Video Information: Shastra Kaumudi Live, 26.04.2020, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
Context:
~ What are the four paths to liberation as outlined in the Bhagavad Gita?
~ How does Bhagavad Gita describe the concept of Karma Yoga as one of the paths to liberation?
~ In the Bhagavad Gita, what guidance does Lord Krishna provide regarding the path of devotion or Bhakti Yoga?
~ Can you explain the principles behind the Jnana Yoga path to liberation as discussed in the Bhagavad Gita?
~ How does the Bhagavad Gita emphasize the significance of the path of disciplined self-control, known as Raja Yoga, for attaining liberation?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
~ What are the four paths to liberation as outlined in the Bhagavad Gita?
~ How does Bhagavad Gita describe the concept of Karma Yoga as one of the paths to liberation?
~ In the Bhagavad Gita, what guidance does Lord Krishna provide regarding the path of devotion or Bhakti Yoga?
~ Can you explain the principles behind the Jnana Yoga path to liberation as discussed in the Bhagavad Gita?
~ How does the Bhagavad Gita emphasize the significance of the path of disciplined self-control, known as Raja Yoga, for attaining liberation?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Srimad Bhagavad Gita chapter 13, verses 24 and 25.
00:13 Some by meditation behold the self in their own intelligence by the purified heart, others
00:22 by the path of knowledge, others again by Karma Yoga, others again not knowing thus
00:28 worship as they have heard from others, even though they go beyond death regarding what
00:36 they have heard as the supreme refuge.
00:43 Some by meditation behold the self in their own intelligence by the purified heart, others
00:49 by the path of knowledge, others by Karma Yoga, others again not knowing thus worship
00:55 as they have heard from others, even though they go beyond death regarding what they have
01:00 heard as the supreme refuge.
01:02 Question says does Shri Krishna mean that those who are unaware of Dhyan, Sankhya, Karma
01:08 to go across the Bhavsagar?
01:11 If so why would one try to go to the level of Dhyan, Sankhya, Karma?
01:16 What is the fate of the ones who are unaware of them?
01:20 It's just that you will take a lot more time and a lot more effort and face a lot more
01:26 difficulty and that is why there is a particular order in which these four paths have been
01:33 narrated.
01:34 Shri Krishna is saying here the best would be an inner, innate meditativeness.
01:44 A meditativeness that actually requires very little knowledge or practice or instruction.
01:52 That's the best.
01:54 That's the best if you have it.
01:57 Then it just comes to you from nowhere.
02:00 Whatever you call it, truth realization, self-realization, it just occurs to you very magically.
02:07 You won't be able to explain how you know certain things but you just come to know of
02:11 them.
02:12 Shri Krishna is saying that is the best if you can afford that.
02:16 You know, it's not a thing of chance.
02:19 I use the word afford.
02:22 You have to pay for it.
02:24 You have to consciously, deliberately pay for it.
02:26 It doesn't come to you per chance.
02:30 What is the price that you pay?
02:32 You have to put your ego at stake.
02:35 You see the ego finds security in method and preparation.
02:43 The ego wants to say I need to be assured that things are alright.
02:49 The path of meditative realization gives you no certainty.
02:56 The ego wants to say I am going to the market and if I am going to the market then I need
03:05 to have money in my pocket in advance.
03:09 And that's so common sensical, is it not?
03:11 If you are going to the market, you want to ensure that your pockets have certain stuff.
03:19 That's the path of preparedness.
03:23 I am prepared in advance.
03:26 The path of meditative realization is the highest because it is the path of deepest
03:32 insecurity.
03:34 What does it say?
03:35 You go to the market.
03:36 You don't have money but you have the pocket.
03:39 Go to the market and if your intention is pure and if in the market you are trying to
03:49 pick the right stuff for yourself, then as soon as you will put your hand in the pocket,
03:58 you will find just enough change, exactly enough change to pay for the right good that
04:05 you have chosen.
04:09 But it's so unknowing.
04:13 There is no guarantee.
04:17 You are being told to be dead to certainty.
04:24 You are being told to put everything at stake and just when trouble would be about to strike
04:34 you, some invisible hand would come and save you.
