From where does evil come? || Acharya Prashant, on Bhagavad Gita (2020)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 05.04.2020, Month of Awakening, Greater Noida  Context:  अथवा बहुनैतेन किं ज्ञातेन तवार्जुन | विष्टभ्याहमिदं कृत्स्नमेकांशेन स्थितो जगत् || 10.42|| Or what avails thee to know, all this diversity, O Arjuna? (Know this that) I exist, supporting this whole world by a portion of myself. ~ Bhagavad Gita  ~ From where does evil come? ~ "supporting this whole world by a portion of myself." What does it mean?  Music Credits: Milind Date ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 Shreemad Bhagwat Gita, verse 42, chapter 10.

00:12 "Or what avails thee to know all this diversity, O Arjun?

00:20 Know thou this, that I exist, supporting this whole world by a portion of myself."

00:26 The question says, "It's being said that the Lord supports the whole world by a portion

00:32 of himself.

00:33 What does this mean?"

00:35 Also most of the verses in chapter 10 talk about all the best of every category that

00:41 occur due to the Lord.

00:43 How about the evil we see in people?

00:47 From where does that come?

00:50 Does it even exist or is it just an outcome of impure perception?

00:58 Many questions.

01:00 The Lord supports the whole world by a portion of himself.

01:03 What does it mean?

01:05 It's simply a statement to drill some humility into the world.

01:12 The world for all its expansive claims is not even big enough or heavy enough to demand

01:26 a big portion of the Lord to sustain itself.

01:35 It's almost like Krishna carrying the mountain on his little finger.

01:49 Bring that image very vividly to your eyes.

01:52 Little Krishna and he's carrying the Govardhan on his little finger.

02:02 Why on his little finger?

02:07 Why could it not have been depicted like Atlas that he's carrying it with both his hands

02:16 on his shoulders?

02:19 The image has been very thoughtfully crafted.

02:25 It is to show that even this entire mountain called the world is not heavy enough to demand

02:36 too much effort from the Lord.

02:39 After all the world is finite and that which we call as the truth is infinite.

02:46 Even a portion of infinity is infinite.

02:56 Divide infinity by a million.

02:57 What are you left with?

02:58 Infinity.

02:59 That's what is being said here.

03:04 Even a little portion of the Lord is sufficient to carry the world.

03:10 Rather, the world is not so big that it can even claim too much of Lord's effort.

03:23 He just wishes and the world operates.

03:27 As they say, "Kun phaya kun" or "Let there be light".

03:34 It is never said that the Creator had to work really really hard to create the world.

03:43 Ever heard that the Creator was found slogging and exhausted, dehydrated or something?

03:50 After all, He is creating the entire universe.

03:56 No small job.

03:57 Instead, what is being said is, He just sat and maybe, "Lo, here you have the world".

04:05 Or He just wished, didn't even bat an eyelid.

04:18 These are exercises in humility.

04:23 The world is being shown its place.

04:26 The world is being shown how much it deserves.

04:31 That's all.

04:35 Then most of the verses in chapter 10 talk about all the best in every category and says

04:46 that the best always occurs due to the Lord.

04:49 Then what about the evil that we see in people?

04:52 From where does the evil come?

04:56 The evil is nothing but virtue gone drunk.

05:09 You want to be good but you are so occupied with your intention to be good, you are so

05:28 enamored by the charm of goodness that you drop all common sense.

05:39 That's what evil is.

05:44 Simply put, you could say evil is misplaced goodness.

05:50 Evil is goodness corrupted upon itself.

05:57 Evil is goodness corrupted due to its own exuberance.

06:03 Go to the most evil man, even he wants to do good.

06:12 No?

06:13 Or does he not?

06:18 Have you not heard some people arguing?

06:23 And it would be evident even to an outsider that one of them or both of them might be

06:34 talking utter nonsense.

06:38 But it is quite possible that the arguing parties actually do believe that they are

06:46 making sense and talking truth.

07:00 We start believing, deeply believing in stuff that is patently false.

07:12 There is a reason.

07:20 Very very deep within we know that our destiny is truth.

07:28 We know we are right.

07:30 We know we have to be right.

07:35 And then we get so impatient with our destiny that we start behaving as if we have already

07:43 attained it.

07:50 Think of a very talented child.

07:57 Very talented child.

08:01 Let us say he is talented in the game of cricket.

08:10 This child prodigy is playing fabulous straight drives and square cuts and leg glances at

08:23 the age of eight.

08:29 His heartbeat tells him that he is made to conquer the stadiums, to conquer all rival

08:37 teams.

08:38 There is something within him that continuously keeps telling him that he belongs to the Champions

08:46 League.

08:51 But he is eight.

08:54 But in this exuberance of his intuition, he somehow manages to step on the cricket field

09:07 where two senior parties are playing.

09:21 And he goes there and challenges, he says, "Hey listen, all you 20-25 year olds, I am

09:33 dead sure I am the champion."

09:37 And he says, "Come on, who is going to bowl to me?"

09:43 And here you have a burly fast bowler, 6 feet 4, who comes thumping in.

