Video 40

40. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 3 Verses 38-39 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] [Music] so we are studying the bhagavad-gita and we are on um chapter 3 almost towards the end of the of the third chapter arjuna has asked a question prompted by what instigated by what internal force does a person unwillingly does not want to do anything wrong still does what is sinful what is wrong and we keep doing this so what is it that makes us forces us to do what is wrong does not allow us to do what we know to be right we all know what is right and wrong but we cannot follow it why so this is a very fundamental question in spiritual life we had seen the question last time so this is really a practical question not only does this force this power within us not allow us to do what is right that we know what is right and what is wrong and yet we are unable to follow the path of dharma dharma dharma right and wrong moral and immoral why do we keep making these mistakes not only that spiritual life that becomes so difficult why is it so difficult um the path of bhakti we are supposed to love god intensely without any desire for anything else just love you know fall in love with god but why is it so difficult why is it so difficult to love god why don't we feel that that coming automatically karma yoga in the path of karma yoga we are supposed to perform all our activities unselfishly without attachment why is it so difficult to do anything unselfishly why do selfish motives keep coming in in the path of meditation supposed to focus and meditate and say repeat the mantra or focus on the form of the deity why is it so difficult why does the mind keep why is the mind so restless why does it keep getting scattered and in the path of ghyana to know that i am brahman i am the witness consciousness not body and mind why is it so difficult to grasp this why is it so difficult to get clarity about this and difficult to stay with it so in all the yogas you see there's difficulties there and the answer sri krishna gives he says shri bhagavan watcher kamaya krodha is [Music] he says the cause of all of this is karma krodha desire and anger and both and desire and anger can be collapsed back into one that is desire karma we discussed last time that it is desire which is when it is obstructed it becomes anger anytime anybody is angry any time we become angry if we calmly introspect and see where did that anger come from something which we wanted explicitly implicitly we wanted it should be like this that person should behave like this or the situation should be like this it was not like that and so we react in a flash of anger the reaction could be different if there is a one person who is obstructing our desire we become angry on him or her if there is no person it's an impersonal thing like corona virus or something but we still feel angry and irritated and somebody who is innocent but we take out our anger on that person if it is a very powerful person or some which is obstructing our desire maybe boss or somebody you cannot get angry on the bus but then the result is tension or fear same problem our desire is obstructed somewhere we wanted it this way not working that way you may ask what about righteous anger i want to do good for other people and somehow people are making making it difficult they're obstructing me from doing what is good people get angry with children i'm doing it for their own good and see how they are behaving especially teenage kids sometimes you get upset right so there is no righteous anger you may be willing want you may want to do something good and that's that's all right you should do it um and one can do that without getting angry it's natural to get upset but uh don't even there there is some desire which is being obstructed it is much if you want to do something good for somebody else without any selfish motive one can do it without getting angry this buddhist monk fignathan who is at the root of this wonderful mindfulness which has become so popular in the western world in the whole world now so it originated in the west from tiknathan who came from vietnam he's very ill now i heard there was a vietnamese monk in at harvard last year he was telling me that the tik nathan has gone back to vietnam and he is critically ill but anyway when many of you must have heard about him his book the um the the art of mindfulness what was the name of the book the art of mindfulness i think the mindfulness of the miracle of mindfulness the miracle of mindfulness the classic book if you have not read it please read it so there he uh so not in that book in an earlier writing he says that when he first came to the west in europe the event came to france i think in 1970s at that time this green peace activity activists they were agitating for nuclear disarmament so a good good objective noble objective anti-war nuclear disarmament so peace agitating for peace now this monk he wrote that i was surprised to see that how these peace activists are so angry so they do not see the they think that they're angry for a good cause it's all right but anger and peace they don't go together actually so even for a good cause one should not become angry anger is always a result of obstruction of desire some desire is obstructed so therefore anger desire and anger come across you can reduce it to one karma desire and it comes out of raja gona in the mind it is of the nature of mahasana maha papa mahasana means great hunger this desire karma is never satisfied the more you put it's like a fire which blazes forth the more ghee you put into the fire the more fuel you put into the fire more it blazes forth so more we try to satisfy desire more it keeps on increasing it's not that i will satisfy a few desires this much money if i have i'll be happy and the children are two kids and they're doing well i'll be happy and then just this little group of friends and i'll be happy and this kind of house and car i'll be happy we think like that it never works like that it's always little more little change i want then then i will be happy and that then i will be happy never comes in life it keeps on changing little by little so our desires keep on increasing mahashana great literally it means ashana means hunger eater so it's a great eater what is a great eater desire karma there is no way of getting fulfillment ultimately by trying to satisfy the desires means productive of great sin so desire forces us through temptation and fear desire forces us to do what we know is wrong so i know what is right what is wrong but this karma desire it could be for sense pleasures it could be for you know like particular partiality or ah you know obsession with a person or with a maybe for a gadget or anything from video game to anything money name and fame position political power whatever it is it leads to mahapatmar that means it makes people do very wrong things and no know it to be renamed it is a it is an enemy here here in this in this means in the in spiritual