The Bhagavad-gita’s message of love comforts and enlightens

[Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Sydney]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
the society. Thank you. Nirvishesh Shunyavadi Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare Hare Krishna.
So today I’ll talk about how the Bhagavad Gita is filled with a message of profound, life transforming, divine love. The Bhagavad Gita is often seen as a philosophical book. And when we study, we sometimes feel that, okay, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavatam, there are more likely stories in that.
The Bhagavad Gita seems to be quite high level philosophy. However, although the Bhagavad Gita is philosophy, it is actually a discussion between two people. And both of them have their emotions.
And essentially, the Bhagavad Gita demonstrates how a bond between two people’s hearts can be established through the heads. So, Arjuna is the soul, Krishna is the supreme soul. And Arjuna is confused.
So because of his confusion, his emotions go into turmoil. He puts aside both, I can’t fight. And at that time when he says this, he surrenders to Krishna.
So, then Krishna addresses him. And Krishna gets him from the level of emotions, which is agitating him to the level of the head. And then there’s a head to head conversation.
But then through that, there is the way to the heart. So the Bhagavad Gita talks about how, starts with how our emotions can delude us. So from the point of emotions that delude to the intelligence that stabilises, to the emotions that uplift and liberate.
That’s the journey of the Bhagavad Gita. So first, Arjuna begins with emotions that delude. He’s overwhelmed.
How can I fight against my loved ones? He is, tam tatha krpaya vishtam, ashru purna kul ekshanam, his eyes are filled with tears. Arjuna is a battle-hardened Kshatriya. Warriors generally don’t show emotions, at least not in the war field.
For a person like Arjuna to be crying in public, means he must be in overwhelming agony. At that point, what does he do? So the Bhagavad Gita talks about surrender at three levels. First, the Bhagavad Gita begins with Arjuna surrendering.
In 2.7, he states that karpanya dosho partha svabhava prichyamitvam dharmasamudhacetaha vishyasya nishchitam dhumitam me shishyas teham shadhimam tvam prapannam I surrender to you. So the Bhagavad Gita offers three visions of surrender. Surrender as the start of enlightenment.
Then, surrender as the process to enlightenment. And surrender as the perfection of enlightenment. So when Arjuna is in confusion, when should I do this, should I do that, what should I do? So surrender.
Go to some guide, some counsellor, some trustworthy person and ask what should I do? And Arjuna is not simply asking, should I fight, should I not fight? If that had been the question, then the Bhagavad Gita would not have had much relevance for millennia. Arjuna’s question is prichyamitvam dharmasamudhacetaha. I am asking you, what is dharma? Dharma does not simply mean religion.
Dharma actually refers to the innate order of things. So the actions which harmonise us with the essence of who we are, that is dharma. So the action that harmonises us with who we essentially are.
So what is my dharma, Arjuna asks. And Krishna starts speaking. Krishna first starts with talking about how you have to begin with identity.
Who are you? So Arjuna is thinking, am I a Kshatriya, who is meant to kill whoever is aggressive, whoever is a lawbreaker? Or am I a Kurunandana, who should protect my Kuru members, even if they are aggressors? So he has this identity crisis. And Krishna says, you are neither a Kshatriya nor a Kurunandana. You are neither a martial guard in a society nor are you a member of a particular dynasty.
You are first and foremost a spiritual being. And start with that foundation. From there Krishna takes to various levels.
So basically the Bhagavad Gita is simply lifting the vision. So first from the level of the body to the soul. From the level of the soul to Krishna.
And from Krishna to bhakti to Krishna. So actually bhakti or devotional love for Krishna is actually considered even higher than Krishna. Because it conquers Krishna.
And so when Krishna moves forwards, so he talks about the soul and how become detached from worldly emotions. Don’t be so captivated by it. So to understand this flow, when people go to watch a movie, in the movie theatre two things happen.
First is the lights go off. And then another light goes on. So the lights go off so that whatever is around us, we become blinded to that.
And the light on the screen goes on. That’s the only light and there is captivating, moving illusion over there. So we get caught in that.
In America, I was just there, I was giving a talk in a university. The name of that university is American Institute of Illusion. So it is basically about how to create illusions.
It’s about making videos, making movies. So institute of illusion. Actually the whole material existence is an institute of illusion in a sense.
