How to see Krishna even in the evil? || Acharya Prashant, on Bhagavad Gita (2020)
Video Information: 28.03.2020, Month of Awakening, Greater Noida
Context:
अनन्याश्चिन्तयन्तो मां ये जनाः पर्युपासते ।
तेषां नित्याभियुक्तानां योगक्षेमं वहाम्यहम् ॥
ananyāśh chintayanto māṁ ye janāḥ paryupāsate
teṣhāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ yoga-kṣhemaṁ vahāmyaham
Persons who, meditating on Me as non-separate, worship Me in all beings, to them thus ever zealously engaged, I carry what they lack and preserve what they already have.
~Shreemad Bhagvad Gita (Chapter 9, Verse 22)
~ What does it mean to worship Krishna as non-separate?
~ What is Love, Compassion and Truth?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
अनन्याश्चिन्तयन्तो मां ये जनाः पर्युपासते ।
तेषां नित्याभियुक्तानां योगक्षेमं वहाम्यहम् ॥
ananyāśh chintayanto māṁ ye janāḥ paryupāsate
teṣhāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ yoga-kṣhemaṁ vahāmyaham
Persons who, meditating on Me as non-separate, worship Me in all beings, to them thus ever zealously engaged, I carry what they lack and preserve what they already have.
~Shreemad Bhagvad Gita (Chapter 9, Verse 22)
~ What does it mean to worship Krishna as non-separate?
~ What is Love, Compassion and Truth?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Shreemad Bhagavad Gita, chapter 9, verse 22.
00:14 Persons who, meditating on Me, as non-separate, worship Me in all beings, to them, thus ever
00:23 zealously engaged, I carry what they lack and preserve what they already have.
00:31 Yogakshemam Vahamemam.
00:38 What does it mean, comes the question now, to worship Krishna as non-separate or Ananya
00:46 in all beings.
00:48 I find it easy to see Krishna in animals, but I notice that I see the opposite of love,
00:55 compassion and truth in other humans.
00:58 I sense this is because my mind is dirty and unclean, so I see that in others.
01:05 Is the verse asking us to focus on what is loving, compassionate and truthful in other
01:12 humans instead of focusing on what is not?
01:15 No, no, no, there is just too much of pop spirituality in this question.
01:23 All these notions that you are coming from have sprung up mostly in the last 100 years
01:31 since the advent of industrialization and they all just rally against the one fundamental
01:43 requirement for spirituality, it is called discretion.
01:49 Discretion or Vivek is to differentiate between the temporal and the non-temporal, the true
02:03 and the false, the deceptive and the reliable.
02:09 Are you getting it?
02:13 But if you do that, then the false is not left with a place to hide.
02:24 Therefore the forces of falseness all have penetrated spirituality to create a kind of
02:38 neo-spirituality these days in which all falsenesses are acceptable in the name of unconditional
02:50 love or focusing on the positives and such things.
02:55 You get this?
02:58 Real spirituality is about rejecting the false.
03:06 Real spirituality therefore is uncompromising, harsh, ruthless.
03:12 Just reject the false, that's what real spirituality is about.
03:17 But if you are living in an age, in an era, in a society, in an economic system that is
03:22 dominated by forces of falsenesses, then it becomes imperative for them to invent a new
03:31 kind of spirituality that engages, even endorses all falsenesses.
03:40 So you have terms like don't judge me or don't judge anybody.
03:44 Now what does that mean?
03:46 That means don't call the false as false.
03:49 Because if you start calling the false as false, how will the false sell itself?
03:56 And how will the sellers of falsenesses profit from your pocket?
04:03 Therefore the new spiritual aphorism is don't judge.
04:10 Similar to this is belonging to the same family, love unconditionally.
04:16 Where is discretion then?
04:20 If everything is lovable, then the dirt within is also lovable.
04:29 Then what is the need to improve at all?
04:35 If one's dirty condition is lovable, is there a need to take a spiritual bath?
04:46 Similarly there are more such ajrejas floating in the spiritual places nowadays.
04:57 And they have become so commonplace that they have almost gained acceptability as something
05:05 scriptural.
05:08 People are surprised when I tell them that no scripture ever talks of such things as
05:19 looking at the true and the false in the same way.
05:28 No scripture ever says that the false is as lovable and as respectable as the truth.
05:39 So that's the backdrop from where this question seems to be coming.
05:43 Now the question.
05:47 You see, you are asking how to see Krishna in all beings.
05:55 It has to be done in two ways.
05:59 We'll elaborate.
06:03 Every human being, every sentient conscious human being is constantly in a state of an
06:13 inner strife.
06:19 There is the inertia of the body.
06:24 There is the inertia of prakriti that wants the status quo to continue, that wants the
06:35 past to keep rolling on into the future.
06:41 That's the law of inertia, isn't it?
06:43 If something is moving, it will just continue to move on.
06:49 In the absence of a resisting force, the law of inertia states that if something is moving,
06:55 it will simply continue to move till infinity.
06:58 It will never stop.
07:00 And if something is not moving, it will not move even in infinite time in the absence
07:08 of an external force.