life especially when it comes to the teaching was of karma yoga you're talking third chapter teaches karma yoga in the performance of karma yoga this is a great enemy karma is the great enemy it makes us do these wrong things you asked why people do unwillingly also people do wrong things it is because of this they are unable to overcome desire which comes up in the mind why does it come up because of past prakriti our prakriti our nature which krishna has said people follow their prakriti this prakriti is the sum total of all our conditioning in this life and also accumulated tendencies which have come we have transferred from earlier lives so this prakriti forces us to this this manifests itself in desire in our mind and it is expressed as a raga does in our mind we raga means attraction dwisha means aversion attractions and aversions come up in the mind to things food possessions place people activities ragadvisha comes up bubbles up in our mind and we follow that we do that rather than what is right you asked why spiritual life is difficult it is because of this desire that spiritual life is difficult it is it is difficult to love god because karma makes us love or desire things of the world people in the world you say what is wrong in loving people if you love people equally well wisher of humanity that's a great thing but we don't do that our karma is very much directed to people related to us and related to us means related to this body my family my husband wife father mother children you see what is wrong in that but wrong in that means when that love makes us exceed the limits of dharma the love should be under the control of dharma dharma should not be under the control of my personal love for a few people sudama krishna says my nephew my niece this is maya i see gopala in everybody that is daya he says so he plays on the word maya and daya i used to see that in the ramakrishna mission school whereas brahmacharya even had joined many years ago so little children study their little boys and their parents come to see the kids because the kids stay in the dorm in the in the hostel now there are these huge play fields and hundreds of children are playing so 400 500 kids are playing in different big playgrounds and the parents have come to see and each couple out of those hundreds of kids you know like guided missile they will zoom in on one how fast and direct how is that one little boy different from every other little boy not really so much different but for the parents that is the one my kid so that so there it is identification nothing wrong in it but when that takes you beyond the limits of dharma beyond the limits of morals and ethics and it also disturbs you in spiritual sadhana so somebody might ask is it ever possible that you will have the same kind of love for your children and everybody else's children that is not only not possible not only possible but it should happen as you become mature as you grow in psychologically and spiritually you begin to have that same kind of attitude towards everybody the extreme level of that the ultimate development of that you see in the holy mother for her everybody is her child and really like her child so she treats everybody equally and she went to the extent of saying the muslim decoy amjad who was there near jairambati who had great respect for the holy mother and she also had great affection for him and she said that just as as uh sharat is my my child my son amyad also is my son sharath swami saradanandaji who was the disciple of sri ramakrishna you know the secretary of the ramakrishna order and who was in charge of taking care of everything related to the holy mother whom srinama krishna trusted so much no one srinam krishna went and sat down on the lap of sharath who was a young man at that time he was a very well-built person and salam krishna said i want to see whether he can take my weight take my weight means the weight of the future organization which is to come for which swami saradanji became the uh general first general secretary at that time it was called secretary so he was in charge of the entire organization that is the weight now this swami saradanji who is the brahma-gyani who is the writer of this beautiful extraordinary book sriram krishna the great master and this muslim decoy amjad holy mother says both are my son and she says jamon i'd just like just like sharat is my son exactly like that amjad also is my son imagine so the the evenness that the same love towards everybody it is possible and we should all move towards that um he says sri krishna says in this karma yoga this karma is the enemy karma the desire is the enemy later on it will come desire is the enemy shankaracharya in his commentary a little later he says desire is the enemy for a gyani for a spiritual seeker desire is always the enemy why because the spiritual seeker knows that this desire will trap me in samsara it will not allow me to realize that i am brahmana it will not allow me to to have god realization whereas he says for a murka for a gyani desire is always the enemy and for the murk for the fool when the desire is there and he is satisfying that desire desire is a source of joy i want something and i'm getting something happiness only when the result is sorrow he feels oh it was why did i pursue that it is all worthless i wasted my life chasing these things now i have nothing left at that point the the that person feels remorse but when he was chasing that desire and satisfying that desire he felt happy he felt something good but whereas a gyani even when the desire is there he knows that it is not good even if the the guy cannot the spiritual seeker cannot control himself or herself and tries to satisfy that desire at that time also knows that this is not good the result will be bad for me right now before we go ahead a couple of questions it seems giant yes [Applause] yes thank you um we were talking about righteous anger but i was wondering about if you could talk about righteous violence if there is such a thing it seems to me i mean clearly in today's issues with protests and violence there is some debate over whether the violence is either justified or righteous and it seems to me also that the you know krishna and the is is all about righteous violence can you can you expand on that yeah it's uh interesting thing my first answer of course and the last one also will be um we won't go there because it's such an exciting topic everybody will jump in everybody has an opinion for against neutral and that will be the end of the gita class i remember um at the university last year at harvard this professor karen king so she had a she was an ex she's an expert in the new testament in the bible so i took that course i mean i audited it so i was sitting in the class and then in the first class somebody asked trump is doing this trump is doing that then she she normally responds to all questions she listened very humorously she said listen very seriously and then she said okay we won't go there and then she