So what happens here, in the material world also, there are two energies which put the soul in illusion. One is switching off the lights so that we forget what is reality. And another light is switched on so that we get projected into a virtual reality, the movie that is being projected.
These two are called as the avarnatmika shakti and the prakshikatmika shakti. The avaran is covering. Just as when the lights go off, I can’t see anything.
So the avaran makes the soul forget who I am. So illusion not only covers the soul, illusion covers the soul and then covers the covering. So that the soul doesn’t even know I am covered.
And then in front of us there is this attractive material world with so many different objects which captivate us. And that is the turning on of the light on the movie screen. So that is called the prakshipatmika shakti.
So, in this way, purusha prakriti stho, bhunkte prakriti jan gudan. The soul gets caught in matter and when caught in matter the soul gets captivated. So, suppose a child is watching a horror movie.
Now, the child starts watching the horror movie and the mother is right in the next room. The horror movie starts with some shape-shifting monster, all kinds of macabre sights. And the child starts trembling, crying, screaming.
When the mother sees that, actually nothing has happened to the child. The child is safe and comfortable at home. But the child is so caught in watching that horror movie that all kinds of terrible emotions are going in.
Trembling, crying. And then what does the mother do? The first thing he will do is take the remote, switch off the horror movie. So, what Krishna is doing similarly is when Arjuna is caught, captivated by illusion, Krishna turns off the remote.
What does that mean? He says, stop identifying with the body. Recognise that you are the soul. So, whatever is happening at the body level is real, but it is superficial.
It is not actually happening to you. It is happening to your shell. So, Krishna talks about becoming detached from external worldly phenomena.
The world is like a movie. Not in the sense that it is false, but it is peripheral to us. To the extent we get attached, we get caught, to that extent we get entangled and we suffer.
A few months ago there was the Champions Trophy final in cricket between India and Pakistan. India was expected to win and India lost very badly. So, one boy came and told me after that, in three nights I could not sleep after that.
How could India lose like this? So, now he was in India, that cricket match happened in I think England, wherever it was. And what happened? Why did he have to get so agitated? The consciousness was locked over there. So, like that when our consciousness is caught in something, we go through emotions because of that.
So, when Krishna says, नप्रहरिषेत् प्रियं ब्राप्य नोध्विजेत् प्राप्यचा प्रियं स्तिरबुद्धेर असमूढ हो ब्रह्ममित् ब्रह्मनिस्तितः He says that actually whatever is happening, it is peripheral. The wise person, ब्रह्मनिस्तितः, one who is situated in the spiritual platform, doesn’t get agitated. स्तिरबुद्धेर, intelligence is steady.
And even if good comes, नप्रहरिषेत् प्रियं ब्राप्य, one does not delight. And even if bad comes, one doesn’t become dejected. So, we see this elation and dejection often on the two sides of a tennis court at the end of the match.
One just goes up, yahoo! Another, oh no! So, on one side there is elation, on the other side there is dejection. So, Krishna says, avoid these ups and downs. Why? ब्रह्मवित् ब्रह्मनिस्तितः One who knows I am the soul, I am different from all this.
So, actually the soul is stable, the soul is unshakeable, the soul is eternal. And to the extent we realise our spiritual identity, to that extent we get an inner shelter, which makes worldly ups and downs less agitated. Suppose we are staying in a house, say we had gone for some outing somewhere, and we are staying in a house and we find that there is no air conditioning over there.
So, you can’t make it hot, you can’t make it cold. And suddenly the temperature goes unbearably up. It’s becoming hotter and hotter and you are feeling unbearably hot.
You don’t know what to do. At that time, we just look around and we find, oh, behind the door there is a staircase. We go up that staircase and we find there is a whole floor over there, and on that floor there is air conditioning.
Just turn it on, feel relief. So, similarly we consider our existence as two levels, material and spiritual. So, at the material level, ups and downs will always come.
And they will take us up and down. But when we understand I have a spiritual side, and I can raise my consciousness to the spiritual level, by chanting the holy names, by studying scriptures, by remembering Krishna essentially. Remembrance of Krishna is like the stairway, is like the elevator that takes us from material consciousness to spiritual consciousness.
And when we rise to the spiritual level of reality, we experience relief. So, Krishna, what is telling Arjuna initially? Just understand that this is all temporary. Don’t get so agitated by it.
