(Gita-25) Vedas and Liberation: Krishna’s Message to Arjuna || Acharya Prashant, Bhagavad Gita(2024)

Acharya Prashant

(Gita - 25) Vedas and Liberation: Krishna’s Message to Arjuna  || Acharya Prashant on Bhagavad Gita  (2024)  📋 Video Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 1:08 Evolution of Vedic Thought 5:25 Misinterpretation of Vedas 19:22 Rebellion or Takeoff from Vedic Rituals 22:02  Ritualistic Desire Fulfillment 27:37 Gita's Stance on Superficial Religiosity 35:29 Transition from Worship to Detached Observation 38:58 Desires as the Root of Suffering 49:30 Gita vs. Popular Religion 54:30 Krishna’s Conditions for Receiving the Gita 1:00:30 Reconciling Gita with Existing Belief Systems  Video Information: 12.10.2024, Gita Samagam English, Greater Noida  Description: The session emphasizes Shri Krishna’s caution while imparting the Gita's teachings to Arjuna, highlighting the resistance of ego-driven minds to transcend desires and social norms. Krishna criticizes those who approach Vedas merely for ritualistic desires, ignoring the Upanishadic essence that leads to self-realization. He underscores that the Gita is for seekers ready to detach from worldly cravings, beliefs, and popular religious practices. The session differentiates between the karmic, desire-driven aspects of Vedic rituals and the deeper Vedantic truths of the Upanishads, portraying the latter as a rebellion against superficial religiosity.  Acharya Ji explains that while seekers can approach spiritual texts with desires, their intent should be liberation, not attachment to their egoistic afflictions. Krishna's message transcends theology and applies universally to those ready to dismantle existing belief systems and embrace the transformative wisdom of the Gita. True liberation demands surrender of desires and unwavering intent.    🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b

Transcript

00:00:00The Vedas are supposed to be the first book. They didn't have the benefit of hindsight. You could think

00:00:06of a little kid just opening his eyes. What's going on? Water? So marvelous. What's going on?

00:00:13Now do not judge them by their scientific rigor.

00:00:17They didn't have any labs and science is accumulative. When the human consciousness was first beginning to look around

00:00:24there was nothing it could lean upon, nothing it could turn back to benefit from. There were only questions.

00:00:31And it is that spirit of questioning, of inquiry, that ultimately

00:00:38rejects all suppositions and becomes the Upanishads.

00:00:43The glory of the Vedas lies in the fact that slowly they keep rejecting

00:00:49all their assumptions and are ultimately left with only the

00:00:53questions and it does not stop there. They move beyond even the questions

00:00:59and enter the questioner.

00:01:02That's the subject matter of the Upanishads.

00:01:08We

00:01:13are listing

00:01:18the characteristics of the mind

00:01:20that is unlikely

00:01:31to resonate with

00:01:39and really

00:01:43understand the Gita.

00:01:51We

00:01:56said Shri Krishna is being cautious in advance here.

00:02:04Having seen

00:02:09that there is

00:02:12acute resistance within Arjun

00:02:17when it comes to accepting

00:02:21the highest teaching,

00:02:27he is now going to

00:02:31take

00:02:35the route of

00:02:39explaining

00:02:42action rather than the actor.

00:02:47Now, this is already a suboptimal route.

00:02:51And

00:02:54even in this route, Krishna wants to be extra careful. So he is enumerating

00:03:08the tell-tale signs

00:03:14of the kind of person, ego, mind

00:03:21that are going to resist

00:03:29anything beyond

00:03:34the carnal self and social norms.

00:03:42He talked of those who devote their entire internal apparatus to the ego.

00:03:51Alp-buddhi

00:04:00Internal machinery including the intellect

00:04:06devoted to the ego.

00:04:13Those whose entire aim is to

00:04:18remain within limits.

00:04:25Limits provided by birth and by the society.

00:04:40Then he said

00:04:43said

00:04:47those who think

00:04:50of the highest literature

00:04:54as a recipe for desire fulfillment.

00:04:58Those who look at the Vedas. Ved you could take as

00:05:09a collective term

00:05:13for

00:05:15the entire body of knowledge.

00:05:22More specifically, spiritual knowledge.

00:05:26So those who look at the Vedas, even the Vedas

00:05:33with a view to fulfill desires.

00:05:39These

00:05:41will again not be able to get what I am

00:05:47going to next tell you Arjun.

00:05:54Because for you even the highest

00:05:59spiritual word

00:06:04is just a means

00:06:06is just a means

00:06:10to your lowly desires.

00:06:14Even the highest to you is not higher than your desire.

00:06:23So even when you are looking

00:06:27at the Vedas

00:06:30your entire aim is self-gratification.

00:06:32Gratification.

00:06:35So you will miss out on the

00:06:41knowledge,

00:06:47the self-knowledge part and you will deliberately limit yourself

00:06:56to the hymns

00:07:00dedicated

00:07:04to appeasement of the

00:07:09gods of the natural forces.