went back to her and throughout the course nobody ever asked any political question after that ah which is something big thing because harvard is a hotbed of political opinion and all that but before we move on um for in the case of the mahabharata it is it was somewhat easier because um the what you might call the kurukshetra was what might be called a just war or a good what the way it has been where we understand it the evil people are very clear kaurava these are evil pandavas are on the side of good not only that um the duties of castes these things were clear-cut i don't know in real life whether they were so clear-cut or not but at least on paper in the story they are very clear that arjuna and krishna they are all chatrias and they are supposed to do this so therefore it can be taken the issue whether it's violence or not is never really dealt with arjuna asks this question that should i act at all fight because i'm going to kill my own relatives and this is terrible but you know the way we modern people ask this question that is not raised in the gita i remember having this discussion again in the bhagavad-gita class at the harvard divinity school also where i pointed this out that again and again in the modern discussions on gita this question is raised that how is it that krishna who is god um encouraged arjuna to fight a war didn't krishna encourage violence so what do you say to that the answer is that is not at all an issue the bhagavad-gita contrary to what it may appear is not about war it's not about violence it's not even about just war it's not at all about that it's a it's a moksha sastra it's it's a text which deals with liberation enlightenment guard realization the ultimate goal of human life moksha if you ask you are saying that how do you back that up because it's clearly about war and arjuna is asking very pertinent questions about whether he should fight the war or not notice none of the traditional commentators starting from shankaracharya has ever raised this question which you are raising is this a just war what is a just war should we fight this war or not was krishna right in encouraging arjuna to fight the war when arjuna wanted to drop out of the war not to fight the war this was not regarded as a relevant question at all so many hundreds of little questions are raised and discussed and answered in different ways this was not regarded as a relevant question why this is what has happened is i mentioned in an article a few years ago it is the western mindset with the tremendous guilt of these world wars in the 20th century there is this consciousness about not fighting wars war is the evil of warfare this is something also pretty new actually in the 19th and 20th century this has come up so now it colors every kind of thinking in the west um this is not something that they thought was relevant for nearly thousand years of writing commentaries on the bhagavad-gita another reason is the texts were meant to when to fulfill different objectives there were texts called the dharma sastras so like the manusmithi which which deal with what is the duty what is right what is wrong what is moral what is immoral what is dharma what is whereas gita and upanishads this they deal with moksha god realization ultimate fulfillment purpose of human life so particular right and wrong of this issue is not an issue that really bothered the commentators neither shankaracharya talks about it nor ramanuja nor madhwa nor madhudam saraswati none of the whole series of commentators on the bhagavad gita ever even raised this question whether does that mean that we don't even use the lessons of the gita to address it for ourselves you can now there there's a question if you want to develop a theory of just war there were people from the kennedy school of government who were there in the class they asked this question i said your quest is not um not unjustified it's a modern enquiry and it's a good inquiry and you can investigate the gita with that attitude also but remember that's not what the text itself is for for example there are people who take management lessons from the bhagavad-gita gita as a manual for leadership on the face of it it's wrong because that's not the purpose of the bhagavad-gita but do you mean that there is no insight to be gained on leadership from the bhagavad-gita of course not there is you can you actually find a lot from the bhagavad-gita which will be helpful for modern management issues and the people have written wonderful articles and books and books on it so but one must always be very clear these texts were very systematic so they they outlined at the very beginning they will say what is the vishaya subject matter the subject matter of bhagavad-gita is moksha sastra it is not a book on ethics right and wrong right and wrong was discussed in dharmasatra of course right and wrong will come up because right and wrong is connected with spirituality so in that context ethics will come up but not ethics of war or social justice for another big issue is it about caste is it against these issues came up you can discuss it but remember gita is not about that also this must be very clear otherwise i found these people had come and they wanted answers to these things and and they were not getting it the the again and again the discussion was oh these commentators we are reading madhusudan saraswati is very voluminous commentary on the bhagavad gita and the feeling is oh the questions we are interested in the communities don't raise those questions what about gay rights what does mother sudden saraswati and shankaracharya have to say about that nothing how strange what about the justification of war disarmament why doesn't it these are your issues they are not they are not the issues of the bhagavad-gita but yes if you want you can read the text in that way keeping in mind that this was not what the text was about you can draw your own conclusions and build up your own theories about it i'm not saying it's unjustified i'm just saying that if you are not if you don't keep this point i made that it is a moksha sastra if you do not keep it in mind you will be puzzled this is not a question as the as the scholars were puzzled why aren't the commentators interested in the questions we are interested in and why are the commentators going off on obscure philosophical points which we are not really interested in because the central purpose of the text is what the commentators understood it to be moksha and therefore what they are saying is is very very much in line with that they are they are right you are wrong you are coming here with the wrong question in mind but if you know this after this also you can ask that question and definitely you will find a lot of material in the bhagavad gita what else did i want to say about this yes so for example interesting point ah in professor amateur saints class so he he gave a class on ethics so i i attended some of the classes there so once he quotes quite often from the hindu shastras so he said you