How do you do that? Brahma nith brahma nisthita. Be situated in spiritual knowledge. Remembrance of Krishna is what helps us to rise to spiritual level of reality.
So, if downstairs it’s very, very hot, but here I am comfortable. I can see it’s hot there, but I am not agitated because I am not feeling the heat. Like that when we remember Krishna and focus our consciousness on spiritual reality, we will be concerned, but not disturbed.
We are concerned about what is happening in the world outside. Because that’s where we want to serve, we have our responsibilities here, but we won’t be disturbed. Because we don’t feel personally threatened by it.
We have our security in our relationship with Krishna. So like that, just as the mother switches off the TV, then the horror movie stops. So like that, when we dis-identify, dis-identify means stop identifying with, we dis-identify with matter, the material body and the material world, then the agitation goes down, the agitation decreases.
Like we rise to a higher level. We go beyond the immediate threat because of the agitation. Now after this, till the 6th chapter, Krishna is repeatedly talking about detachment.
Be equipoised, be detached. 7th chapter onwards, the mood of the Gita changes. Instead of detachment, Krishna starts focussing on attachment.
The first verse of the 7th chapter, 7.1 is Oh hear Arjuna, now how by practising yoga you can make your mind attached to me. Just like the child who is trembling because of watching the horror movie. The first thing is, switch off the horror movie.
But for the child to be comforted, the mother will want to go and hug the child. I’m here, don’t worry, everything is alright. But the child is still so caught in the horror movie, when the mother puts her arm around the child, the child says, Oh this is monstrous, caught me.
It throws off that. Child’s consciousness is still caught in that. So the mother, it’s not just the mother has to go and comfort the child by hugging the child.
But the child’s consciousness has to be brought back to reality. So that is what Krishna is telling, that when our consciousness is caught in the material world, we have to detach it from matter and attach it to Krishna. When the child turns, Oh mummy, you’re here.
Oh, he’ll hug the child, the child will hug the mother and the child will feel safe. So like that, Sarvasya chaaham hrudisannivishto. Krishna says in 15.15, I am there in the hearts of all living beings.
Even the person who loves us the most, even if they hug us in the tightest of embraces, that person cannot be as close to us as Krishna always is in our own hearts. By the process of bhakti, we start redirecting our consciousness so that instead of being attached to worldly objects, we make it attached to Krishna. And for this, how do we do this? I said surrender is the beginning of enlightenment.
I don’t know, what should I do? So that is in 2.7. In 7.14, Krishna talks about surrender at another level. daivinesha gunamayi mamamaya duratyaya mam evaye prapadyante maya metham tarantite Yes, this illusion is very difficult to overcome. But if someone surrenders to me, then they can go beyond illusion.
Now Krishna is telling here of surrender as a means of transcending illusion. So Krishna now is, surrender is not just intellectual. It’s intellectual analysis, but surrender also involves emotion, you know, I accept defeat.
Now that’s the normal way which you think of surrender, where a defeated general on seeing that helpless has raised the white flag of surrender. Now that is not the essential mode of surrender when it comes to Krishna. We are not in a fight against Krishna.
Actually, we are in a fight separate from Krishna not knowing what our ultimate self-interest is. We surrender to Krishna, that means, Krishna, you know better than me what is best for me. You know better than me what is best for me.
So I surrender to you, please kindly. The whole 7th chapter and from there onwards, 7th to 12th chapters in the Bhagavad Gita are all about the glory of Krishna as the object of surrender. He is the Lord.
And Krishna describes how everything that attracts us in this world is actually coming from Him. yad yad vibhuti mad sattvaṁ śrīma dūrjita me vavā tattva devāva gacchatto mamate joṁ śi sambhava Whatever is attractive, it simply is a spark of my splendour. Somebody looks very attractive.
Somebody speaks very impressively. Somebody is a very charismatic leader. Somebody is a brilliant writer.
Somebody is a brilliant manager. All their brilliance, where does it come from? It comes from Krishna. So, there is one Gita commentator who says, Krishna is an incredible egomaniac.
He says, what arrogance! Everything good in everyone is coming from me. I am the best of everything. He says, what kind of, doesn’t he have any humility? Actually, this is a great misunderstanding.
Because if you want to see Krishna’s humility, all that we need to do is just look at the context of the Gita. Krishna is the charioteer for Arjuna. Charioteer is like a chauffeur.
