point of living at all? And many young people in the West, they may not be philosophically nihilistic but that’s how they have grown up.
Nothing really matters. Everything else is wordplay, power struggle, death of the world. It’s a very dark… Among all these worldviews, I would consider nihilism actually is darker than materialism.
Because even if somebody is materialistic, at least they will try to do material things well. And they will try to maintain order in the world. They will try to bring about some material progress.
It is not complete by any means with respect to them. So you could say in terms of this is 1, 2, 3, 4. So Krishna is telling when we want to become steady amid life’s ups and downs, it is not just a matter of somehow using our willpower. Although this thing is triggering me with desire, I will not succumb to it.
It is not gripping our teeth and clenching our fists and holding our desires and emotions inside us. That may be required intermittently as a factor of discipline. But there needs to be a fundamental change of worldview.
Without the change of worldview, the external cannot be sustained. So when Krishna is saying, Dukheshvanudheeknamana Asukheshu Jataspruha, that is possible when there is an underlying shift of worldview. So that shift of worldview will be reflected in one’s speech.
And that, how it is reflected in the speech, that is described in the next verse. So, Yaha sarvatra naabhisneha tat tat praapya shubha shubham naabhinandatina dveshti naabhinandatina dveshthi asya prajna prateshthita naabhinandatina dveshthi naabhinandatina So, naabhinandati One doesn’t pray something to God, oh this is so wonderful, this is so wonderful. naabhinandatina dveshthi Oh, this is terrible.
Life is terrible, everything is terrible. There is no extreme expression in one’s words. So the speech basically is measured.
It is regulated. And that is a characteristic of a spiritually evolved person. That does not mean that a spiritually evolved person never prays anything, never criticises anything.
It is that at this particular point Krishna is talking about primarily Karma Yoga. He is not talking about Bhakti Yoga here. Although many of these characteristics can be applied to Bhakti Yoga also.
So from a Karma Yoga perspective there is not much knowledge of the spiritual reality. So because there is not much knowledge of Krishna as the ultimate spiritual reality, so there is no seeing of Krishna’s hand in the world. And one can praise things in the world if one can see them in connection with Krishna.
And if something is pratikun for our Krishna Bhakti one can criticise that. Then this is not the way things are to be done. From a material perspective, from the perspective of my pleasure the criticism and the praise don’t come up.
So there is equanimity in speech. So it’s not a particular kind of speech, not a particular kind of language, not a particular tone necessarily. It is more the steadiness in the content of the speech.
So this is what indicates that a person is self-realised. So this is the first characteristic. The second what it means is most of us we will evaluate people by their speech.
If their speech seems interesting then we want to know more about it also. So that’s how a spiritual journey starts. The saints are known by hearing not by seeing.
That doesn’t mean we don’t see them. We hear from them and then we see their actions also. But here in terms of hearing the point is that their speech is steady.
nowadays we can conclude with one point we can have questions that nowadays while Krishna is talking about speech from a spiritual perspective from the perspective of one who is spiritually evolved nowadays there is a lot of research happening about the psychological impact of speech. Basically when you talk about speech there is what we call what we consider as outer speech what we speak to others but there is also inner speech there is the self talk that is what is going on inside us and the kind of speech that a person habitually words externally and the kind of speech that goes on inside their mind that actually both of these affect the emotional well-being. So if a person is habitually talking negative this person is bad that person is bad that person is bad and they are just not speaking like that they are not thinking like that Internally their own emotional health will become damaged by that they will be feeding toxic inputs into their emotions that’s why there is a lot of talk about affirmations you know have affirmative speech affirmations don’t mean that whatever we believe or whatever we speak will become a reality that’s an oversimplification of the idea of affirmation if somebody is 4.5 feet tall and they make an affirmation no they can make they can do a japa of 16 rounds of I am 7 feet tall they are not going to become 7 feet tall so affirmations are not about so much about manifestation they are more about collection and there are certain truths which we all know are true but we tend to forget them so for example if you remind us you know Krishna is in control you know Krishna controls everything even when bad things are happening even when things are out of our control Krishna is in control so whatever happens I the soul am instructed these are truths that we know but we tend to forget so ultimately things happen for a good purpose right now bad things may be happening but things happen for a good purpose so that way affirmations can be very helpful and more important is when we start becoming devotees we are chanting the Hare Krishna Mahamantra repeatedly that’s necessary as sadhana but our speech needs to also become steady not expressing too much desire for worldly things not expressing too much aversion to the lack of worldly things and internally also when something bad has happened if there is a constant voice going oh this is so terrible life is unfair why is all this happening to me why is