know in the bhagavad-gita he's an atheist declared atheist so he said in the bhagavad-gita i tend to agree with arjuna in the first chapter of the bhagavad-gita arjuna said that if you fight this war it will lead to destruction and suffering and sorrow and so we should not fight this war and at the end of the mahabharata professor sunset if you go to the end of the mahabharata and you see these women veiling for their men folk who have died there's a whole description of that the women folk wailing for the dead and everything that arjuna predicted that the destruction of the family and the downfall and all those things happened they really actually happened after the war so i want to send said i agree with arjuna he was right he shouldn't have he didn't say that i shouldn't afford the what he just said it seems arjuna was vindicated i didn't give him all this thing about moksha sastra or not because i don't think he would have been impressed so yeah that's what i wanted to say if it was about war between pandavas and kharavas if that was the central issue um one is that in the gita text itself you see how fast the context of war disappears first chapter it is all about the war and arjuna saying why he will not fight it second chapter onwards when krishna starts speaking the word fades to the background it is about karma yoga about meditation about the nature of the self about the nature of god and the ultimate purpose of human life even about um you know the constitution of the human psyche sattva rajasthan all of that which seem to have nothing to do with these masses of men supposedly arrayed around with weapons ready to murder each other no connection entire gita the other point i wanted to make also was look at somebody like mahatma gandhi for example oh professor even said that he said how could an apostle i don't understand how could an apostle of non-violence supposedly an apostle of nonviolence derive his inspiration from the gita which is about violence the answer straight answer is the gita is not about violence if it was about a war between the kauravas and pandavas a civil war between some ancient half mythical maybe we don't even know the exact historical status of that of what interest would it be to modern hindus in 20th century and 21st century of what interest would it have been to vinoba bhave or or radhakrishnan or aurobindo or mahatma gandhi some obscure past civil war who was right who was wrong who cares it is actually a manual for spiritual life that's why it's of perennial interest to hindus yeah so any other question yes yeah so swamiji our best desires are in the subconscious mind and we really don't have any access to them so what should we do when these vasanas they come as come up as british yes so um krishna will talk about it you're right the desires are coming up from our prakriti our nature which is in the same in in a sort of stored form and we do not have access we cannot go there and change our vasanas directly we have no access to them we have become aware of them only when the desires bubble up in our minds when we are attracted to something and repulsed from something else then we know oh this is my prakriti this is my nature we usually don't reflect like that we should it's very it's a very good way of getting to know my own prakriti so what do we do krishna will tell us in the next few verses the method he's first telling us the problem then the method of overcoming karma of desire method of overcoming that the importance of overcoming it he has he has outlined here he has highlighted here because without that our ethical life in the world is not possible let alone spiritual life nothing none of that will be possible it will become a terrible battle if we don't tackle this central problem of of desire notice the buddha made it the central issue first noble truth all is suffering dukkham second noble truth the source of this suffering is desire so krishna he called it he called it thirst and then of course how to come out of it and ashtanga mark and all so krishna will tell us about it short answer when it comes up as a virty in the mind then we become aware of it and if normally we don't consider it we rush to either fight against it control ourselves fail or we simply rush to satisfy those desires the sadhaka or sadika will become aware is alert this viti which has come in my mind if i follow it up if i nourish it in my mind mental level if i express it in speech and if i follow it in action mind speech action will it take me towards god realization or take me away from god realization because some vasanas are good some are many are not and once you are aware of that then you have to replace the ones which are unskillful which are not uh according to spirit your samadhana which are against your sadhana with positive ones how to do that and what is the method everything krishna is going to talk about there's a question in the chat from sandeep swami ranganathan his book universal message of the gita he writes no emotion including anger is bad by itself and the anger has a place in human life you see some injustice going around you it must rouse your indigenation under control unless you have anger you cannot react properly to it so anger can be channelized into socially useful purposes can you please reconcile what you said uh on this point with your true but the answer is right there in what rangana tanji has said it must arouse your indignation under control what is anger under control it's not anger it is just motivation then and then again he says anger can be generalized into socially useful purposes certainly so there must be a feeling of what is right and wrong what is just an unjust otherwise what happens is one sinks into thomas and that is not good so motivation to do what is right that is that definitely should be there so when i said that don't get angry does not mean that you'll sit like a like a fool be a tamasik or that is a very selfish person can say that i am not i don't get upset when p there is an injustice out there on the streets but you will see that same person will get very upset when the slightest problem that person has to face in that person's personal life that means it just it's just selfishness it's not control of anger i will not get angry for the sake of other people i will get angry only for my own sake that is very bad swami vivekananda also says it is the fool who does not who cannot get angry the wise person does not get angry it is the fool who cannot get angry no anger at all is there fool in the thames sick sense there is no fire in that person at all and the wise person does not get angry what that means what does what does that mean in channels the anger into as rangana tanji says into socially useful direction in a good direction swami vivekananda's him his own enormous feeling for the sufferings of of the poor and the oppressed of women so it was there was sorrow there there was a real anger and sorrow for what was going on and therefore it was channeled into this huge movement