So, if he were so ego conscious and he would never become a chauffeur. He says, you be my chauffeur. So, Krishna, his mood of loving service is seen in the setting of the Gita itself.
That he is ready to be even the saru and the charioteer of his devotees. Then why is Krishna saying like this? I am the best in everything. Actually, that is simply fact spoken for the purpose of education.
Suppose a patient is very confused, has gone to 10-15 doctors. And finally has come to one doctor. The doctor is giving a prescription, you do this.
But this patient is thinking, that doctor said this, and this doctor said this, and this doctor said this. So, this doctor says, I am the best doctor in the town. And all those doctors you have gone to, they are all my students.
I trained them. Now, if this were the truth, the purpose where the doctor is speaking is not to brag. The purpose is to get the patient to take the treatment.
To inspire faith in the patient, so that the patient gives up the confusion and just takes the treatment. Similarly, when Krishna is talking about his divine position, the point is not that I am so great. The point is that, direct your heart to me.
You want shelter, you want peace, you want happiness, direct your consciousness to me. But I am attracted to so many other things. Yes, whatever is attractive in those things is actually a spark of my attraction.
So, whatever pleasure you might get by doing that activity, by enjoying that object, you will get that and much much more by becoming devoted to me. So, the purpose of Krishna is benevolent. He wants to benefit Arjuna.
And then, here itself, when he speaks, everything attractive comes from him. So, Krishna speaks about his own glory, not so much to prove that I am great, but to inspire Arjuna to take up the practise of bhakti. The doctor speaks about his own position so that the patient will take the treatment.
Similarly, Krishna’s purpose is, therefore practise bhakti. The essential glory is the glory of bhakti which Krishna is giving. And then, from the 13th chapter onwards, then 11th, 12th chapter, 11th chapter Krishna gives the vishwaroop darshan.
It’s huge. Arjuna asks Krishna, if you are the source of everything, you are the shelter of everything, can you demonstrate this to me? Krishna says, sure, I’ll do that. And Krishna revealed the vishwaroop.
And then, I will show you that which you have never seen before. And then, in the vishwaroop, he also shows the kaalaroop. Kaalaroop is formed as time.
Time is that which is the destroyer. So, Arjuna is at one level concerned. What is going to happen in this war? So, Krishna shows how all the enemies are going to be destroyed.
They are all, they are all entering into the mouth of the vishwaroop. They are all getting destroyed. And when Arjuna sees this, he gets scared.
What is this? Such a terrible sight. All the warriors are getting destroyed. And he says, Aakhya hi meko bhavanugra roopo.
He asks, who are you? Now, at one level, Arjuna has only asked Krishna, no, please show your vishwaroop. And Krishna shows the vishwaroop. But what happens when we see the vishwaroop, the vishwaroop is so blinding that he can no longer see Krishna.
He says, suddenly this huge form has appeared. Who are you? In Hindi there is, in many of the vernacular Indian languages, there is a first person, there is a second person conversational and second person respectful, like tu or aap. Tu we use for ordinary people, for respectful we use aap.
So, in Sanskrit there is tuam and bhavan. Tuam is like tu and bhavan is like aap. So, initially even when Arjuna surrenders to Krishna, he says, I surrender to you.
But he uses tuam too. But when he sees this vishwaroop, it is so scary. Scary aakhya hi meko bhavanugra roopo.
Aap kaun ho? Who are you? So, now, what is happening is like, if we know some person, but when we know that person, suddenly that person starts behaving in a very different way. We are chatting with a person who we think as a friend and suddenly that friend now talks on phone and we find that he is talking with the Prime Minister of the country. And he is ordering this person, that person, he says, who are you? So, Arjuna says, who are you, Krishna? And Krishna says, kaalo smilo kakshay pravradho.
He says, time I am, the destroyer of all the worlds. And we say, why would God be destroyer? Actually, the destruction is not for any negative purpose. The destruction is simply to redirect our consciousness from the temporary to the eternal.
Just like when the mother turns off the TV. Child says, this movie I was watching, you turned it off. No, there is a bigger life apart from the movie.
So, kaalo, when Krishna, he comes as time and destroys everything, he is actually just turning off the movie. Now, look to reality, that is the point, kaalo smilo. So then, Arjuna says, yes, I surrender to you, whatever you say, I will do.