00:07:14So that the wishes

00:07:20of the

00:07:23of the devotee can be granted.

00:07:32You'll be very comfortable with that part of the Vedas and that is the Karmakand part.

00:07:41The mantra, the sangita.

00:07:45That is not the Upanishad part.

00:07:47Indirectly

00:07:50what Krishna is saying is that if to you

00:07:55the Vedas

00:07:57do not mean the Upanishads

00:08:00then you will not understand the Gita.

00:08:05Because you see purely in terms of volume the Upanishads are not even 10%

00:08:12of the Vedic heft.

00:08:23If you count the number of mantras, the verses, 10%

00:08:31is just too much of an exaggeration.

00:08:39Less than 1%.

00:08:42For example, the Rig Veda

00:08:45is the most voluminous among the

00:08:49four Vedas.

00:08:51And from the Rig Veda just one principle Upanishad comes.

00:08:56Just one principle Upanishad.

00:08:59And the Rig Veda is such a massive thing.

00:09:03Jayatri Upanishad.

00:09:09Such a massive body of work

00:09:13and

00:09:15just one little Upanishad in it.

00:09:18It is easy to miss the Upanishad, right?

00:09:29And it is easy to miss the Upanishad and still claim

00:09:35that you are a knower of the Veda

00:09:40or that you have read the Veda, right?

00:09:44After all, if you have

00:09:46read 99%

00:09:49of some book

00:09:52nothing forbids you from claiming that you have indeed read the entire book.

00:09:59Right?

00:10:01So you could go to the Rig Veda

00:10:05read everything

00:10:07but the Upanishad.

00:10:12And you know the Upanishads, if you

00:10:16go to a copy of the Vedas, the Upanishads often come as addendums.

00:10:23Not too many Upanishads are contained within the main body.

00:10:32Many of them, rather most of them are in the form of

00:10:38something like an appendix,

00:10:43an attachment.

00:10:49Some of them come within the main body as well, no doubt but

00:10:55so you can do away with the Upanishad, right?

00:11:00And comfortably say, you know, I have just

00:11:03finished reading the Rig Veda.

00:11:08Shri Krishna is warning, Shri Krishna is saying, if to you the

00:11:14Veda means just

00:11:18the mantras

00:11:23dedicated to desire fulfillment, then the Gita is not for you because the Gita

00:11:32is an Upanishad.

00:11:38It is just that

00:11:40it is formally not listed as an Upanishad

00:11:45because it is not a part of the Vedas.

00:11:50Formally, it is also not listed

00:11:54in the Shruti literature

00:11:57because it is a part of the Mahabharata.

00:12:00And Mahabharata is a work of human authorship.

00:12:07It is attributed to Ved Vyas.

00:12:14Otherwise, the Gita is very much an Upanishad.

00:12:21Which means that those who do not value the Upanishads themselves, how will they value the Gita?

00:12:29Because de facto the Gita is an Upanishad.

00:12:37The

00:12:42Gita is so much of an Upanishad

00:12:45that

00:12:47when you talk

00:12:50of the three canonical pillars of Vedanta,

00:12:58after the Upanishads, you list the Bhagavad Gita.

00:13:05Obviously, the moment you say Vedanta,

00:13:07the first thing that comes to mind is Upanishads.

00:13:13Practically, Vedanta means Upanishads. That's true.

00:13:20But after that, there is the Bhagavad Gita.

00:13:27The commentators have said that the essence of the various Upanishads,

00:13:32the 11 primary ones or the 108 in total,

00:13:45has been distilled into the body of the Gita.

00:13:54And then come the Vedanta Sutras or the Brahma Sutras

00:13:59which actually contain nothing new.

00:14:06They are just an attempt to systematize

00:14:13the entire message of the Upanishads.

00:14:18Because the Upanishads are numerous, therefore, it is possible sometimes to get confused.

00:14:24Not only are they numerous, they were composed over various centuries.

00:14:31And over a vast geographical expanse,

00:14:40it is very much possible

00:14:44that the authors,

00:14:48we do not use the word authors when it comes to the Upanishads.

00:14:51We do not use the word authors when it comes to the Upanishads.

00:14:54We say seers rather than authors.

00:15:00Mantra drishta, the one who saw the mantra.

00:15:07So, these seers,

00:15:11I am saying, it is very much possible that they might have been totally disconnected to each other.

00:15:21Somebody is sitting in the western part of Aryavart,

00:15:32Punjab, or what will be the

00:15:41Pakistan-Afghanistan border today.

00:15:43And somebody could have been composing the hymns. Not composing, once again, seeing.

00:15:58Technically, you are at flaw if you say that the Upanishads were composed.

00:16:04It's a way of expressing reverence, saying that they are no ordinary works of human authorship.

00:16:14That they are the products of deepest kind of meditation.

00:16:20The normal mind cannot give birth to this kind of rare insights.