Krishna doing this where is Krishna does Krishna even exist now sometimes that kind of question coming is fine we can’t control that but if we let that play as the inner voice then that will adversely affect not just our spirituality but also our emotional state emotional health also so this speech is something which we can choose to regulate externally and the more we regulate externally the more we will find that our emotions also will internally become regulated and that’s how this when it says the first characteristic said I was having this pendulum over here so in between it takes speech as the starting characteristic starting characteristic means when we are looking for a seer in other people we observe we evaluate and in us also if we are seekers we cultivate let me try to moderate my speech let me let me try to make my speech steady so the word moderate when we say moderate our speech it has two meanings first is it’s like I evaluate I observe like somebody is a moderator they evaluate and then after that they regulate so if we are not moderating our speech we cannot make our speech moderate so we want to make our speech moderate and when that happens that will be a significant step forward in our spiritual journey and help us to steady our emotions so even when inside there was a voice saying this is terrible this is the end of the world in English there are new words which keep coming in fact there is a website where you can submit a new word if you like and if enough people are quoted into the democracy that word will be included but there is a word that has become quite popular I think last year it was one of the words of 2023 it’s called hyperventilate hyperventilate means what to just every small thing when this happens oh I love this this is the best thing in the world somebody said I hate it this is the end of the world people need to hyperventilate so that kind of hyperventilation we can avoid it so even if our mind starts hyperventilating this is difficult but I have survived tough things in life Krishna says to each other Krishna will love you so we can try to externally moderate our speech and that way we will be able to moderate our emotions also so in one sense this point I was making is emotions and words they are related it’s like emotions can lead to the word that we speak but the words that we speak can also they can change the emotion that we have so this can both go downwards when they are unregulated unregulated emotions can cause unregulated speech but both can go upwards if we regulate our words we can regulate our emotions if we regulate our emotions we can regulate our words it can work both ways so I will summarise what we discussed today I discussed five main points I started first with the Gita structure how in the first summary of the Gita this is the concluding section 254-72 this is a very oft quoted section and in this is the first time first description of the characteristics of saintly of spiritual seers characteristics are there then in that connection I discussed how the Gita uses non-literal language it is after all a Kaavya and Kaavya means non-literal language is quite common so we discussed the four questions the first question Bhasha is what does it refer to characteristics and that is finally answered in 265 the question is in 264 then the next is Prabhashyata that is speech and that is answered in the next two verses 66 67 sorry not 66 it’s all sorry 54-55 56-57 so then after that Asit is regulation of senses and then there is Rajyatha Rajyatha is engagement of senses and that is answered from 62-74 depending on 64-72 so we’ll discuss that then we discussed about when we are talking about speech so we discussed first actually the Bhasha 55 the characteristic of spiritually evolved person is that the world becomes small the God becomes big and when that happens that’s when the person can be materially peaceful and spiritually joyful so both need to go together and that’s when it’s possible and then I discussed about with this 56th verse I discussed about the four world views Vita Raga Bhaya Krodha so there is materialism impersonalism Nahilism and then there is Vita’s world Bhakti world view so so to change our speech and our emotions that is not just will power I will not speak in this way increasing will power what we need to do is the world view needs to be changed it is a fundamental change of world view that leads to this difference in how we function and then lastly we discussed about speech itself speech is it is not to be devalued or deemphasized nor is it to be overvalued so speech devalued means it has no importance at all and overvalued sole importance it is somebody speaks nicely they must be a great person no but in between is it is the starting characteristic we look at the speech and then we look at the rest of the life also and with respect to a person being able to moderate their speech what happens is that to be able to moderate the speech it is not that they don’t praise anything if something is connected with Krishna then they praise it but overall the point is speech and emotions we discussed that we can our emotions can affect our speech and our speech can affect our emotions so ideally speaking both of them we want to make them more and more moderate and that’s how we grow spiritually thank you very much Hare Krishna are there any questions yes please ok lot of questions you can try to please ask Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Guru so I have a question about is it that we need to be materially peaceful and spiritually joyful so I wanted to understand what is your point of view with respect to Kunti Maharaj’s prayers she prayed to Krishna that you give me more and more material blessings so that I can remember you why is she asking for material disturbance yes it’s a good question a good question is a good way of saying I don’t have a good answer but I