So, when Krishna tells Arjuna that I am time, then Arjuna becomes a little bit more scared almost. He says, I am sorry, I treated you very cheaply. We are just treating someone as a friend, and we find that that person is actually the Prime Minister of the country.
Hey, really, I am sorry if I offended you anyway. So, he says, ajanata mahimanam davedam maya pramadat prane navaapi Somehow, if I have offended you, please forgive me. Then he says, also Krishna, that Krishna, don’t show this kaala rupa.
Come back to your saumya rupa. Saumya rupa is your ordinary form. And Krishna teases Arjuna.
Actually, this kaala rupa is something which no one has seen before. Don’t you want to see it? No, no, I don’t want to see. So, it’s like, what happens to Arjuna? Suppose we turn on the TV to watch some enjoyable show, maybe some romantic movie, and then we find that it’s a horror movie, and everything is getting destroyed.
And then, it’s like, at one level we see something getting destroyed in some remote place, wherever the movie is being shot. And the next moment we see, it’s our own house getting destroyed. So, what is this? So, Arjuna sees this destructive form, and then he sees that destructive form is destroying all the soldiers in his own battlefield.
All the enemies. So, he’s scared. He says, Krishna, please don’t show this form.
He says, okay, okay, calm down. I’ll change back to my normal form. Saumya rupa.
And then, from the 13th chapter to the 18th chapter, Arjuna asks various questions. Krishna has revealed how he is supreme. But then, what about Samkhya? What about various other schools of thought? What about various other concepts, which Arjuna has heard about in the context of dharma? How all of them fit into the worldview of bhakti? That’s what Arjuna asks and Krishna answers.
And then, towards the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, Now, Deliberate and do as you desire. So, here we see a vision of God who respects human intelligence and respects human independence. You deliberate, you decide.
The Bhagavad Gita is not a book of commandments. The Bhagavad Gita is a book of choices and consequences. There’s no God telling, thou shall do this.
If you do this, this will happen. If you do this, this will happen. 18.50 and he says, If you become conscious of me, you’ll pass over all obstacles by my grace.
If you don’t become conscious, you’ll be lost. Now, you decide what you want to do. So, deliberate.
Now, as Arjuna is in it, after hearing 18.63, Arjuna becomes thoughtful. Krishna spoke this in the second chapter. He spoke that in the fifth chapter.
He spoke this at that time. As he becomes pensive, thinking of what to do. So, Krishna’s heart overflows with compassion.
He says, Arjuna, you don’t have to bother. I’ll make it crystal clear. 18.54 He says, The most confidential knowledge I’ll speak to you now.
It’s the supreme word I’m going to speak. Why do I speak this? Because you’re very dear to me. Therefore, for your benefit, I’ll speak to these words.
And then, he speaks two words, 18.65 and 18.66, which the great Acharya, Vishnu Maharaj, says that if you consider the Bhagavad Gita to be like a treasure chest, then there is an upper lid of the treasure, there is a bottom surface, and in between, there is a treasure. So, somebody may be too lazy to actually open that treasure chest to find out what is there inside. So, on the treasure chest, two jewels are put.
So, on the cover itself, lid itself. People say, oh, there are two jewels over there, there may be many more inside. So, those two jewels, on the upper treasure chest, are 18.65 and 18.66. So, 18.65 is, So, he says, think of me, become my devotee, worship me, offer your homage to me.
In this way, you will come to me, I guarantee you, because you are very dear to me. Now, actually, 60-70% of this verse is the same as what Krishna has told in 9.34. So, there he is saying, if in this way you devote yourself to me, you will come to me. But here he is saying, if you do this, I guarantee you will come to me.
So, repetition stresses something. And the stress in the repetition also conveys something. Suppose, two people are about to come to an agreement.
Suppose, there is a person selling a house. A person is buying a house. A person is a seller, may say, ok, if you pay this much money by this much time, if you sign these documents, then if you do this, this, this, then I will sell this house to you.
But, say, the seller becomes very anxious. Then, he will say, you know, if you do this, I promise you I will do this, this, this, this. So, what is happening? In the beginning, in 9.34, Krishna is telling Arjuna, if you do this, this, this, then you will come to me.
But by 18.65, Krishna is so eager that Arjuna makes the right choice. Krishna is saying, if you do this, I guarantee I will do this, this, this. So, the onus is shifting from what Arjuna has to do to what Krishna will do.