which he started all right in social causes also there there is a useful anger in most cases a useless anger useless anger is often is often that see i am fighting for social causes i am fighting for the oppressed i am fighting for those who are discriminated against and my whole purpose is to show you are not fighting so you are bad this is miserable it is it has no uh it has no um higher purpose there is no real sympathy for anybody it's there's a term for it virtue signaling what you signaling so i'm signaling that i'm more virtuous than you by showing my anger have you ever lifted a single finger to do anything sacrificed anything for those people probably not so that kind of anger is not beneficial all right now number 38 let us go to verse number 38. sri krishna develops this topic just as fire is obscured by smoke a mirror is obscured by dirt and the embryo by the womb so is knowledge by craving so sri krishna gives here three examples of how karma see now already krishna has collapsed anger and desire into desire only first he said kamaisha krodhesha kama and krodha now in the 38th verse he is saying karma desire so how desire obstructs knowledge how desire sabotages our spiritual life he gives three examples one example is fire which is bright but obscured by smoke so the brightness of the fire is obscured by smoke just like that desire obscures the knowledge which is like fire another example um the dirt on the mirror the mirror is shiny and it reflects uh but it is covered by dirt and it cannot form its function of reflection just at this la the fire which illumines by its very nature cannot illumine if there is a lot of smoke similarly the mirror which reflects your face uh by its very constitution cannot do that if there is a layer of dirt over it similarly knowledge or vedantic knowledge it will not function if it is obscured by karma by desire then the third example is the fetus the child in the womb of the mother the the fetus is covered by the membrane of the womb ulba is the islam is like a skin the membrane which which covers so the child which can move around the natural movement of the child until the child is born it cannot do so many things because for its own protection and growth it is restricted within the boom of the mother so the functioning of the fire is restricted by smoke obscured by smoke the functioning of the mirror is obscured by dirt and the free movement of the child or the fetus is obscured by the membrane of the womb in the same way knowledge the functioning of knowledge which ought to liberate us which ought to give us freedom from suffering enough to give us joy does not work at all when it is obstructed by desire another implication of this is notice the gradation of the examples fire and smoke just a gust of wind can remove the smoke it's very easy to remove the smoke but little more difficult to remove the dirt on the mirror you have to scrub and when it's the question of the membrane of the womb there is nothing you can do you have to only wait for the child to be burned only in time it will it will come to fruition same way the desire the obscuration of desire is different in different sadhakas in some it is very light and it can be removed by vichaara you you understand that it's not good for my spiritual life i am i want god realization and move ahead and leave those desires behind it could be as easy as that an effort of the will guided by viveka by our understanding in some not so easy you have to scrub so chitta should be is necessary like the mirror has to be scrubbed then only it will become shiny it can reflect the dirt will be removed so little more effort is necessary and in some the layer of karma is so so thick that one has to go on doing sadhana and wait for the time to come ah just like the child has to be born to come out of the womb so this is the 38th verse then 39th verse [Music] [Music] is covered obscured by this enemy nityawari the persistent enemy this is who is the eternal enemy of the gyani nityavairi where he means enemy nitya means constant enemy what is this enemy kama rupa of the form of desire and what is the nature of this karma dushpurena pura means to fulfill it's very difficult to fulfill that means it's impossible to satisfy it the way we normally try to deal with desire that by pursuing it and trying to fulfill these desires will not work what happens is most people they chase these desires in life very few people get the opportunity of satisfying their main desires in life those who do get the opportunity if you do not satisfy frustration those who do get the opportunity of satisfying those desires they find dissatisfaction no thrifty no permanent satisfaction is there not only that worse it creates habit it habituates you you want more and more of that you by satisfying karma nobody goes beyond karma this is a lesson that it takes a long time for us to learn so dushpureena anala analeinacha anala means fire shankarachary in his commentary gives an interesting etymology analam means he says alam in sanskrit means enough completion fulfillment analla means that which has there is no enough to it there is no end to it there is no fulfillment to it so another basically means fire but he can you can derive it in this way also so it means that desire is something for which there is no full stop there is always little more i'm looking forward to little more i remember this very touching story of a buddhist monk an englishman who became a buddhist monk and he wrote that he was in sri lanka or bhutan or somewhere and his mother was ill so he went back to ah actually mother died he went back to attend his mother's funeral so he was telling the story in that article that when i was a kid my mother raised me alone and she we were very poor and we lived in this little english village and every day when i would there was a time when i would go past a shop you know there was this nice toy car and i wanted the toy car so i went home and told my mother about it and she said look we can't afford it and i kept on like children do you know that i will never ask you for anything more in my whole life only that one car if you can purchase for me that is it that like children uh little kids do and one day he said i was coming back from school and i looked at the shop window every day i would stop in front of the shop window and admire the toy car i saw the toy car was not there so i thought maybe some rich kid has purchased so i sadly went home and i found that car was sitting on the table it was my birthday my mother had purchased it for me and so i was delighted and i started playing with it um and as time goes you know after one or two weeks i was played little less after one month it was forgotten i think one wheel came up the car and but my mother never let me forget it whenever i asked for anything after that my mother would say i will never ask for anything more in my life and so she kept the thai car um on top of the mirror or something and this young man he says who became a buddhist monk he said