00:16:36So, we withdraw human authorship from them. We want to say no, no, no.

00:16:42They do not belong to our plane, our level.

00:16:46They come from somewhere else. That does not mean that they actually dropped from the skies.

00:16:52That only means that they are not products of the ordinary state of consciousness,

00:17:00the ordinary mind.

00:17:03So, Gita, even though it is contained in the Mahabharata, is a de facto Upanishad.

00:17:26And the Upanishads, even though they are a part of the body of Vedas,

00:17:34they differ greatly from what the Sangita part of Vedas aims at.

00:17:50Are you getting it?

00:17:51So, Gita comes from Mahabharata, but actually, the Gita is way above the Mahabharata.

00:18:06And similarly, the Upanishads come from the Vedas.

00:18:13But they are in a dimension of their own.

00:18:22And therefore, if one has not made a pointed study of the Upanishads

00:18:32and just gone through the rest of the Vedic literature,

00:18:38one does not deserve to say that he knows Vedanta.

00:18:44Because there is very little in the rest of the Vedic literature

00:18:51that really resonates with the Upanishads.

00:18:58You could be a master of the mantras, of the Brahman part.

00:19:05You could have even gone through the Aranyaks.

00:19:11But that will not at all mean that you know anything about the Upanishads.

00:19:17The Upanishads are in a league of their own.

00:19:21So much so that some scholars have controversially claimed

00:19:35that the Upanishads are actually a rebellion against the Vedas.

00:19:42The Upanishadic part, the Vedantic part is so different

00:19:48from the main body of the Vedas that some people have gone to the extent of claiming

00:19:58that the Upanishads are actually a rebellion against whatever the Vedas have

00:20:03said before the Upanishads. That the Upanishads are a great U-turn.

00:20:09I like to say the Upanishads are a great take-off, not a U-turn.

00:20:21Like an airplane taking off.

00:20:24There is a great difference in dimension before taking off and after the take-off.

00:20:35But there is also an organic relationship.

00:20:40The take-off could not have happened without the taxiing.

00:20:49The Vedas have gone through an organic process.

00:20:56A long period of organic process. They were not

00:21:00composed in a day. Again, they were never.

00:21:04I stand the risk of being declared guilty on this count.

00:21:11It was a long process, very long process.

00:21:17You would not be wrong if you say more than 1000 years.

00:21:21Just imagine, one particular Vedic tradition,

00:21:251000 years. Just imagine, one particular work

00:21:32that is slowly being assembled over a period of 1000 years.

00:21:41And obviously, they are not dropping from the sky.

00:21:44We are not getting into that kind of stupidity here.

00:21:49It's an organic growth, like a tree growing from the earth.

00:21:55Not like a revealed book dropping from the sky.

00:22:04So, they start from one place.

00:22:06The very first hymn is dedicated to Agni, Rig Veda.

00:22:12Please.

00:22:16Everything begins with, please.

00:22:19With folded hands, you are saying, you know,

00:22:21just a little request, a bit of a favor.

00:22:26Give me that. Do not give me that.

00:22:30All the bad things you give to those people in the other village,

00:22:37they are my enemies.

00:22:42Those guys over there are celebrating too much.

00:22:44Can we have a teeny-weeny draught, please, on that side of the fence?

00:22:56And a lot of people think that this is what the Vedic literature is about.

00:23:06The method was Yajna.

00:23:10And they were so happy.

00:23:11And there were so many deities that had to be

00:23:17pleased, ingratiated.

00:23:22It was not through temples.

00:23:25It was through the process of Yajna.

00:23:30So, there would be Vedic priests and there was such a great

00:23:36importance on sound

00:23:39because the entire worship was just through words.

00:23:46Nothing had been erected.

00:23:49And you really didn't have to go anywhere to do much.

00:23:56Morning, afternoon, evening,

00:23:59the method was just Yajna.

00:24:04And in course of time, it became corrupted also.

00:24:07We know of that.

00:24:10Animal sacrifice became such an important part of this thing

00:24:16that the entire religion of Buddha and Mahavira had to be based on Ahimsa.

00:24:28It was actually a rebellion against Yajna

00:24:32because the whole concept of Yajna was,

00:24:38if you do this, your desires will be fulfilled.

00:24:45Buddha came up with the Shaman philosophy.

00:24:48He said, nothing doing.

00:24:55First of all, your desires are rubbish.

00:24:58Secondly, no desire ever gets fulfilled

00:25:04by making offerings to Gods.

00:25:09And even if somehow, coincidentally, your desires do get fulfilled,

00:25:16you must see that your desires are not worth fulfilling.

00:25:23So, the entire Vedic thing was about fulfillment of desire.

00:25:27And Gautam Buddha came up with something so ingenuous,

00:25:38absolutely new. Not absolutely new because what he was saying,

00:25:42the Upanishads were already saying that but no one was listening to the Upanishads.