This is Krishna’s compassion. His love from his heart is coming out. And in 18.66, he takes further.
Arjuna may still have some reservation. What about this dharma? What about that duty? What about all those other things? He says, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ He says, I will free you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.
Now, earlier in 7.27, Arjuna has been told by Krishna that if you want to practise bhakti, you have to be free from sinful activities. eṣāṁ tvanta-gataṁ pāpaṁ janānāṁ puṇya-karmaṇām te vandamoha nirmuktaḥ bhajante māṁ dṛḍha-vratah He says, those who are free from sinful activities, they can practise bhakti diligently. But here, Krishna’s compassion is so great.
He is saying, even if you are not free from sinful activities, you surrender. I will free you. So, it’s like a mother who is training a small child to not soil one’s clothes.
So, the mother is trained. Then the mother tells, if you soil your clothes again, you will have to clean them. I will not touch you.
And then, that’s like Krishna in 7.29, you purify yourself, then you surrender to me. But the child is helpless. The mother says, you clean yourself, then you come to me.
The child says, mummy, I don’t know how to clean myself. Mummy says, come, I will clean you. So, 18.66 is like that.
Krishna says, come, I will clean you. He says, I will free you from all sinful reactions. And then, Krishna says, after that, that if you just practise this message, you will attain me.
So then, 18.68 to 71 is like the phalashruti. Krishna says, those who share this message all over the world, those who, those who share this message, they are most dear to me. Nobody in future will be more dear to me than those who share this message.
So, that is Shila Prabhupada who travelled all over the world sharing the message of the Bhagavad Gita. Now, somebody may say, no, sharing this message, who can do that? It’s very difficult for me. Then Krishna says, okay, if you can’t share it, at least study it.
So, 18.70 he says, He says, if you just share this message, if you just study this message, you are worshipping me with your intelligence. So, what this means is, if we use a metaphor, suppose somebody has fallen in a well and a person comes from outside and throws a rope down. Just hold this rope, I’ll pull you out.
This person says, oh no, if I hold the rope, my whole body’s weight will come, my arms will pain, I can’t hold it. Then the person says, okay, I will, I will tie the rope into a lasso and I will, you just tie it around your waist, I’ll pull you out. That’s the first level Krishna is saying, you preach all over, I will be delivered.
He says, no, no, that’s very difficult. So, Krishna says, okay, you just study, then you will be delivered by that. Somebody says, no, but if I tie the rope around my waist, it will pain my waist so much, I can’t do that.
Then, what the person outside does is, the person takes a rope and ties a nice big bucket to the rope and sends the bucket down. You just sit in this bucket, I’ll pull you out. So, that is 18.71. Krishna says, if you can’t study, just sit and hear this message.
By hearing also, you will become liberated. So, in this way, Krishna is revealing his heart’s love more and more and more. And then finally, he says, in 18.72, there is a last verse that Krishna speaks.
He asks, oh Arjuna, have you heard attentively? Has your illusion been dispelled? So here, actually, Krishna is speaking to Arjuna with great concern. And the Acharya has explained here that Krishna’s implication is, Arjuna, if you have not understood anything, any part, I am ready to repeat it. If you want, I can repeat the full Bhagavad Gita again.
Have you understood? And this word he uses over there is, Tananjaya. Tananjaya is one who is the winner of wealth. So actually, the Bhagavad Gita is meant to enrich all of us with the wealth of wisdom.
Where wisdom is actually the most important wealth that anyone can have. People may have a lot of money, but if they don’t know what to do with the money, then that money can hurt them. I was in Denver, I met one boy.
His grandmother gave him a huge inheritance. And he was a teenager at that time, 17 or 18. At that time, he got his inheritance and he was just getting into drugs at that time.
And his mother had come to know about it and his mother had stopped taking out his pocket money. At that time, he got his inheritance and he spent like a million dollars in one year all on drugs. And at the end of it, he ended up in a drug de-addiction centre.
So, the money actually worsened his addiction. So, if we do not have proper knowledge, then even the things that we have, we use them to hurt ourselves. Some people are wise and some are otherwise.
So, Krishna is helping Arjuna to become enriched with the wealth of wisdom. And Arjuna replies by telling, नश्टो मोहस्मतेलव्धा त्वद्प्रसादान्मयाचुता सिदोस्मिगतसंदेवा करिषेवचनंदवा In 84, 73 he says that yes, my illusion has been dispelled. My calmness has been restored.