will try to answer great devotees in particular situations may experience or express certain emotions that are more expressive of their particular condition their particular state of consciousness rather than a universal spiritual characteristic see if you consider Kunti’s prayer over there so we can look at it at a contextual level and at a universal level at a contextual level she is fearing separation from Krishna Krishna is about to depart so the prayer is primarily a longing for Krishna that Krishna whenever there has been danger you have never abandoned us you have been there with us and we value your company so much value your presence so much that if it is danger that brings you to us then we want danger also so it is not so much an invitation of danger as it is a longing for the presence of Krishna that is the primary focus and now at a universal level now we could say that distress can be an impetus for taking shelter of Krishna and there is some truth in that but at the same time it is not that when we are in distress there are two possibilities in distress we may take shelter of something else there are so many other things we can take shelter of and it is also possible that we can take shelter without distress also isn’t it so just because A leads to B or A is the cause of B does not mean A is the only cause of B and doesn’t mean that A will only cause B the two different things the logic that A leads to B but doesn’t mean that A will lead only to B and only A will lead to B so in that particular situation there is a difference that sometimes when a devotee is in distress that can impel a devotee to take shelter of Krishna but is that a standard prayer that devotees offer to Krishna please increase the distress in my life well no you see I was in one place and there was this devotee young devotee very enthusiastic was preaching very nicely when he was preaching he was very sweet and once people would become devotees he used to chastise them publicly like anything as almost like you know when he was preaching he was one person but he started cultivating a different person so the people over there were lamenting and then I visited that place and asked him can you talk with me and then I asked him conflicted and said no I don’t like to do this but it’s my service he said what is your service he said that you know if I don’t chastise people how will they become humble and they have to become humble he said no it is if you chastise people what you are creating in them is not humility it is humiliation now can humiliation lead to humility sometimes rarely but again the difference between humility and humiliation is like the same and the difference between fasting and starving with respect to the ego but see our culture this world is so let’s make each other sad all of you sitting here while you are sitting instead of attending the class let’s start slapping each other everybody will realise this world is sad they won’t realise it they will realise this temple is sad I don’t want to come here isn’t it? so it’s Amanina Manadena we want to cultivate humility for ourselves but we are told to offer respect to others that means help others to feel accepted valued welcomed and that’s how we will grow as a community yes there is dukkha in the world but we don’t want to consciously increase the dukkha sometimes you may hear the story of somebody who already got cancer and they were very serious in their bhakti ahh devotee asked oh I am not good about not doing my japa nicely should I pray that I get cancer so that I will chant nicely there are so many people in this world who get cancer how many people actually become devotees because of that so Mahabodha’s Mahapurudal Sanatana Goswami if by giving up my body I could get bhakti then I would have given up my body thousand times till now so it’s not that simple so at a universal level it’s not a principle that distress will lead to devotion it’s like if the price of getting the association of Krishna is that we are in distress then we are ready to accept that that is the mood over there but in general a devotee does not create trouble for themselves a devotee does not invite trouble there is enough trouble in the world and of course you can say that when we take responsibility for Krishna then that itself will cause anxiety so we don’t have to specifically pray to Krishna give me a diversity in the material world if we take some responsibility for preaching for maintaining a temple for building a temple for doing the seva that itself will bring some problems many problems in our life and but devotees are actually what will bring us closer to Krishna so when can material distress bring us closer to Krishna when can material happiness bring us closer to Krishna when can both of them take us away from Krishna and if we start thinking too much about that we stop thinking about Krishna so don’t worry too much try to make our life as materially peaceful as possible and so that we can focus on spiritual growth if distress comes to all of you if happiness comes spiritually accept it Krishna will give this to me so that I can better serve you and that’s how we move forward yes please where’s the mic my question is regarding so today I think your mic is not working yeah so my question is with regard to the speech part of it so today two words which I generally use to describe people is one is to be an introvert and other is to be an extrovert and we’re not we’re not introverted mundane senses we may judge people accordingly this person is probably not speaking too much or this person is very you know outspoken something like that so but we may judge someone on that on that level whereas that person may actually be quite realised and in the way that you emphasised today about you know not only emphasised but we emphasised the speech and about the stability of the speech right so as a listener how is one