Why does Prabhupada in his Gita sometimes place nishkama karma yoga above jnana and dhyana yogas?

Transcript

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normally we see that the Ishtam Yoga Gyan Yoga are higher than Karma Yoga but in Prabhupada’s analysis we see sometimes that Ishtam Karma Yoga is higher than Gyan and Gyan Yoga so actually I have a full seminar on Yogalaya I will try to see if I can explain this without a visual how it works is that in in any system there is something called Doxy and there is Praxy Doxy is the theory understanding conception and Praxy is the practice so now in terms of praxis in terms of what is to be done actually Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga are very similar so if this is Karma Yoga let’s now for the time being overlook the difference between Ishtam and Karma Yoga and there is Gyan Yoga and there is Ashtam Yoga and there is Bhakti Yoga so now in terms of Doxy in terms of understanding there is a huge difference between Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga at the level of Karma Yoga one may not even know who is Krishna one may not consider Krishna as the ultimate goal of life one may primarily think that there is some ultimate reality which I have to go to and Bhakti Yoga that is clear so in terms of conception and Chahal Yoga there is difference but in terms of practical activity these two are very similar so now yes this this is progress and the difference in terms of practices these two involve largely giving up activity so first of all for a person who is doing activity in Karma Yoga to give up activity in Dhyana or Gyan Yoga is very difficult and then after giving up activity for a long time to again resume activity in Bhakti Yoga is also difficult so now if somehow one can at the level of Karma Yoga understand that the goal is Krishna then one can bypass these two and sort of take an elevator jump from Karma Yoga to Bhakti Yoga so what Prabhupada generally does is that he treats these two as almost equivalent because in terms of practical activity they are similar and in terms of a theoretical possibility of people today practicing Vishakam Karma Yoga in and of itself without knowing Krishna it’s not so much no so therefore what happens is Prabhupada uses this translation in terms of practical karma yoga see any translation there a translator has to always balance between two factors one is precision and the other is relevance precision means that I have to keep things as accurately as accurate to the original as possible and relevance is I have to make things intelligible understandable practical for people so now for somebody who is just a Sanskrit scholar for whom who simply wants to maintain the book’s literal meaning such a person may focus on precision but for an acharya for whom the book is to be lived and who wants others to live according to the book the focus is not so on precision it is on relevance why because I may give a completely precise translation of the Gita but if the audience doesn’t feel it relevant to me at all then what is the use how can they apply it and a Prabhupada sometimes goes almost tongue in cheek in bending towards relevance for example in the 7th canto in the 9th chapter he says the ears are attracted to cinema sounds now we will say and a Prabhupada is not putting this in the paraphrase he is putting it in translation only it is one thing to put in the paraphrase another thing to put in translation so what is Prabhupada doing over here how can you say the ears are attracted to cinema sounds so Prabhupada is actually translating it into the contemporary context how does it apply to people now so in general an Acharya focuses on preserving the essential meaning but not just going towards the literal meaning focusing on the relevance of the essential meaning similarly when Prabhupada translates he doesn’t go too much into the technicalities of the yoga system he focuses on making sure that the message realism is relevant and practical and that’s why in many places he may even translate Karna Yoga directly as Bhakti Yoga and in that sense because Karna Yoga and Bhakti Yoga are very close to each other in terms of how they are practiced just a deeper conception of Krishna has to be acquired so Prabhupada combines that is Prabhupada’s transmission strategy so that people do not get distracted or lost in the technicalities but they are consistently focused on the practical essential and final message