04:40 It's like a trust fall.
04:47 It works wonders but not everybody is cut out for it.
04:52 Are you getting it?
04:55 So you have gone to the market and with great devotion, in all wisdom, you have picked up
05:04 what you want and you are now standing at the payment counter.
05:13 The fellow says this much is the amount and you have not cared to put anything in your
05:23 pocket.
05:24 You are relying totally on faith.
05:26 He says this much you have to pay and you put your hand in the pocket and you find that
05:30 much and only that much and you pay.
05:37 Knowledge is certainty.
05:41 Meditative knowledge is never a certainty.
05:45 But in meditative realization there is a beauty that defies all certainty.
05:53 You see when I speak, then I often request kindly give me fresh questions.
06:02 Do not give me a stale question.
06:04 Do not make me speak on something on which I have already spoken.
06:10 And in general I love spontaneous questions.
06:19 Questions that are arising afresh from the audience, the questioner.
06:24 That's the reason.
06:27 I fully well know that my responses cannot have beauty if they are prepared in advance.
06:37 And it's a thing of great risk you know.
06:40 But I want to run that risk.
06:43 Right now because of the lockdown and other things only a few of you are sitting here
06:48 to do the technical work.
06:51 But when I first started speaking more than a decade back, sometimes there would be big
07:00 audiences, hundreds of people in front of me.
07:04 And the questions would be all afresh.
07:14 And I was not a well known name in any way at that time.
07:22 And the audiences were young.
07:24 And young audiences are not very caring or respectful.
07:28 They can slaughter you if you talk nonsense to them.
07:34 Yet it was very important for me that I took fresh and spontaneous questions.
07:40 It was very important that I answered on the spot in the best way or whatever way that
07:49 occurred to me naturally and meditatively at that time.
07:55 That is the only way I can honestly relate to people.
08:02 By not knowing at all in advance what I am going to say to them.
08:07 If I know in advance what I am going to say to them, I start feeling uneasy.
08:12 I am at my best when something totally afresh comes to me and I have to go within deep,
08:21 deep, deeper and then an answer arises from there.
08:25 A totally unprecedented answer.
08:31 A response that I have never known before, heard before, experienced before and I hear
08:39 the answer for the first time just as the audience does.
08:45 That is the beauty in it and that is the risk that you run.
08:52 What is the risk?
08:54 You do not know what you would come up with because you have no control over it.
08:59 And you do not know what the response of the audience might be.
09:02 It is not a tried and tested answer.
09:04 It is freshly baked, totally untried.
09:10 It has just come up and without evaluating it, without judging it, you have just allowed
09:17 it to go to everybody.
09:21 And I am grateful that way has continued.
09:24 I am grateful that all these 8000, 10000 videos that are now there in the public domain, they
09:33 all consist of absolutely fresh responses.
09:47 It becomes very difficult if a topic is given in advance and one is asked to speak.
09:54 It has happened at a few places, a few institutions, a few centres.
10:01 They would say, but what would Acharyaji speak on?
10:06 And then I have great difficulty communicating to them that I do not speak on anything.
10:10 I just respond.
10:11 I have nothing of myself to say at all.
10:15 If you ask me something, a response would come to you.
10:21 So I exist not as a speaker but as a responsiveness.
10:28 But that is something that not many people often appreciate.
10:32 They feel I have certain knowledge that I am going to disseminate.
10:36 I have no knowledge.
10:38 I do not come from knowledge.
10:42 Because this verse is in front of me, that is the reason I am relating this.
10:47 I come from the point that Shri Krishna is talking of here.
10:51 He says of the four tiers of God realization, the highest is Dhyan or meditativeness.
11:01 That is from where I speak.
11:10 It is risky, mind you.
11:16 You have done something without knowing what you are doing.
11:21 And you cannot just do it on the spot without your entire life, without the rest of your
11:31 life being totally aligned to this moment.
11:38 You cannot be suddenly meditative on the podium if you have not been meditative throughout
11:45 the day.