10:01 First ball, our little champion cannot even see when it came, where it went.

10:12 Second ball, same thing.

10:13 Third ball, same thing.

10:16 Fourth ball, he hears the crackling of furniture.

10:23 Something behind him has just broken its systems.

10:28 That's our situation.

10:32 Even when we are making the most fallacious arguments, something within us knows we are

10:40 right.

10:41 You can never be wrong, but your argument can be.

10:48 You can never be wrong because the one you are is pure and absolute truth.

10:53 How can the truth be wrong?

10:57 But this personal embodiment of the truth can surely go wrong.

11:05 And the biggest wrong he can do is to assume that he is the truth itself and nothing but

11:12 the truth.

11:13 Yes, you are the truth, but you are truth plus something else and that something else

11:17 can go wrong.

11:18 Be cautious.

11:19 Don't be so certain that you are only the truth.

11:23 Yes, you are the truth, but not only the truth.

11:30 Therefore you require a lot of practice and sadhana to get rid of that which is over and

11:37 above the truth.

11:40 There is a lot of excess stuff that you are carrying.

11:47 This excessiveness has to be effortfully dropped.

11:59 It is not actually dropped.

12:01 It is a process of painfully grating it away.

12:10 There is bloodshed involved.

12:16 Layer after layer has to be grated away.

12:25 That's what falseness is.

12:43 Thinking that you are the truth without having done the requisite homework.

12:51 Yes, you are the truth.

12:56 Yes, you are the champion batsman, but you have not yet done your homework.

13:04 Do your homework for the next 10 years, little kid, and then step on the pitch and then no

13:12 fast bowler would intimidate you.

13:18 Right now you are just a potential.

13:23 Potentiality is not actuality.

13:27 Between your potential and your actuality lies a lot of required hard work.

13:36 We fail to put in that hard work and then very dishonestly we just talk about potential.

13:46 If potentially we are all the absolute truth, we are nothing but the Atman.

13:51 Actually we are nonsense.

13:58 And then if you want to call your current state as that of the truth, then you are just

14:06 equating nonsense with Atman.

14:10 This is sacrilege.

14:18 Truth is your potentiality.

14:25 Ego is your actuality.

14:31 I've heard many people put it otherwise.

14:33 They say no.

14:39 Truth is your reality.

14:41 No, sir.

14:42 Truth is my potentiality.

14:45 Truth is not my actuality.

14:47 If a spiritual teacher tells you that in reality you are nothing but the truth, run away.

14:55 This will greatly please the ego to hear that you are nothing but the truth, but run away.

15:03 Truth is merely a distant star to us.

15:08 Truth is our destiny, but we are far from the destination.

15:13 Yes, truth is our inevitable destiny.

15:17 We will reach there, but we haven't yet reached there.

15:22 Let nobody comfort us, let nobody delude us by telling us that we are already home, that

15:27 we are already at the destination.

15:30 We are not.

15:33 Such false comforts would destroy us.

15:38 Such false comforts would lead us to equate the ego with the truth.

15:45 It's bad.

15:50 The potential definitely exists, but you will die with the potential remaining just the

15:57 potential.

16:00 Unless you work seriously hard, most people die carrying just the unexpressed potential

16:16 within and that's what is going to happen to most of us.

16:20 It's an old story.

16:25 Again, does evil even exist or is it just an outcome of impure perception?

16:31 There's again this cult these days that says that there is nothing wrong ever.

16:39 It's just a game of perception.

16:41 They keep using this word again and again, over and over again, perception.

16:46 They say no, no, no.

16:47 All evil is just impure perception.

16:50 There is no evil really.

16:53 There is only evil.

16:55 Forget about there is no evil really.

16:57 There is just evil and the topmost evil is to deny the existence of evil and say there

17:07 is no evil.

17:11 So all these people who are perceptionists, perception cultists belong to the topmost

17:19 evil grade.

17:25 You know what they come and say?

17:26 They say, you see, everything is alright because you hold expectations.

17:31 So you start calling some things good and some things bad.

17:34 Now drop your impure perception and there will be no suffering to you.

17:41 So there is the animal being butchered somewhere and everything is alright.

17:45 There is nothing wrong as such.

17:49 Anything that happens, happens for the good.

17:51 Why are you unnecessarily worried?

17:58 That kind of people.

18:03 Be very cautious of them.

18:24 These are the kind of people who should actually not be helped if they are lying crushed under

18:32 a huge rock.

18:37 Going by their own philosophy, anything that happens is good.

18:44 So if you are lying crushed under the rock, why should I interfere?

18:49 All happens for the good.

19:01 If all happens for the good, then why are you even bothering to educate us that all

19:09 happens for the good?

19:12 If we do not understand that all happens for the good, even that is good.

19:20 If all happens for the good and we are ignorant about the fact that all happens for the good,

19:25 even our ignorance is good.

19:28 Why are you then bothering to help us, educate us?

19:34 Surely in helping us, you are resisting our ignorance, right?

19:39 Which means you are admitting that not all is good.

19:43 [Music]

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