My memory has become clarified. And करिषेवचनंदवा I will do your will. So, here, Arjuna is expressing surrender.
Surrender means I will do your will. So, the Bhagavad Gita is not a conversation about fighting a war. Fighting a war is simply a dramatic setting.
It’s like, say, if we come to know that two cricketers had a chat. Okay, may I be interested in what they talked about. You may not be interested.
But suppose, we find out that it’s a world cup final. There are like 80,000 people in the stadium. And the field is set.
The bowler is in the run-up. And the batsman is about to take strike. And at that time, just before taking a strike, the batsman walks to the non-striker’s end.
And the non-striker also walks. And they start talking. What is going on? Everybody is waiting and watching.
Now, at that time, when they are talking, everybody will want to know what are you talking about. So, the Bhagavad Gita is spoken in a setting like that. Both the armies are assembled.
And at that time, when the conches are blown, that is like, the toss is done and the fielders have come out, the match is about to start. At that time, what happens? Krishna and Arjuna, Sena, Yoru, Bayoru, Madde, Ratham, Stha, Pene, Achyuta, bring the chariot in between and both of them start talking. And they keep talking and talking.
So, the war field setting is meant to create intrigue. What is this message? Why would they need to talk about this right in the middle of the battlefield? Why would they want to talk about it in the middle of a cricket match? Just before it is started. So, the Bhagavad Gita’s battlefield context is incidental.
But it serves the purpose of increasing the intrigue. So, Arjuna concludes not by saying that I will fight. Fighting is incidental.
That’s what he has to do. But that’s incidental. The essential is, I surrender to you.
And then, the last verse of the Bhagavad Gita describes what happens that Sanjay is telling that there will be victory on that side where there is Krishna and where there is Arjuna. That means, he is telling Dhritarashtra your side is not going to be victorious. He directly tells him that.
But the key thing for us is that Arjuna has picked up his bow. At the start of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna had put down his bow. I can’t fight.
But, by the end of the Bhagavad Gita, he has picked up his bow. The readiness to fight. So, the Bhagavad Gita is a historical book.
But it is much more than historical. It has significance at a higher universal level. So, Arjuna’s Gandiva bow represents our determination.
In life, we all face perplexities. And sometimes, some perplexities just dishearten us. I give up.
But, by hearing the Bhagavad Gita, what happened to Arjuna? He picked up his bow. Similarly, by hearing the Bhagavad Gita’s message, our heart can be re-enlivened. Our determination can be restored.
Our morale can come back. So, the Bhagavad Gita is a testimony to the transformational power of divine love. The essence of the Bhagavad Gita’s message is that no matter what goes wrong in life, one thing is always right.
That Krishna is in control and He is our well-wisher. And He has a plan for us. So, when we look at the world, if things are going right, we feel, yeah, very good.
If things start going wrong, we say, what is happening? But the Bhagavad Gita raises our vision from the world to the source of the world, to the Lord of the world. He is in control. He has a plan.
And when we look up to Krishna, then no matter what adversity comes in our life, we remember that Krishna is our Lord. We are His servants. And He will guide us.
No matter what difficulties come, He will help us find a way through those difficulties. That confidence becomes infused within us. And that is the purpose of the Bhagavad Gita.
To, whatever dejection we may have, to remove that dejection by connection with Krishna. I’ll conclude with a small anecdote. When I first went to America in 2015, I had gone to a university.
And I gave a talk at that time on regulating our mental diet. It was a vegetarian society. And after that, so I spoke about how our mind needs to be careful about what kind of stimuli we take in.
So after that, one boy came and told me that just before this class, he was contemplating suicide. He had been in a relationship with a girl. That girl had broken up with him.
And his heart was shattered. He was just contemplating suicide. But somehow, he saw this poster and he said, let me go and see what is it about.
He says, now I understand. It is not I who wanted to commit suicide. This was actually my mind which is prompting me to do this.
I said, oh yes, that’s what it is. I was explaining the Bhagavad Gita tells about how our mind can be our enemy. So I told him to read Bhagavad Gita.
I gave him Bhagavad Gita. I also have a blog, Gita Daily, where I write small articles on the Gita every day. So I told him about that.
And then this year, after two years, I had gone to the same university. This boy came and met me again. And he said, I faced an exactly similar situation.