avoiding you know doing an offence of judging someone like that see it’s not an offence to observe certain characteristics of devotees even if they are correct that is a pure emotion when Prabhupada in India there’s one a Hindu Mahasabha leader he said Swamiji you pronounce Sanskrit words in a very Bengali so of course I am a Bengali so the other day Prabhupada said what can I do I am a Bengali body slight difference but that’s a fact so we don’t have to force ourselves to not see that the problem is only if we reduce a devotee to that so like say this devotee is an American devotee this devotee is an Indian devotee ok somebody can be American they can be spiritually realised somebody can be Indian they can be spiritually realised when we reduce a devotee to their body characteristics that that when we consider the Guru to be an ordinary human being now that does not mean that we can’t consider the Guru has some characteristics some aspects of their their physical or psychophysical psychological side may reflect particular aspects that’s perfectly fine so observing some devotee will be extrovert some devotee will be introvert and that’s that’s fine no problem with that yeah so second question is that we’ll discuss tomorrow and the after because that’s where sensory recognition and sensory engagement comes up now specifically this is a journey that whatever we bring into our consciousness again and again and again that starts becoming bigger that’s how ads work show the same thing again and again and again and again you know I will see the same ad again and again next time I want to buy this thing I’ll buy it from this product so repetition plays a very significant role especially in Devika Sadhana time what are we doing that is the time when we are consciously focussing on Krishna cutting off from everything else that is the time we may chant sixteen rounds we may chant we may do this puja that we have sang this song but at least for a few minutes during the time of our sadhana we need to actually experience that there is a bigger Krishna is bigger and we how do we experience that actually we start experiencing some peace we start experiencing some strength some solidity some shelter so when we give exclusive time to Krishna then Krishna starts becoming bigger and bigger in our consciousness so it is practise but at the same time it is also purification we need to practise at our level what Krishna teaches is Abhyas and Vairagya so Abhyas is the practise so we expose ourselves to Krishna more and more and more Vairagya is with respect to the world we don’t expose ourselves to the world so much we can’t function in the world with closed eyes but especially those things which tend to occupy our mind it could be science objects it could be politics it could be sports it could be stock market now we may have to regulate our exposure to that so Abhyas and Vairagya what we want to make it big in our consciousness Abhyas what we want to make it small in our consciousness Vairagya that’s how to we’ll discuss this more tomorrow one last question two questions these three questions we’ll stop when we get chastised and that comes through some speech because the first thing that we also our emotions also get there but actually once there is a speech in a day now how do we draw lines in that particular moment yeah it’s a natural reaction at that time out of self defence or what retaliation or whatever so to some extent sattva guna we cannot always be sattva guna but if we have cultivated sattva guna actually say in the morning time we try to have a sattva guna environment around us and we try to make the major decisions in our life in sattva guna we have to do practical things in sattva guna, tamo guna whatever mode we are in we have to function in life but the major decisions in sattva guna then what will happen is maybe at that time somebody speaks harshly to us and we speak back at them but then afterwards we can learn from that experience and then maybe ok this person has this kind of nature to him then we speak harshly to him what should I do at that time so when we are in sattva guna we can try to make that planning sometimes life may just ambush us with certainty and we can just make the best of what we can at that time but if we can plan it in advance ok will this happen at that time I will just walk away from this or I will just be humble or you know I will not lose my work but I will speak back formally to the person or I know I will write a mail or I will ask someone to act as mediator we have to find out some way to deal with it see anger is an emotion now if we express anger then others burn you know if we repress anger then we burn so we have to avoid both these things what we need to do in between is process the anger process the anger means maybe you know when this person did something generally I find it I take aim you know it’s like if somebody has spoken something which has hurt us terribly it’s caused a lot of problem so instead of telling you know you are such a harsh person you are so hum you are not a Vaishnava at all worst is you don’t know you committed a Vaishnava act to me that’s not very helpful so one of the ways I find best way to deal with this describe the action describe the impact you know that when you use these words I felt rejected I felt violated I felt worthless I felt as if you don’t care about me at all you don’t understand me at all I felt as if we have no relationship at all so talk about the action talk about the impact in none of these is there a label affixed to the other person you are so rude you are so insensitive and then third is method method means that you know if this situation if instead if you could have done this or if you could have called me privately and explained the situation and told me something it would have been so much I would not have felt so bad sometimes people will listen sometimes people