07:11 So there is the force of inertia within us and it's something that has a lot of weight
07:24 and momentum behind it, that which is rolling, is rolling with a great momentum that it has
07:29 obtained from the millions of years of the past.
07:33 It is rolling on, it is rolling on.
07:35 It wants to keep rolling on.
07:36 It's a juggernaut.
07:41 It's happening within every human being.
07:43 Something within us just wants to keep rolling on.
07:46 It doesn't want to look right or left.
07:50 It doesn't want to exercise the brakes.
07:53 It doesn't want to see what was behind and what lies ahead.
08:00 It just wants to roll on blindly.
08:02 There is that.
08:06 But then there is somebody who is contained, confined within that rolling machine, who
08:18 sees no sense, no purpose, no gain in just rolling on blindly.
08:28 He also finds that he is in no position to stop the rolling movement.
08:40 The rolling machine, the rolling apparatus is simply too big, too heavy, very unstoppable.
08:48 So the only option left to him is to either adjust, succumb or reconcile in polite language
09:02 or find a way to be liberated, liberated from the confines of the machine.
09:13 That's what every human being is facing.
09:18 This is the internal situation within every human being.
09:24 And as we have already said, therefore, there are only two choices available to every human
09:30 being.
09:31 The machine will continue to roll on.
09:33 You cannot do anything to the machine.
09:39 It's almost as if the machine does not belong to you.
09:43 You are just an unwilling captive inside the machine.
09:47 You have been vested with no authority to tamper with the machine, apply the brakes
09:54 or do anything.
09:55 Right?
09:56 Don't you see that?
10:01 The heart keeps beating.
10:03 The lungs keep breathing.
10:06 The brain keeps thinking.
10:08 The machine rolls on.
10:11 What can you do about it?
10:13 You cannot do anything about even the most important event of your bodily birth.
10:23 Why you consulted?
10:26 You are so helpless.
10:27 It all happened without your consent.
10:32 You are not even engaged in the process.
10:36 You were just handed over the body and you are asking, "But why?
10:40 Why has this been given to me?"
10:43 You are handed over the body and the body has not been given to you as a gift.
10:48 The body has been given to you as a jail.
10:54 You have been told, "Here it is."
10:56 And you have to live within it.
10:58 And you cannot do much about the body.
11:03 Superficially, you can change the body just as a prisoner can choose to paint the walls
11:15 of his cell.
11:17 Can he not?
11:18 Superficially, you can choose to do something with the body.
11:22 So, you can, for example, lose weight or gain weight.
11:25 You can get a haircut of your choice.
11:29 You can even get your face modified.
11:34 Some surgery, plastic surgery or something, Botox and such things are happening.
11:41 You can get a dental job done.
11:45 But does any of that alter the fundamental tendency of the machine to keep rolling on?
11:53 No.
11:55 So confined within the machine, you can at best keep fiddling with the machine in a very
12:02 inconsequential way.
12:05 Really you can change nothing about the machine.
12:08 Really you can not change your primitive and fundamental biological tendencies.
12:14 Nobody does.
12:15 Now, you are left with two choices.
12:20 Either adjust and say, "But this will continue.
12:23 So I might just as well reconcile, adjust and make merry in my confinement."
12:38 I have come to terms with the reality that this is what is called life.
12:43 And I don't want to spend this life fighting an impossible war.
12:48 That's what 99.999999% do.
12:54 They say this is an impossible war.
12:57 So I'll simply accept my fate and decorate the insides of the juggernaut.
13:07 Or you could imagine a huge cylinder that is rolling on.
13:15 And somebody is caught inside that cylinder and is either painting the insides or doing
13:25 some other stuff.
13:29 Throwing a wedding party, earning money or building a house, all inside the rolling cylinder.
13:41 How comfortable would it be by the way?
13:44 Your house is inside a rolling cylinder that is rolling without your consent into a future
13:55 that is unseen, not determinable.
14:02 And yet you choose to just keep celebrating inside your captivity.
14:16 That's the choice most people make.
14:21 How do you see Krishna in these people?
14:24 That's what the question is.
14:27 How do you see Krishna in these people?
14:30 You see Krishna in these people by seeing that they too somehow want to avoid suffering.
14:40 It's just that Krishna's maya is such that in the process of avoiding suffering, in their
14:51 quest to avoid suffering, they are just bringing more suffering upon themselves.
14:59 So here what you see is maya in operation.
15:04 You see what is the aim of even maya?
15:07 What does maya promise you to allure you?
15:10 Maya promises you freedom from suffering.
15:13 Does maya come to you and say that I'll make you suffer?
15:16 No.
15:17 Maya seduces you by offering you happiness.
15:19 Does it not?
15:22 So when you see such people, you have to see Krishna by realizing that everybody is after
15:29 all working for happiness.
15:33 And so great is the yoga maya of Krishna that people in spite of wanting happiness work
15:44 against their own happiness.
15:50 And then there is the remaining little fraction 0.0001% who are directly targeting freedom
16:02 or Krishna.
16:03 Both are synonymous.
16:04 Krishna is another name for freedom.
16:08 There is that minuscule fraction that directly targets freedom.