this was my first and deepest lesson on the nature of desire what that little child's desire the same desire continues throughout our lives we always have that feeling i will never want anything more let me just get these things as we grow up it's no longer toy car it may be relationship it may be an education maybe a job it may be a house it may be this kind of achievement in my life and if you do not attain it frustration if you do attain it we find it's no longer as satisf satisfying as i hoped it would be robert wright who has written this book why buddhism is true he is a darwinian neo-darwinian so he says there is a reason why satisfaction of desires is unsatisfying he gives a darwinian reason he says nature designs it in such a way what does he mean for example eating sugar he gives the example of eating sugar but it could be any kind of sense pleasure now the way nature sets it up is that it promises much more pleasure than there actually is so it attracts us it feels that i will really be happy if i eat that food if i had this relationship if i go to that place and see this side the promises is very high and and what nature does today's advertisers have learned their lesson from nature and they give 10 times more promise of happiness if you buy this gadget anybody who has bought that phone you see every all are smiling they're all young and good looking and smiling and happy as if like that little child in the life and any nothing more is required after iphone 7 that is it life is fulfilled that much that kind of expression they will have nature promises this that and today advertisers also do swami atma rupa nanda ji was in houston he was giving a talk in san diego once and he was talking about this this you know serial new cereal is there an advertisement and the children are eating it and they are all saying wow fantastic awesome this is like amazing nathan panji said no no no no food in the world can be that awesome or nobody ever really does that you know even the most delicious food prepared by the greatest chef in the world if you did that also there you don't start jumping and saying awesome wonderful no it is not true that does not happen so robert wright says why it does not happen why does it seem that it will make me so happy and when we enjoy it it's not so much she says that is nature that is the logic of evolution nature will promise a lot of happiness so that you do it you go and eat that fruit fulfill that activity for example reproduction and nature will give you some happiness but not that extreme of total fulfillment which we had hoped the animal had hoped ah animal had felt it would get because if it gave the total and you know awesome wonderful happiness then you would not want to repeat it if you are so satisfied why would you want to repeat it anymore you give just enough so that it entices you so you want to repeat it or try something like that again next time and that's what nature wants you to do if a food tasted was so satisfying you get totally fulfilled and your tummy is full why will you eat it next time anymore it is done you have got your satisfaction no little less than what was promised and very vanishing also after some time it goes away so that is nature's way of making us function he says dushpureena and then another thing which i had already mentioned about the gyani and the ordinary person shankaracharya's here this desire is the constant enemy of the gyani not for the fool why not say the fool thinks of desire as his friend so when he is enjoying that desire feels happy even shankaracharya has no doubt that the result will always be unhappiness so the end of the culmination of that it will be either be dissatisfaction or moving on to the next desire or something will happen which is the whole thing will be gone then what happens then that person feels is by this thirst for desire fulfilling desires i have been brought to this sorry state then that fool feels that oh desires is the cause of my suffering but for the gyani uh nathu purva meeba earlier nathu purva meva the fool does not feel at the beginning that desire is uh bad gyani naiva nitya uh nitya by arena so but the the spiritual seeker knows that even when the desire comes knows that this is my this is a foe it will not take me god word even if self-control does not work and that person goes and eats that cookie or that sweet somebody give nice example of a person with diabetes the person who does not know that he or she has diabetes and is attracted to eating sweets and happily eats sweets and is enjoying the result will be bad then the person will suffer but the person who knows that i have diabetes and is attracted towards eating the sweets and then even while eating the sweets will feel the you know i am going to suffer and this is bad for me will also be suffering along with eating the sweets and so then why not stop eating the sweets that's the problem because karma is there if you control if the gun is controls and stops eating because the desire is there that also causes unhappiness i want it but because of diabetes i cannot get it so both ways unhappiness desire for sweets is there stopped because i am knowledgeable i know diabetes i should not eat sweets if i give given to the desire failure of willpower then also suffering if i control my desire then also suffering because my desire is not fulfilled so for gyani both ways suffering is there that's why vedanta is getting you into deeper into trouble you see on the other side when you are enlightened and you have overcome desire then you are free of it that is wonderful on this side before getting into spiritual life one feels that satisfaction of these desires is good and enjoys it till one gets to suffering so kicks and blows come later but when one is a spiritual seeker both ways you are trapped internally desire is there but you know the problem with that desire and you're trying to control it succeeding also little unhappiness failure also more unhappiness so this is the problem before we go to the next verse quickly let me see yes some questions my question was i've been thinking about this right this karma this this chapter about karma it feels like it is really a personal responsibility i mean there is no god mentioned in the whole chapter no no no let me stop you right there let me stop you right there god god is mentioned it is uh karma yoga mai sarvani karmani sannyasya offering all your activities to me the whole teaching of karma yoga is to convert your activities into a worship of god krishna puts himself forward as the incarnation who is to be worshipped yes i have created this world in fact my world is different from it if somebody else's world and so it's like what golovkada says that it's a dream i have dated this world and even my birth i'm responsible for it so and ultimately it's all my responsibility to clean it up also that's why all these now and all this stuff that i'm doing is i have to clean up my myself about you know the things that i have done so ultimately it boils