00:25:47You get a proof here in the Gita, right?

00:25:50Krishna is saying, Arjun, if you are like those people

00:25:52who think of Vedas as Vedas sans Upanishads,

00:25:56then you will not get the Gita.

00:25:59So, we get an idea that there was definitely this trend

00:26:04in popular religious culture that people go to the Vedas just for the sake of

00:26:11the Karmakand part, the desire fulfillment part.

00:26:14And people were not paying much attention to the Upanishads.

00:26:19So, the entire game had become about desire.

00:26:29And Buddha just put the whole thing aside.

00:26:39He said, your central problem is suffering and suffering itself comes from desire.

00:26:44Tremendous departure from whatever was happening till then.

00:26:47He said, whatever you are doing in the name of religion is just to satisfy your desire.

00:26:54And desire itself is at the root of your suffering,

00:26:57which means your religion has become your accomplice

00:27:02in the game of your suffering.

00:27:04Do you understand the context?

00:27:07Therefore, you are seeing that the Bhagavad Gita is de facto criticizing

00:27:15the Vedas.

00:27:18And when you will come to the next verse, you will be astonished.

00:27:23You will be astonished.

00:27:26You will be astonished.

00:27:27The Vedas.

00:27:31And when you will come to the next verse, you will be astounded.

00:27:37Shri Krishna tells Arjun,

00:27:42and before he says this, he says, you know, your Vedas are just about the three Gunas

00:27:47and therefore, you must be free of the three Gunas.

00:27:50He is de facto telling Arjun to be free of the Vedas.

00:27:54The exact words are,

00:28:01He is saying the subject matter of the Vedas is nothing but the three Gunas.

00:28:07You know what the three Gunas are.

00:28:09Prakriti, this entire world, Maya.

00:28:14He said, your Vedic literature is dealing only with this.

00:28:18And therefore, you must get rid of all that.

00:28:21Pay attention.

00:28:22These are lines of absolute rebellion.

00:28:29The Vedas are dealing only with that which is found in the three Gunas.

00:28:38Three Gunas belong to Prakriti, Sankhya Yoga.

00:28:41Three Gunas belong to Prakriti, Sankhya Yoga.

00:28:46It is all that is there in the Vedas is dealing with only this material world.

00:28:53And you must get rid of that.

00:28:57You drop that.

00:28:59You drop what is contained in the Vedas.

00:29:02Obviously, he is not telling Arjun to drop the Upanishads.

00:29:06He is telling Arjun to drop that part of Vedas

00:29:10that had become almost exclusively popular with the priests and the population.

00:29:19Because people being people, they were least concerned with the knowledge part.

00:29:25They were only concerned with the desire part.

00:29:29We do not want knowledge.

00:29:33We have desires and we want to use the Vedas to fulfil our desires.

00:29:39So, the criticism is less towards the Vedas and more towards those

00:29:47who are interpreting the Vedas.

00:29:51More towards those who are coming to the Vedas and reading the Vedas.

00:29:54They are being criticized.

00:29:59Because the Vedas are not to be criticized, they also contain the Vedanta.

00:30:09And that is their lasting contribution.

00:30:11That is their immortal contribution.

00:30:15So, how can you say the Vedas are rubbish?

00:30:21If there is even just one Upanishad that is there in the Rig Veda,

00:30:24that makes the Rig Veda worth it.

00:30:27I am assuming you are giving zero importance to everything except the Upanishad.

00:30:32Even if you give zero importance to everything except the Upanishad,

00:30:36the Upanishad makes the Rig Veda worth it.

00:30:39So, obviously, Shri Krishna is not going to criticize the Vedas per se.

00:30:48The totality of the Vedas itself.

00:30:50He is criticizing the kind of mind that approaches even the highest scripture

00:30:58just to fulfil its own desire.

00:31:03Even today it might be possible,

00:31:05many of you might be listening to this discussion tonight

00:31:10just because you have a concept that Gita brings auspiciousness.

00:31:17And auspiciousness in popular parlance means nothing but prosperity.

00:31:25In the popular parlance, you say Shubh Labh.

00:31:28You see what you club with Shubhata.

00:31:33So, auspiciousness means prosperity.

00:31:36Many of you might be doing that albeit subconsciously.

00:31:41Grant that.

00:31:47Do listen to the Durga Saptashati during the Navratra.

00:31:53That will bring richness home.

00:31:58Devi will shower goodies.

00:32:00Devi will shower goodies.

00:32:05Shri Krishna is saying there is nothing for this kind of a mind.

00:32:16No liberation, no realisation, nothing.

00:32:19Are you getting it?

00:32:24The Vedic literature is a wonder.

00:32:27You start from a very relatable, very common, very ordinary point

00:32:35where you are just looking at the world with eyes

00:32:40and you are just looking at the world.

00:32:42Very ordinary point where you are just looking at the world with eyes

00:32:50full of awe and wonderment and you don't know what to make of it.