He says, again I was in a relationship with someone. I was going to study for more than a year and a half. But suddenly, she just broke up with me through a message.
She refused to meet also. So he said, that this time, I just went into my room, closed the windows, closed the doors. And, he likes to play music, so he says, I picked up my violin and I started singing Hare Krishna.
And he said, for eight hours, I was continuously singing. And he said, those eight hours, were the most, sweetest hours of my life. He said, I could actually feel the presence of God.
I could feel Krishna manifesting through the sound of the holy name. So that, which, I mean, a heart-breaking period for me, that was actually an uplifting period for me. Because I experienced Krishna’s shelter.
So this is how Krishna is there for us to take shelter. And if we take shelter of him, we will be disheartened. No, we may not be suicidal, but we may also be disheartened.
Put aside, I can’t do it. But by hearing the message of Krishna, by connecting with Krishna through the process of bhakti, we can experience strength and we can pick up our bow, ready to fight. That encouragement is provided by the message of the Bhagavad Gita.
So often the eyes take us into illusion. What we see, the Bible tells us. But the ears take us to knowledge.
The ears hearing from the Bhagavad Gita will illumine us. So, rather than getting disheartened and things seem to be going wrong, we can meditate that this is an opportunity. Instead of looking ahead or looking around, we look up to Krishna.
When we are down to nothing, Krishna is up to something. When we are down to nothing, Krishna is up to something. And what Krishna is up to, we will find when we look up.
And that shifting up of our vision happens through hearing the message of the Bhagavad Gita. It is this message of Krishna’s love that Sri Prabhupada has given in his Bhagavad Gita as it is. And we all have the opportunity to empower ourselves with this wisdom and become entrenched with love.
So, I will quickly summarise. I spoke about how the Bhagavad Gita is an eminently personal message of love. Conversation between Krishna and Arjuna where Arjuna is first deluded by emotions.
So, the Bhagavad Gita talks about how two hearts can be connected through two heads. So, when the emotions are dragging Arjuna down, he is crying in public. At that time, Krishna starts speaking the philosophy.
At the level of the head, you connect everything. So, he lifts his vision. You are not the body.
You are the soul. You are the soul who is different from the body. So, like a child who is horrified with a horror movie, you are not a character in that horror movie.
Turn off the movie. So, that’s the first thing is done. And the second is, the mother gets the child out of that haze of the horror movie.
As Krishna first says, become detached. Become equipoised. There is a spiritual reality like upper story which is air-conditioned when the lower story is very hot.
So, we ascend to the spiritual level of reality and become calm. And then, Krishna says, don’t just be detached from matter. Become attached to me.
So, Krishna is not bragging about his greatness. Rather, Krishna is speaking about his greatness so that we can be inspired to take to the process of bhakti that he is recommending. Like a doctor speaking about one’s credentials to convince a patient to take the medicine.
And then in the 11th chapter of what Krishna has talked about verbally, he demonstrates visually through the majestic Vishwaroopa. And God as destroyer is not cruel. He is simply getting us out of the horror movie so that we can come to the comfort of reality.
And in the 18th chapter, Krishna tells his most confidential message. He says that, if you just surrender to me, I will protect you from all sinful reactions. Like a mother ready to clean up her child, just come to me.
And then Krishna says, you preach my message. If you can’t do that, just study it. If you can’t study it, just hear it.
Like a person somehow wanting to get a person out of the well. Hold on to the rope. Tie the rope.
I’ll just sit in the bucket. I’ll pull you out. And then at the end, the Bhagavad Gita says, Arjuna, I surrender to you.
I will do your will. So the battlefield setting is simply to create intrigue. The essence is not fighting a war.
The essence is surrendering to God. And then by the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is confident when he has been disheartened earlier. Similarly, worldly situations can dishearten us.
But if we hear the message of the Bhagavad Gita, we look up to Krishna’s love and experience his shelter through the process of bhakti, as happened to this boy in American University who was suicidal. So then, we will also, from the state of being disheartened, become enlivened. And that transformational power of love of the Gita’s message is what is available to all of us if we study the Bhagavad Gita with those, like Srila Prabhupada, who stress on its essence of bhakti.
Thank you very much. Srimad Bhagavad Gita Ki Jai Srila Prabhupada Ki Jai Gaura Bhatt Vrindaki Jai Jai Gaura Prema Nandini