16:14 Especially when you look at them, there is no need for conjecture left now.
16:24 Those people are Krishna personified.
16:29 There you see the love of consciousness for freedom.
16:38 There you see how each being is so desperate to reach the same point it is coming from.
16:52 How we all cannot exist without that one thing, call it truth or freedom or whatever.
17:04 But such direct evidence is available only in one in a million people.
17:16 In the others, you will only see indirect evidence.
17:24 So when you look for example at an instance of obvious evil, how do you see Krishna there?
17:33 You see that this person after all is seeking freedom from his suffering.
17:40 He too is seeking Krishna.
17:43 But he is under the spell of Krishna's maya.
17:47 Therefore he is not seeking Krishna directly, he is seeking Krishna indirectly.
17:54 Therefore he does deserve your compassion, but because he has chosen an indirect path
18:00 now, therefore direct compassion will not work with him.
18:06 What Krishna displays towards Duryodhana on the battlefield of Kurukshetra is surely compassion
18:13 but indirect.
18:18 Towards Arjuna, Krishna is displaying direct compassion.
18:23 Towards Duryodhana, Krishna is displaying indirect compassion.
18:27 How?
18:28 The best way to demonstrate or rather sometimes the only way to demonstrate a person in the
18:39 wrong that he is indeed in the wrong is by defeating him.
18:49 What is it that supports his wrongness?
18:53 His confidence that wrongness will win.
18:57 How do you then liberate him from his wrongness?
19:04 By demonstrating to him that wrongness will not win.
19:07 Therefore by defeating Duryodhana, Krishna is offering his compassion to Duryodhana.
19:20 You have mentioned here that when you see the opposite of love, compassion and truth
19:32 in others, then you tell yourself that it is because your mind is dirty and unclean,
19:39 therefore you are seeing dirt and unclean stuff in others.
19:46 No, please.
19:48 Avoid this attitude.
19:52 If you see dirt, clean it up.
20:01 It is stupid to see dirt and say, "Oh, it is appearing like dirt because my mind is
20:10 dirty."
20:14 Such an attitude can be especially dangerous in coronavirus days.
20:24 You cannot say that the virus too is an embodiment of Krishna and everybody who is carrying the
20:33 virus is actually not sick but is appearing sick because your mind is sick.
20:41 No.
20:43 Sickness is sickness and virus is virus.
20:48 Clean up and avoid.
20:53 Love is a highly exclusive thing.
21:01 You just cannot love wisdom and nonsense in the same way.
21:12 You cannot talk of the highest and the lowest in the same breath.
21:20 You must learn to exclude.
21:23 You must learn to reserve.
21:28 You must learn to see distinction before you come to see unity.
21:38 If someone starts talking of unity without firstly being adept in the art of discretion,
21:49 then he is just fooling himself.
21:53 It's a process in levels.
21:59 At the lowest level are people who see no distinction.
22:03 To them clean and unclean are the same.
22:09 To them right and wrong are the same.
22:11 Therefore, in the name of rightness, what they usually do is something wrong.
22:18 To them dharma and dharma are the same.
22:20 Therefore, in the name of dharma, what they usually engage in is adharma.
22:25 This is the lowest level of people.
22:28 They just cannot differentiate.
22:34 They have no discretion.
22:35 Now, from this stage to take you beyond this stage, spiritual practice starts.
22:45 And spiritual practice is about learning to differentiate.
22:52 Learn to differentiate first of all.
22:54 Learn to see that truth and maya are different.
23:02 Learn to see that wisdom and foolishness are different.
23:10 Learn to see that freedom and bondage are different.
23:18 And once you have become adept in seeing the differences, you then come to a point when
23:32 you see that even that which is false is false only because it was approaching truth in a
23:45 convoluted way, in a personal way.
23:49 So the false too is actually a lover of truth.
23:55 Therefore, the false too deserves consideration and compassion.
24:01 But that is after stage two.
24:06 In stage two, first of all, you must practice the art of vivek or discretion, differentiation.
24:16 And only after that you come to a point where you become capable of ananyata or unity.
24:26 Most people in the name of the unity that belongs rightfully only to stage three keep
24:34 themselves on stage one itself.
24:39 What's common between stage one and three?
24:41 On both these stages, there is no distinction.
24:46 But in stage one, there is no distinction because you have no eyes, no senses, no faculty,
24:53 no wisdom to differentiate.
24:57 And in stage three, you see no distinction because now you can see the true even in the
25:04 false.
25:05 Are you getting it?
25:09 Don't skip stage two.
25:11 Stage two is where the work lies.
25:14 Stage two is where the practice lies.
25:16 Don't just try to have a shortcut to stage three.
25:24 Stage two cannot be bypassed.
25:31 Is that clear?
25:34 Be intolerant towards falseness.
25:37 That's stage two.
25:39 Most of us require that.
25:42 That is the only practice.
25:43 Stage three happens on its own.
25:47 Love comes on its own.
25:50 Great acceptance comes on its own.
25:54 Love has to be practiced.
25:56 You practice stage two.
25:58 That's your job.
25:59 That's sadhana.
26:00 Are you getting it?
26:05 [Music]