00:32:58Everything appears mysterious.

00:32:59Even the ordinary forces of nature appear mysterious.

00:33:04We are talking of the earliest awakening of the human consciousness.

00:33:12There was no inherited knowledge the seers could benefit from, right?

00:33:21The Vedas are supposed to be the first book.

00:33:26They didn't have the benefit of hindsight.

00:33:34You could think of a little kid just opening his eyes.

00:33:39What's going on?

00:33:40What's going on?

00:33:44Water is so marvellous.

00:33:48And that spirit of awe, of amazement

00:33:57shines through especially the Rig Veda again and again.

00:34:02Especially the Rig Veda again and again.

00:34:08What's going on?

00:34:09Now, do not judge them by their scientific rigor.

00:34:16They didn't have any labs and science is accumulative.

00:34:23Today, if you know that G is 9.8 meter per second square,

00:34:27it's not because you found that out.

00:34:31It's because that figure has come to you over centuries of research of other

00:34:43glorious beings.

00:34:48When the human consciousness was first beginning to look around,

00:34:57there was nothing it could lean upon.

00:35:02There was nothing it could turn back to benefit from.

00:35:08There were only questions.

00:35:11Questions and a lot of suppositions.

00:35:17A lot of speculations.

00:35:20But not just speculations.

00:35:23Deep questions also.

00:35:25And it is that spirit of questioning, of enquiry

00:35:33that ultimately rejects all suppositions and becomes the Upanishads.

00:35:43And that's very normal.

00:35:47You can identify with that.

00:35:51When you are at a place you know nothing of,

00:35:55you will have two things.

00:35:57One, assumptions and second, questions.

00:36:03The glory of the Vedas is that you will have two things.

00:36:08And second, questions.

00:36:11The glory of the Vedas lies in the fact that slowly they keep rejecting all their assumptions

00:36:20and are ultimately left with only the questions.

00:36:25And it does not stop there.

00:36:30They move beyond even the questions and enter the questioner.

00:36:36That's the subject matter of the Upanishads.

00:36:44So you begin with fire worship and sky worship and sun worship and such things.

00:36:54All forces of Prakriti.

00:36:57And then you move to a point where you say, no, no, no.

00:37:03Prakriti is just Prakriti.

00:37:05Let her be.

00:37:08You remain a detached, dispassionate seer, the witness.

00:37:18The same spirit that you find here.

00:37:24So you start from a point of view of extreme attachment to Prakriti.

00:37:30Again and again you are going to forces of Prakriti.

00:37:34You are going to water. You are going even to the thunderbolt.

00:37:39You are going to the trees. Oh, the trees, they are something special.

00:37:42You are going to the soil, the wind.

00:37:53You are going to them. Oh, they are special. They are special. They are special.

00:37:57And then over the journey, the thousand year long journey,

00:38:04you slowly say, no, no, no.

00:38:06All this is just Prakriti and let her be.

00:38:10Let her do her own thing. I am myself.

00:38:19This is where the glory of the Vedic literature lies.

00:38:24It dismantles itself and it takes a lot of courage to do that.

00:38:34And there is something in it for everyone.

00:38:41If you are someone who cannot cope with the rigorous austerity of the Upanishads,

00:38:54then there is the regular kind of worship for you.

00:39:06You could choose.

00:39:10You like energy and power and heat and radiance and effulgence.

00:39:18Surya!

00:39:19You could pick Surya as your favourite deity.

00:39:26You like the calm song of flowing water, then there is Varun for you.

00:39:37You could choose.

00:39:41It would obviously be not the best choice.

00:39:44The best choice is when Ved starts sounding Vedanta to you.

00:39:51When somebody says Ved and you hear Vedanta.

00:39:55That's the best thing.

00:39:56But if you are still not up to it, there are other things for you.

00:40:00But Krishna is categorical.

00:40:02He is saying, Arjun, if there are other things for you,

00:40:05then neither the Upanishads nor the Vedas are for you.

00:40:08We are not here to fulfil our desires.

00:40:21You must reflect on this.

00:40:23For the ordinary man, religion is just a means to fulfill desire.

00:40:29For the ordinary man, religion is just a means to fulfil desire.

00:40:33just a means to fulfill desire and desires are an expression exactly of the

00:40:47one who suffers inside right because the ego feels that it is incomplete

00:40:55therefore it desires

00:41:01incompleteness and desire obviously go together

00:41:06the more you place your trust on desires the more you are powering your feeling

00:41:13of incompleteness therefore desire fulfillment is the worst way if you want

00:41:20to treat your insides won't help looks intuitive some might even say looks very

00:41:28logical you know I'm not feeling well let me order something let me check

00:41:33something somebody let me do this let me do that

00:41:39sounds intuitive because our intuition is tied to our experience and these

00:41:44senses you know they will immediately suggest yes yes not feeling nice today

00:41:57order something online

00:42:01won't work

00:42:04and that's something you need to be cautious of today and that's something