will not but at least if we do this we will be able to diffuse any of the future conflicts that may arise that’s all thank you I thought you were going to say extending this to three sessions okay you were saying that you know you should process the anger so the question I was going to ask this question so how important is prayers you know when we do this because let’s say you know we take multiple times so at that moment you know because it happened like you know you said you know what happened so there is an inner work and there is outer work so praying is like inner work but then that does not replace the outer work so we have to be praying at the same time we are dealing with the situation so sometimes we have a conditioning and that conditioning is going to make us act in particular ways now we cannot overrate we cannot expect the conditioning to go away so if say if somebody is shortened that doesn’t mean they can’t be a devotee they can still be a devotee but if they are they are told you cannot speak like this to other devotees or you should not may also resolve I won’t speak like this shouldn’t speak like this but they keep doing that again then maybe we will talk about boundaries in the next session or some say regulation but maybe they need to adjust their way if somebody tends to get very angry and speak harshly then maybe they should not be in devotee care there can be some others like this you know if somebody just can’t restrain their tongue they just eat a lot of food well they can still be a devotee but maybe they should not be in charge of Mahaprasad so sometimes we need external help to help ourselves so if it is happening again and again we can pray to Krishna but if the answer is not coming the way we expected don’t get discouraged it just means that conditioning is deep it will take some time to recover and during that time we need to help ourselves in some external ways by having some boundaries I will talk more about boundaries tomorrow thank you ok we have two questions can we discuss tomorrow last question we have any last question oh you can also yes this last question you can finish first question is we can all take it that is the Chintamedha Veda ok Puroji when somebody is speaking to us specifically giving us feedback or rectifying or an improvement plan personally I see myself that it works I don’t see what he is speaking objectively it’s more important who is speaking that so like I have a couple of seniors whom when they speak the same thing then I can accept it but when someone else speaks then the anger why he is speaking and I have also seen that those seniors speak to my equals that if you have any issue with him you let me know you don’t speak directly to him so when I get to know this like it’s good for me but a person who is spiritually advancing or wants to yeah wants to advance should actually ideally he should learn from everyone he should accept so how do we transition from that place where we want to we cannot hear the feedback and give things to everyone only from specific it’s more important for us who is speaking should learn objectively thinking it is good for me how do we know see it’s a quite a good introspective question and I would say that in the philosophy of speech itself this is discussed you know when we use words for example specifically words you know our words merely conveyor of information like our words like a pipe say I am speaking something there is like an invisible pipe for you through which are they the conveyors of meaning or are they the shapers of meaning that means when words are spoken are the words themselves contain the meaning or the words like a passageway to give meaning so both aspects are there so what happens is it is natural in our speech that in our interactions with others that if we trust the other person the other person earned our trust then what they speak that will not trigger our defensive fight or flight this kind of response defensive aggressive response if that’s not a person whom we trust then it will trigger that response so we can’t change basic human psychology and biology so somebody I don’t know raises their hand near me and then I find they wanted to pat me on my back but you know how am I to do that they raise my hand and I’ll just shrink backward I’ll move away so we can’t know so that’s why that’s why when we are encountering people I don’t think we should expect too much from people ourselves also over expecting from ourselves will burden us so if we can expect feedback at least from our senior that is good if we can’t expect from them also it’s going to be really difficult but as we move ahead in our lives we will also become more and more secure internally as we grow spiritually and that’s when when people speak say like I am here and my even my behaviour my words my conduct it’s here so somebody is analysing it they are not attacking it to get that sense we need to distance ourselves from it and that takes a spiritual growth I am an author so many devotees send their writings to me to review so one of the things I try to make sure do you really want a review or just do you want an appreciation isn’t it and sometimes they may not say that but some devotees just need encouragement yeah keep writing now if they have published in a particular magazine say in the Back to Godhead I am one of the review editors for that then we have particular standards so initially when somebody is starting to write they are quite interested in their writing and any feedback of the writer can be very discouraging so it depends to the extent we are able to separate ourselves from that particular issue to the extent we can be objective otherwise we will be subjective thank you very much Gantraj sorry Srimad Bhagavad Gita change of the Bhagavad Gita all the Bhagavad Gita change of the all the Bhagavad Gita Dev Vichitra so this session will continue for the from