Value a great love more than you love a great value

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
value a great love more than you love a great value to love a great value means to be devoted to some virtues like honesty, truthfulness kindness and so forth to value a great love means to give priority to a loving relationship, to a worthy, to a glorious loving relationship now values are important and they should not be downplayed at the same time values are meant to strengthen relationships and the reciprocation of love that happen that happens during relationships which brings fulfillment to the human heart we all need values and it is when in relationships people don’t have values that the relationships don’t stand so we often say that we should love we should love people and use things not use people and love things so things can even go to the level of values values are also things in the abstract sense so the Srimad Bhagavatam describes that the highest love is love for God and the highest value is pure devotion to him and all other values are to be subordinated to that supreme value and how lower values are subordinated to a higher value is illustrated in the Bhagavatam in many past times let’s consider the past time of Bali Maharaj Bali Maharaj was a king and he was the king of the demons and he had conquered over the Devatas and had extended his dominion over their dominion also and he had done all this largely by the grace of his Brahmin priest Shukracharya and at that time he was performing, his Brahmin priest advisor had told him to perform a sacrifice to further consolidate his gains with Punya and as he was doing the sacrifice a young dwarfish Brahmin came there lighting all the directions with his effulgence and after honoring this Brahmin with kind words and with a reception appropriate for a Brahmana guest Bali Maharaj asked him what can I do for you? what charity can I give you? and then this Brahmana who was actually Lord Vishnu come in the form of his dwarf incarnation Vamana asked for three steps in charity and at that time Shukracharya stepped in and he said so Bali Maharaj actually took the water in his hands and he sprinkled the water to take the vow that yes I will give this charity but then Shukracharya stepped in and said don’t give this charity because this is Vishnu and he will steal everything away from you he will expand himself into a gigantic form and steal everything away from you, don’t give this charity, even if you have given your word, the word needs to be honoured only when one’s life is guaranteed, if honouring one’s word is risking one’s life then there is no need to honour the word so Bali Maharaj thought deeply about this and then he spoke that ultimately there is a that he said everybody has to die in this world and everybody has to lose everything but people who are famous they live forever by their fame far beyond their bodily duration and their bodily possessions and there are great famous people who have given charity even at great personal cost and have become famous I would like to follow in their footsteps and he said this is after all Lord Vishnu who is the proprietor of everything and how can I if he has come to me to ask for charity how can I not give to him and Bali Maharaj’s devotional intention becomes even more clear after the whole incident has transpired of course what happens is more or less similar to what Shukracharya has predicted Bali Maharaj agrees to give three steps in charity and Vamana with one step covers the whole earth with the other step expands himself to a huge form and covers the whole universe practically all of Bali Maharaj’s kingdom is covered and there is nothing left and when Vamana asks you have not been able to fulfill your promise of giving me three steps of land did you become a liar so he says Bali Maharaj after submission says please put your third foot on my head and thus fulfill your promise so now in this particular story the point is that Bali Maharaj he sticks there is one value that is we could say the obedience to one spiritual master and there is the value of being obedient to that spiritual master that is an important value of course technically speaking if we go into the details Shukracharya was not actually exactly the spiritual master of Bali Maharaj he was more of a priest a paid priest sort of thing but either way the point is that Shukracharya did act as advisor and a counselor and and rejecting the advice was not advisable but still Bali Maharaj did that and his purpose in doing that was to subordinate that value of obedience to a higher value of of love of pure love so his devotion heart is revealed later when he talks about how there are so many people who chastise a person there are different well wishers chastise in different ways but he says oh lord no one has chastised the way you have chastised and as you are the greatest well wisher so the point which Bali Maharaj makes here is that actually the lord being the greatest well wisher and the greatest benefactor we need to do whatever it takes to strengthen our relationship with him to develop our love for him and to live in a loving reciprocation with him so now moving forward what exactly does this have to do with our discussion this pastime this value a great love more than you love a great value this is also seen this is the theme the Bhagavatam illustrates that Bali Maharaj chooses to actually value the devotion to the lord more than anything else and that’s how the Bhagavatam eventually acclaims him as a Mahajan as a great soul who has subordinated everything else for the sake of god he is a Mahajan and a similar thing is illustrated in the Mahabharata this is a controversial pastime wherein Maharaj Yudhishthir actually subordinates the value of truthfulness to devotion so as the war progresses on the 15th day Drona is in a rampage and at that time when he is rampaging through the Pandava forces Krishna tells Yudhishthir that Drona in this fierce mood will be nearly impossible to check only you O king can save us by appealing by informing Drona by weakening Drona and to weaken Drona the only way is to attack at his weak spot that weak spot is his attachment to his son Ashwathama so if you tell him that Ashwathama is dead then he will become disheartened and then he can be overpowered so when Arjuna hears this O Krishna how can this be done how can we speak a lie to our preceptor Arjuna is shocked but Krishna remains quiet and then he Krishna says you tell me what other way is there for us to overcome the preceptor and at that time the Yudhishthir Maharaj thinks about it and then as he is thinking Bhima has also come to that place because the Pandavas are discussing strategy and Bhima also realizes that the situation is quite grim so when he hears Krishna’s plan he immediately approves the plan and he charges out into the Kaurava camp and he kills an elephant by the name Ashwathama it’s a huge elephant and with a massive blow of his mace Bhima kills the elephant and then after killing the elephant he charges over to the side of Drona and he screams Ashwathama is dead Ashwathama is dead now Bhima’s heart trembles at the surface lie that he is speaking it’s a misrepresentation of the truth, there is a truth but there is a misrepresentation