00:42:14you needed to be cautious of then

00:42:21getting it because our external situations have changed

00:42:27internally we have not evolved we make the same mistakes externally yes because

00:42:35knowledge is accumulative so over the centuries we have accumulated knowledge

00:42:39capital to is accumulative is it not you keep accumulating capital and you can

00:42:46pass it on to the next generation knowledge you can pass on so these two

00:42:51things we have in abundance today knowledge and capital but internally we

00:42:59are as deprived as we were then

00:43:06we are making the same mistakes that we made then

00:43:14getting right

00:43:21you

00:43:24Arjun if you are one of those who nourish a mind that there is nothing

00:43:30more important than the deeds that lead you to heaven

00:43:36then let's stop right now because that's not what the Gita will give you

00:43:44deeds referring to the rituals the rights

00:43:50do this and you will be guaranteed place in heaven and then Gita is not for that

00:43:55and that will not help assuage your current inner condition you are in

00:44:05turmoil

00:44:08you

00:44:10talks of heaven and hell and pious deeds will not help you

00:44:21similarly if you are one of those who are always full of desires then again I

00:44:26am not going to speak to you any further

00:44:31because your mind will be busy calculating how to fulfill the desire

00:44:36and I'll be just wasting myself on you whatever I say either you will not

00:44:43listen to it or you will grab some portion of it

00:44:50hoping that from that portion somehow you can fulfill your desire

00:45:00those who consider attainment of heaven as the ultimate thing this is being

00:45:07repeated

00:45:10so our

00:45:12Shri Krishna is quite upset with such people

00:45:20quite upset with such people who think that after your death something pops out

00:45:28of your body or or sneaks out or whatever

00:45:32or oozes out

00:45:36there are diverse expressions

00:45:42of mental ineptitude you know

00:45:47you

00:45:49human vocabulary is too little to contain the entire range

00:46:00of

00:46:06our insane imaginations

00:46:17there have been long-winded and very detailed debates

00:46:28somebody said it comes out of your nostrils with your last breath

00:46:38somebody said no no no no it comes out of the entire body through the skin

00:46:45pores somebody said no no no it is like the

00:46:49light in the eye so when you close your eyes finally then

00:46:55it comes out from the eyes

00:47:02facts cannot be numerous but imaginations infinitely numerous

00:47:16you know historically there even have been experiments

00:47:23one king made a total leak-proof room for himself

00:47:35with whatever technology that was available he said not even a single

00:47:40molecule of air should be able to breach out he said now my soul will

00:47:48remain in the room

00:47:54and he appointed trusted his eldest son he said after they say that I have died

00:48:03first of all you remain by my bedside and after they say that I have died you

00:48:11catch hold of my soul and put it back in

00:48:18and the soul I tell you is a sneaky thing

00:48:24it can slip away even from the minutest holes so make sure that nothing remains

00:48:34and I can only imagine I too am entitled to imagine am I not and I can only

00:48:41imagine what kind of endeavor would have gone into ensuring that the room is

00:48:46absolutely foolproof I mean leak-proof

00:48:51they must have filled it up with water and seen if even one drop is coming out

00:48:58from somewhere and I'm pretty sure that the king died of asphyxiation because if

00:49:07nothing can come in and nothing can go out then obviously you will suffocate

00:49:14you

00:49:22Krishna looks almost upset with such people

00:49:31and the irony which I could also call as the tyranny of the common mind is that

00:49:42we have used the Gita to justify the concept of the soul and heaven and hell

00:49:59near recreation is saying if you if you think of these things then let's stop

00:50:05right here the Gita is not for you

00:50:11you

00:50:15getting it

00:50:25those who are attached to the ritualistic actions that give pleasure

00:50:31and prosperity if you are one of them origin

00:50:38we can't be together

00:50:42she Krishna is criticizing everything that happens in the name of religion

00:50:47even today

00:50:53sounds so contemporary does it not as if it is being addressed

00:51:02one of us here in the 21st century to each one of us here

00:51:12Arjun if you are one of those who gave importance to the rituals and traditions

00:51:22and such things that are supposed to give happiness and prosperity then the

00:51:27Gita is not for you

00:51:31essentially if you follow

00:51:36the prevalent kind of religion then the Gita is not for you Gita does not

00:51:44belong to the kind of religion that shadows popular culture

00:51:54Gita is exquisite and exclusive you can either follow popular culture

00:52:02or Gita

00:52:11and that puts paid to any idea that Gita can be a part of popular culture

00:52:18it's an either-or relationship either you can belong to the world of popular

00:52:29religion or you can listen to Shri Krishna you cannot have both either you

00:52:36can participate in the norms more traditions rituals that are branded as

00:52:46religion or you can be a lover a worshipper a follower of Gita

00:52:55you cannot be both

00:53:00so Shri Krishna you see the kind of effort

00:53:07he is presenting Arjun with an entire list he is saying this this this this

