​What is raj-vidya and raj-guhya in Gita 9.2?

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Okay, what is Rajya Vidya? Okay, 9.2, what is the difference between Rajya Vidya and Rajya Guniya? Rajya Vidya, the literature explains that literally it can mean the king of knowledge. But it can also mean Rajana Vidya.
It is the knowledge of the kings. So, king of knowledge, Prabhupada means that there are many different kinds of knowledge. There is knowledge about the world, there is knowledge about the soul, there is knowledge about Brahma, there is knowledge about Parmatma.
Now, among all such forms of knowledge, the knowledge of Bhagwan, knowledge of the highest manifestation of the absolute truth, that is the king of knowledge. It says the king is the greatest among all people. The king of knowledge describes that knowledge, which gives the knowledge of the greatest reality.
And now the other meaning is Rajana Vidya, that is the knowledge of the kings. What it means is that this knowledge, in one sense, if people are brahminical, they are expected to have spiritual knowledge. They will have knowledge about Krishna.
But it is with the kings, when those who are the social leaders and social influencers, when they have the knowledge, then society will be benefited by it. So, that’s why Krishna also says, In parampara, this knowledge was given by the Rajarishis. The Prabhupada translates Rajarishi as the saintly kings.
Literally, if you say Rajarishi, the translation will be royal sages. Rajarishi. So, either way, whether you say royal sages or saintly kings, the point is that they are rulers in the world.
So, they are material rulers, but they are also spiritual seers. And that combination of being a spiritual seer and a material ruler, and there’s a combination that can do good to the world. If somebody is a spiritual seer, but that person doesn’t have much power in the world, then they cannot benefit the world much.
A person is just a material ruler, but they don’t have much spiritual vision. Then again, they can’t do benefit to the world. So, when the kings get this knowledge, then they will become a combination of spiritual seers and material rulers.
And they will be able to bring about transformation in the world. Let’s say Rajya Guhiya. And Rajya Guhiya means it is confidential knowledge.
So, what is the confidentiality? Guhiya is secret. The secrecy is not that these verses of the Gita are not known to anyone, or they are kept in a secret chamber somewhere where nobody can see. It’s not like that.
The secrecy is that their essential meaning cannot be understood unless one approaches properly. And the proper approach is through devotion. Krishna has already told earlier in the fourth chapter that, Arjuna, I’m giving this knowledge to you.
And later at the end of the chapter, Gita also says, So, it is confidential in the sense that unless one has the right attitude, one approaches with the right motive, at least the right aspiration, then one cannot understand the message. Just like, if there’s a delicious bottle of honey, if I try to experience with anything other than my tongue, I try to scratch it, I try to crush it, I try to play catch-catch with it, I try to make it into a boxing bag, none of these will help me to get the taste of honey. The particular way that is, I open it and drink it with my tongue.
So, like the knowledge of the Gita, many people can study it, many people can get some insights from it, many people can write commentaries on it, and there will be something valuable in those books. But the essential message of the Gita can be got only through bhakti. And because people who have bhakti are few, and that’s why, this is a large issue here.
It is like, they say in the mystery novels, often something is hidden in plain sight. I mean, it’s there, it’s so obviously there that people don’t think it might be here. Some object is just hidden in plain sight.
So, the Bhagavad Gita’s knowledge is hidden in plain sight. The verses are there for everyone to see. But it just can’t, something, some clue or some treasure that is hidden in plain sight, it’s just that, it’s kept in such a way that people don’t think it could be like this.
So like that, Bhagavad Gita can be understood only when we change our heart, when we develop our love for Krishna. And till that point, we may get to know, know the Gita, but we’ll get to know about Krishna also, but we’ll not know Krishna. Just like a doctor, a mother knows her baby, and a doctor who is saying clinical treatment for the baby.
A doctor may also know a baby. A doctor, from the biological point of view, doctor may know the blood count, the platelets count, even the urine composition, the food composition. The doctor may know all this more than what the mother knows.
But the doctor doesn’t know the baby. The doctor knows about the baby. The doctor knows about all the physical parameters of the baby.
Whereas the mother knows the baby, because the mother is approaching the baby as a person, and is having a loving relationship with the person. Similarly, those who study Gita from an academic but non-depression perspective, they are like doctors. They may know a lot about the Gita, but they will not know Krishna as a person.
They may know about Krishna. Yeah, Krishna appeared over here. Krishna killed this demon there.
Krishna did that. Krishna did that. But their heart will not be attracted to Krishna.
Their heart will not be attracted to Krishna, because they will just not be able to connect with Krishna. There’s a person who wrote up, who, academic scholar, he commented, he wrote something like, he studied 108 commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita. And he tried to compile all of them together.
And at the end, he said, Bhagavad Gita is an utterly incomprehensible book. So all those commentaries, it just increases confusion. Some shayadana, it just increases confusion, but you can’t even know what it is.
So it’s not by study alone. It is by devotion that the essential importance of the Bhagavad Gita can be understood. That is the meaning of Rajagopiya.
It is the king among secrets. There is no other way except devotion, through which we can unlock the meaning of the Gita. Thank you very much.