of the truth also over there so as he speaks this Drona is shocked he turns around and his legs turn to jelly but then he pulls himself together and he says Bhima is capable of lying either in jest or out of out of some trickery so he chooses anything Ashwathama is very powerful he cannot be killed like this and he moves on, keeps fighting but the death of but the whole thing now keeps gnawing at him, the report that Ashwathama has been killed keeps gnawing at him and he as the enemies attack him to counter his fearsome attack and he gets wounded, he in his distracted state takes out celestial weapons and starts using them against ordinary soldiers and ruthlessly slaughters a large number of Pandavas and at that time the seven sages appear in the sky and they tell Drona Drona you are acting impiously you are acting against virtue a king is not meant to a warrior is not meant to use celestial weapons against ordinary soldiers by acting by acting impiously by acting against the war codes you have erred, you have sinned stop this sinful activity now, give up the fight put aside your weapons this is from the war now your end has come Drona becomes troubled by hearing these words and already is that anxiety over the reported news of Ashwathama’s death is gnawing at him so he looks around to see whether there is anyone from whom he can confirm the news and he sees Yudhishthira and he goes to Yudhishthira and he asks Yudhishthira is this true that Ashwathama has been killed and Yudhishthira looks at Drona in the eye and he says Ashwathama is dead and then he speaks further not the man but the elephant Yudhishthira cannot tolerate freaking complete lie so he qualifies the lie but as he speaks this Krishna blows his conch shell loudly as if in victory and then Drona hears this Drona asks Martial spirit crumbles and he puts aside his bow and physically crumbles onto the seat of his chariot and as the words of the sage just as the words of the sage sink into his mind as a thought of the death of his son Ashwathama Drona devastates him from within he decides to give up his body, desist from the fight and he sits in a yogic posture in meditation and Arjuna’s plan has been to once Drona puts aside the weapons, Arjuna’s plan was to have Drona arrested and then to keep him respectively in house arrest till the war got over and with Drona not fighting for the Kauravas then the Kaurava forces would have been much easier to overcome but in the meanwhile Dhristadyumna quite viciously moves forward on a rash impulse and chops off the head of Drona although warriors from both sides ask him to desist Dhristadyumna does not check himself and then Drona is killed now in this case the Mahabharata itself there is serious discussion in the Mahabharata after this incident about the virtue of the incident the Kauravas censure the Pandavas especially Dhristadyumna and Bhima rises to the defense and especially Dhristadyumna also defends himself and among the various reasons they give us that Drona has chosen the side of wise and more importantly Drona has also acted in his scheme in fact he has chalked out the whole scheme of viciously killing the young Abhimanyu by immoral means with six warriors butchering a single lad and because of that crime he deserves to be killed in a similar way when he is defenseless and the sun sets and the issue and eventually seeing Drona fleeing the Kauravas seeing Drona fallen the Kauravas flee and overall the Mahabharata leaves the issue of Drona’s killing with some moral justification but along with some level of moral ambiguity to the event now the if we look at there is also another related event that happens that it is said that Yudhishtira’s chariot keeps moving above the ground but at a certain distance above the ground because of his adherence to virtue to truthfulness and after he speaks this particular statement that Ashwatthama is dead his chariot comes to the ground and stays on the ground and this is considered by some to be an indication of his loss of virtue because of which his chariot starts touching the ground now the Mahabharata is at an inner level a book that demonstrates the principles of devotion and by demonstrating these principles it teaches through teaches the value of devotion in this way so actually the Vaishnava commentators or the Vaishnava scholars explain that Yudhishtira’s chariot descends to the ground not because not because he is lacking in virtue not because he lost his virtue by speaking the truth but because he lost some of his virtue by hesitating and carrying out Krishna’s instruction so Krishna told him to speak the counterfactual statement and when he hesitated in doing that, that was a blemish in his devotion but eventually he was able to eventually, he eventually spoke the truth so his his his value was not entirely, his devotion was not entirely wrong or falsified but rather it was weakened and this indicates that he came to a lower level of devotion from a higher level of devotion which he had earlier lived according to and what this represents is that, that is represented through his chariot coming down so either way the important point to recognize is that the Maharaj Yudhishthira eventually values a great love more than he loves a great value so he has been known as Dharmaraj and he has been known to speak truthfully throughout his life and that speaking truthfully is important, it is a cherished value and it is glorious that Maharaj Yudhishthira treasures that value at the same time the purpose of all values is ultimately to help us become purely devoted to the Supreme Lord and for the sake of the Lord if any value has to be subordinated or supplanted that itself is a sign of surrender that itself is a sign of the glory of devotion the selflessness of devotion so to speak truthfully is a value in the mode of goodness but to speak for the pleasure of the Lord is in the mode of pure goodness is transcendental even to goodness so now we may say that how can God ask someone to speak a lie but actually it is not that the point of the pastime is to illustrate that when God wills anything that is for the highest good of everyone and that is what we should do irrespective of other considerations you have all varieties of religion just surrender unto me me alone Krishna says that means speaking truthfully is also a dharma but Bhagavad Gita’s conclusion is put aside all kinds of dharma and surrender to me alone and by surrendering to me you will attain life’s supreme perfection so what the Mahabharata illustrates here is that while the value of truthfulness is a great value but even more important than that is devotion to the Supreme Lord pure devotion means that not only that we give up the bad for the service of God but we are ready to give up even the good when it is necessary for the service of God and that is demonstrated by Maharaj Yudhisthira that he values his love for the Supreme Lord the most and that does not mean that he rejects values but rather he subordinates the value of truthfulness to the value of pure devotion therefore we need to value a great love in fact the greatest love the love for the Supreme Lord we need to value a great love more than we love a great value that is in Maharaj Yudhisthira’s case the value of truthfulness. Hare Krishna