00:53:11this and Arjun now if you take any of these boxes

00:53:19then I will abandon you forget about you running away from the

00:53:25chariot and all those things you are proving to be such a lousy student

00:53:34as a teacher I am telling you I'll drop you

00:53:40the tables have turned

00:53:45just one chapter back you know so just you know

00:53:50I was saying I want to run away and you were saying wait

00:53:56can we have a word and now you are telling the Gita is not for you if this

00:54:01if this if this if this already you have listed seven conditions and the

00:54:07fact of the matter is I meet all seven of them and you know that very well hmm

00:54:16and I also know that you will never drop me in spite of knowing fully well how

00:54:21unqualified I am you very well know that I am exactly the person who does not

00:54:30deserve the Gita nobody deserves the Gita in some sense it is always a gift

00:54:36a thing of grace and Shri Krishna is making it very clear that you do not

00:54:43deserve the Gita if you are running after your desires if you believe in

00:54:46heaven and hell and soul if you come to a holy book in order to ingratiate

00:54:51yourself then the Gita is not for you that that that practically rules

00:54:58everybody out does it not if if these conditions are to be enforced

00:55:05only Shri Krishna will qualify to read the Gita

00:55:12everybody else stands disqualified the Christian you know they look at the

00:55:17compassion here he is making it very clear that I know that you do not

00:55:21deserve me Arjun I know that you are the most

00:55:27deserving among the Kauravas and the Pandavas and still you do not deserve me

00:55:31in one sense Arjun is the most deserving one in a relative sense relative to the

00:55:38others present there Arjun is the most deserving candidate but in an absolute

00:55:42sense Arjun is not deserving at all and Krishna makes it clear these are the

00:55:48conditions do you meet these conditions are there sir look at me do I look like

00:55:55making the cut no I don't

00:56:02and Krishna is just warning not threatening really he knows very well

00:56:11nobody makes the cut

00:56:15and still he will

00:56:18deliver the sermon

00:56:24are you getting it hundreds more than 500 I suppose

00:56:31verses are still to come and mind you these verses come to us in a form that

00:56:40has been systematized again by the great systematizer with Vyas it is very

00:56:50possible that the actual conversation was far more detailed and long-winded

00:56:56there were far too many more to's and fro's

00:57:03when two people in real life converse the conversation is not always as neat

00:57:10as this or is it do you talk to each other in verses

00:57:16especially when you are talking to someone hallucinating with grief do you

00:57:24deliver axioms and canons to him do you it is quite possible that the whole

00:57:33conversation happened over maybe days and weeks who knows we will we will never

00:57:41know look at the kind of effort that has been

00:57:45put

00:57:50and that kind of effort has been put knowing fully well that Arjun is as

00:57:55unfit as anybody else

00:57:59Arjun is a better candidate only in relative sense

00:58:06in an absolute sense Arjun is as unfit as any

00:58:15and yet the effort

00:58:21and secret is not even hiding it he is saying I fully well know yeah I know you

00:58:28he's he's listing in such detail you know this this disqualifies you this

00:58:33again disqualifies you this again disqualifies you so you are disqualified

00:58:37on not one but eight counts and now we come to the next verse I'll continue to

00:58:45educate you

00:58:52you think

00:58:54you

00:59:02those who make strong and pleasant arguments in support of their views

00:59:11these are again not the persons the Gita should be set to basically these are the

00:59:19people who are attached to their own views and in defense of their views they

00:59:24put forward pleasant words exciting arguments but behind all those words

00:59:31etc lies just the stubborn insistence of the ego I will preserve myself if you

00:59:41are one of those Arjun then we should not talk

00:59:46you know like one deals to the kid you see if you do this again I'll hand you

00:59:55over to the police the four-year-old and he's like I'll be handed over to police

01:00:02yes

01:00:06he will never be handed over to the police

01:00:11you if you repeat this I'll hang you out there to dry

01:00:20the kid is never going to be hung up there to dry

01:00:29getting it

01:00:33you

01:00:35the minds of those who are attached to pleasures and prosperity get bewildered

01:00:42basically saying you get mad if you are someone who runs after pleasure

01:00:47happiness etc then you simply become insane you will not even know what is

01:00:51happening to you and you will just keep wondering why did this happen how did

01:00:55this happen but I didn't want this to happen how did this happen the reason is

01:01:00that you give so much importance to pleasure

01:01:04and that's a choice

01:01:07somewhere you are still holding on to that hope

01:01:14I can have both

01:01:20liberation and ingratiation

01:01:23you

01:01:29and I have both

01:01:33the ego is greedy you see and I will liberated while enjoying the

01:01:40fruits of bondage

01:01:43you

01:01:53the mind gets bewildered when the mind gets bewildered how will you understand

01:01:57the Gita

01:02:02and then you wonder huh

01:02:06minus 2.2 percent what kind of performance is this

01:02:15I listen to the session three times you listen to the session just three times