11:47 You cannot suddenly be so faithful and risk taking here in front of the audience if your
11:56 entire day has not been aligned to this moment.
12:02 In some sense you could say my entire day is a subtle preparation towards this moment.
12:11 In other words, you could say I do not prepare at all.
12:15 There is no preparation going on.
12:17 The entire day is in a hidden way exactly what this moment is in an explicit way.
12:28 Right now I am just explicitly doing what I continue to do implicitly the rest of my
12:35 day.
12:37 So that is the price that you have to pay.
12:39 The price is that you have to be your entire life what you are here right now.
12:47 And if you cannot be exactly what you are here right now throughout your day, then you
12:55 will start bumbling and fumbling and stammering when it comes to this podium.
13:05 You will no longer have the certainty, the sureness and the faith to proceed with your
13:12 spontaneity.
13:13 You will start having self-doubt.
13:17 You will start asking yourself am I making sense or I am just blabbering.
13:25 For you to remain your sureness, for you to assuredly proceed through your spontaneous
13:35 response, you need to have practiced it throughout the day.
13:46 So that is the reason it is the highest thing because it demands the highest sacrifice.
13:51 It demands your entire day.
13:53 The highest sacrifice is what?
13:55 Your entire life.
13:58 To be spontaneous on this podium, you need to be spontaneous and faithful your entire
14:06 life.
14:07 A big price to pay but the returns are bounteous.
14:17 Then there is Sankhya.
14:18 Sankhya means the path of Jnana.
14:21 So you could take that path and it is a beautiful path.
14:27 In fact even those who belong to the topmost path must have knowledge as well.
14:38 Knowledge helps you stay on the path of Dhyana.
14:42 Knowledge is like an ancillary.
14:44 It cannot be the central thing obviously but there are times when you require knowledge.
14:49 So obviously meditation is the central thing.
14:53 Not meditation of the kind that you call as meditation mind you.
14:56 When I say meditation, I mean a totally different thing.
15:00 For me meditation is life.
15:02 For me meditation is not one of those methods that you keep practicing.
15:10 So often you require knowledge to stay settled in your meditativeness.
15:20 Then Sri Krishna says, well if neither Dhyana nor Jnana is your cup of tea, then Karma,
15:34 what does Karma mean?
15:39 Act as my agent, act as my devotee, act for my sake.
15:47 That's Karma.
15:49 And he says if you cannot do even that, then just worship me just as all others do.
16:00 At least you will not be spending your time doing nonsense.
16:05 Even if you are involved in a superficial kind of worship, at least your time and your
16:12 resources are not going in directions that could have been even worse.
16:19 So fine.
16:20 But this fourth way obviously is the fourth way.
16:25 It is the least preferable way.
16:28 That's why it has been put at number four.
16:31 Else it would have been talked of at the outset itself.
16:36 There was no reason the other three ways needed to be mentioned.
16:44 So do not be too tempted.
16:46 Do not feel that meditativeness and Jnana are needless because Sri Krishna is saying
16:55 that even the fourth category people will ultimately go across the Bhau Sagar.
17:02 They will go across the Bhau Sagar because that's the destiny of all consciousness.
17:08 But they will go across Bhau Sagar in the most terrible of ways.
17:15 Drowning, fainting, screaming, yelling.
17:23 Is that how you want your river ride to be?
17:29 Or do you want to take the royal speed boat and speed across to your glorious destination?
17:42 You would have surely gone through the formal education system.
17:50 How would you like to make it through?
17:59 Going from class 6 to class 7 in three attempts, having been kicked out of four schools and
18:08 then managing some kind of a fraudulent certificate from one of those shady institutions that
18:22 say that even if you are class 7 fail, we will still give you a high school certificate.
18:30 You can do all those things as well as the fourth category of students often do.
18:39 Or you could keep flying through the grades with distinction.
18:48 Ultimately, 20 years later, you will say you see that fellow earned a bachelor's degree
19:02 and I too did.
19:04 So what's the difference?
19:06 But probe your heart and you will find there is a lot of difference.
19:11 He's a royal bachelor and you somehow just struggled your way through education.
19:36 Use the royal way.