down to personal responsibility that i am i correct saying saying that i mean i'm just thinking if if you are saying that it's an importance of self-effort purushakara is there yes certainly the law of karma is actually a law of self-effort it is not fatalism many people think that indians are fatalistic it's not fatalism it's basically that's exactly yes swami vivek understood what you are to what we are today is what we have made of ourselves and the what we do now will determine what will what we will be in the future so it is actually a law of self effort definitely god is there and god is the greatest help in spiritual life is the goal of spiritual life and is the greatest help in spiritual life uh let us quickly deal with the other questions swamiji earlier we were discussing on you know the ethics of war and what's happening right now so in a way doesn't uh shri krishna really deal with it in the second chapter itself you know when he says that you're neither the slain nor the slave so i mean he takes it out of out of the way in a sense this whole body-mind attachment so if that doesn't exist then naturally the question of good evil etc right wrong doesn't come up no i wouldn't say that there he gives you the teaching of the atma the the doctrine of the soul that you are not the body not the mind you are the immortal self consciousness existence consciousness place so that's the teaching of atma who we really are that does not immediately solve the problem of right and wrong and as i said uh in the hindu scriptures there are very clear distinctions between dharma sastra and moksha sastra there is arthashastra there's even a kama shastra there's arthashastra there's dharma sastra there's moksha sastra the four aims of human life dharma takama moksha they all have different divisions so what you are asking and what greece was asking earlier about just war is this war right or not and you relate it to current situation things like that the answer would be this is not a text about that such issues would be discussed in the dharma sastras texts dealing with morals with ethics with duty in society here it only comes in in a secondary sense that arjuna's duty is such and such now the whole issue is how to convert your duty and your place in life into spirituality this is the issue of in bhagavad-gita whether arjuna should fight this war or not from a moral perspective that issue has already been taken care of in in dharmashatras a little bit it is touched upon in in first chapter second chapter but following professor karen king we will not go there it is an exciting and interesting topic and one can go on discussing this yes i'm probably going to belabor the same point which you're trying to avoid but i really connected with chapter one in the gita in a very profound way uh to so to speak you know because i thought the word vishad and yoga together was really the opening for me in understanding you know in a more what i would say in a deeper way in a personal way because i came to the gita in a stressful personal situation you know battlefield of swords in my personal life but i thought the gita was trying to diffuse the point of battlefield and stressful situation into a yoga and when i compared my situation to what arjuna was facing i thought it was nothing compared to what he was dealing with so when i look at these comments about social injustice and people getting angry and sorting to you know whatever they are resorting to um i just feel that the key message in the gita's first chapter especially at least in my context was that figure out a way to convert that misha which may be real vishad which may be very justified mishad but it could be made into a yoga and if you do then chapter two starts to make so much more sense and it starts to put you on to a level which takes you away from the battlefield sort of what you are alluding to to the workshop level and then your battle starts to become really meaningful a pursuit if you will and starts to kind of make you deal with it in a more coherent and more uh i would say balanced man and not that it's very easy to kind of degrade yourself into the human emotions and get angry and i don't know how i think i think i understand what you're getting at yes it is true we come to spiritual life often genuine spirituality comes out of um sorrow struggle loss when we are confronted with the harsh realities of life old age disease death this is what turned siddhartha into the buddha it was not just an intellectual inquiry for siddhartha which made him into into the buddha it's confronting these harsh realities and when arjuna confronted it and he had these deep questions about the purpose of all of this then krishna introduces spirituality till that time arjuna was all about dharma takama but krishna introduces a higher purpose of life the highest purpose of life guard realization enlightenment moksha so yes the beginning is visha that's very interesting the yoga the yoga of depression visa means depression so depression yoga first it can and often in many cases it does bring us to spirituality when you come confront the meaninglessness of life the there is no depth in what we are doing after some time we should we should feel um in his introduction to hinduism houston smith he writes that after some time when you have satisfied dharma takama you know pleasures even after you have listened he says to mozart and beethoven tasted the recipes of the greatest chefs now which all you can do in new york not right now but after the lockdown you can do in new york and after you've earned money and success in your life and after see and after you fight for your favorite political social causes after all of that you're still left with the question is that all that's all of life that's it finished isn't there anything deeper than this higher than this permanent not all this is transitory so then the spiritual quest starts so after vishal yoga then comes the teaching about the self the real nature of the self who am i what is the purpose of ultimate purpose of life and does god exist what is the meaning of life these ultimate questions then only we are a spiritual seeker yeah who is next rick you're next you myself um the verse 38 the third example of the embryo being covered by the amnion has a positive connotation you know because the womb is nourishing and supportive and protective and all that so i wonder if this is implying that some desires are good even though all desires may have the potential of overshadowing the self some desires are obviously conducive to liberation and others to greater bondage for instance desire to go gambling in casinos is going to ruin you financially and lead to addiction but desire to go to harvard divinity school is going to be conducive to greater wisdom or knowledge yes desires which lead you godward are definitely they are to be cultivated they will not come under karma suramar krishna himself said the desire for god is not to be counted under desire and he gave the example of sweets and sugar