01:02:21you are listening to yourself 3,000 times per day

01:02:28the entire sermon is in negative ah first of all you stop doing this that

01:02:34and that

01:02:38you still go to your favorite deities every morning

01:02:44and ask for your favorite things and then in the night sometimes occasionally

01:02:53accidentally

01:02:56out of sheer misfortune you listen to the Gita and then you hope that you will

01:03:02top the exam

01:03:10will that happen

01:03:15this is the one mistake each of you is making you want to somehow reconcile

01:03:22Gita with the existing structure of your beliefs

01:03:29you want to force fit Gita you don't want to dismantle your existing

01:03:34structure

01:03:41you have your little sandcastle and you want to park the bulldozer of Gita

01:03:49within that sandcastle

01:03:53how big is your sandcastle firstly it is of sand and secondly how big is it this

01:03:59big because you are three-year-old

01:04:04and Gita is like a bulldozer

01:04:14what is the registration number any ti 0 0 0 0

01:04:20it raises everything down neti shun shun shun shun nothing remains

01:04:29just three are sufficient only three gunas in prakriti the bulldozer of Gita

01:04:37number plate neti 0 0 0 and very happily

01:04:45such sweet ignorance

01:04:49you are saying you know bring the bulldozer

01:04:56I will park it in my existing paradigm

01:05:06how will the Gita fit in

01:05:13Oh

01:05:15you

01:05:19it's like trying to fit an elephant into an aunt's house even that might be

01:05:26possible but it is not possible to reconcile Gita with the belief system

01:05:33you have with the religious system you have with the life system you have you

01:05:42don't want to change that and you still want to benefit from the Gita that

01:05:48cannot happen

01:05:51it's an either-or thing mind you request himself is saying that what can I do

01:05:59and he looks a bit upset he's saying if you don't

01:06:05meet the criteria then go away

01:06:10just that when you will go away he'll run behind you and by hook or crook he

01:06:17will you come here sit you think you're so smart you will run away

01:06:26you will go away only when I kick you away

01:06:39you

01:06:41the definite knowledge of the self

01:06:47is not for such people so these six or eight kinds of people and he's saying

01:06:55and there is this beautiful word that comes here

01:06:59where was I think buddhi where was I where was I think a buddhi

01:07:11not the kind of intellect that meanders

01:07:18definite intellect intellect that is devoted to the definite

01:07:26is not for these kind of people

01:07:31don't bring your self your beliefs your desires

01:07:38to the Gita I repeat they are incompatible

01:07:46you

01:07:53it sounds commonsensical you know I am a Hindu I follow the Hindu religious path

01:08:06the common look Dharma religion as it is widely practiced by the commoners I do

01:08:16all that and Gita to belongs to the Hindu fold

01:08:22therefore there will be some congruence

01:08:27there will be no congruence there is no compatibility

01:08:35it's not that if you are a Muslim or a Christian

01:08:41then the Gita is not for you be ready for the shocker the Gita is not

01:08:47even for the common Hindu

01:08:51anybody who believes in a particular line of thought of idea of bias

01:09:01becomes unfit for Gita does not matter whether he is a Muslim or a Christian or

01:09:07a Buddhist or a Jain or a Hindu

01:09:17you are rooted in the Islamic theology obviously the words of Krishna will not

01:09:22make sense to you similarly if you are rooted in the

01:09:27Hindu theology the words of Krishna will not make sense to you

01:09:33because Gita is not theology Gita is philosophy

01:09:40Gita is not belief system does not matter where the belief system is coming

01:09:44from the belief system could come from Africa it could come from the Middle

01:09:48East it could come from China or it could come from India how does it matter

01:09:54a belief system is a belief system those who are wedded to their belief systems

01:10:04become unfit for the Gita there is Kesar Bhatt from Jammu he's asking Acharya ji

01:10:12how can one refer to Vedas without desire when one's when egos actions

01:10:18inherently stem from desire no you can go to the Vedas with desire

01:10:24very well said obviously if you are a patient you will go to the doctor with

01:10:29the disease but you cannot go to the doctor with the intent to keep the

01:10:34disease you are not being told become healthy become totally fit and only then

01:10:42approach the doctor that would be stupid to say right what you are being told is

01:10:49you cannot be attached to your disease while going to the doctor

01:10:56attachment in fact is a small word we are identified with our disease we are

01:11:02our disease who am I I am my own disease and with this mind when I go to the

01:11:10doctor the doctor will fail on me in fact the doctor will look and sound so

01:11:16much like an enemy so carry the disease because you are

01:11:22helpless in that regard you are the sick person so obviously you will go to

01:11:26the doctor and the disease is there but at least be ready to make the right

01:11:32choice intent matters no when you say how can I drop desire why can't you have

01:11:40the desire to be free of disease yes you must have desire but if you must

01:11:48desire then why not desire to be free of your disease

01:11:56Oh

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