candy if you eat a lot of sweets you're going to get acid reflux but that sugar can rock candy if you that's prescribed as an antacid actually so though they both stay sweet but one is to be classified as sweet and what not the desire for god destroys all other desires worldly desires that is true but even among what you are saying even among worldly desires among desires in the world there are some which are beneficial some which are not that's why the whole idea was that desire is to be regulated by dharma karma is never by itself in the the scheme of goals of human life the purusharthas karma is never by itself it's always dharma takama on the basis of morals and ethics and ethical and moral lifestyle then we pursue our goals in life about desire karma about wealth and success and power within the limits of of dharma and in that there is a scale philosophy and art and the quest for knowledge are they helpful in spiritual life they are right so ami ashoka nandaji who was a swami in in san francisco in 1950s and 60s he he wrote in a book for young people who wanted to become monks he said before becoming a monk become a gentleman which means and then he explained become a person of culture so something you know you must have interest in philosophy history music art or some some kind of higher or science higher human culture and that is a good basis for spirituality yes i'm also reminded of aurobindo he says in the widest possible sense life itself is yoga even when one is not consciously saying that i'm a yogi i'm searching for god or enlightenment i'm just living my life to the best of my understanding that itself is yoga in the in the long run because that will take you in a slower way but it will definitely take you god word slowly do it consciously you are a spiritual seeker you're a yogi do it unconsciously i'm not a yogi i'm just living my life you're still a yogi just don't know it and you're taking you'll take a much longer time to arrive at this but but yes so that example of the fetus protected by the womb which allows it to develop in the same way we are all developing even the person who is chasing money and success and pleasure and that's it i don't want anything else from life we'll slowly go beyond that we'll experience things we'll experience life and life will teach him only thing is that's a long and painful path and the sooner we come to this um self this self awareness that i am on a path on a journey and how can i do this more wisely than i have been doing it that's better better for us yeah this teaching about desire being the uh the constant enemy of the wise there's other saying that for the for the philosopher everything is sorrow so one sees through the apparent promises of pleasure and satisfaction in what nature promises us and then one constantly looks for how to go beyond that how to go how to investigate and go deeper all right now this is the problem and then sri krishna is going to give us the solution in verses 40 41 42 and 43 let's um no we have already gone beyond time so let's just stop here is there anybody else who has got a question yes you can take the kurukshetra symbolically it's not actually a physical battlefield but it's the battlefield of our life yeah it's the battlefield of our life um uh when krishna says to arjuna mama nusmara yudhyaja contemplate me think about me and fight the battle of life you did you fight the bad every one of us is fighting a battle of life starting from our personal physical and mental health to family around us to our job community career spiritual life all of this is your battlefield of life and so you cannot run away from this battlefield you have to engage in this has been given to you for your spiritual growth and it's good that we have it so let's engage in it but krishna says mamanus keep your mind on me keep your mind on god whether you do it as a gyani krishna will explain later in this chapter in the last few verses how a gyani tackles karma the problem of desire who else is having a question next is ipad who is ipad means swamiji swamiji you know in the at later parts they say that you know you should do your your your duty based on your nature on your property so the question and it even says that you know it's better to do what is your nature imperfectly than to do something else perfectly yes we have already read that part it is we just read it yeah if if i am able to do something perfectly wouldn't that automatically be in my nature not necessarily perfectly in the sense that what arjuna was implying that it's a much better thing to go away to the mountains he says in actually in one of the verses better to live by begging for one's food like a begging monk than to fight in in this terrible battle and kill one's relatives just for a kingdom now that might be morally that that might be um a better consequence you know like you don't have to engage in violence and but that's not the duty which arjuna has cut out for when you say i do it perfectly yet you're not called to do it and in your life you are called to do something so maybe the kid has assignments for school and is not able to do those perfectly and maybe um the the kid can play his favorite video game perfectly now what is the swadharm of the kid is it to struggle with those assignments and do them as well as he can imperfectly or do wonderful in you know like play wonderful games video games for hours and hours together now the thing is uh while struggling with those assignments and imperfectly doing them also the result is that there is growth but whereas very easily doing something else which comes so easily to me video game is a bad example but anything else that comes easily to me i am not really growing there it was not taking me it's not making me grow spiritually not taking me godward like you know you have to choose a later you know you have to choose a job or a career say you know your family tells you to do something yes and you love to do something else yes what should you actually do what you love to do i all i always say three things as far as your career is concerned a very sort of rule of thumb your uh does it feel is it something that you're good at one is it something that you like and does it take care of your needs your needs not your greed so is it does it fulfill your needs that's one does it uh are you good at it are you doing a good job of it and also do you like it and you see they are mutually exclusive they are they can one you can say yes to one and you can say no to the other also so if all three you say yes and then you should go ahead and do that um last question swamiji question was like as you mentioned like whether somebody at any point of time can develop the desire for god realization that is good my question is uh whether or not somebody develops the desire is it a result of their past karma and in a sense i don't want to you know ask it with a negative connotation but whether a desire for god realization arises in someone's mind is it under their control or is it the result of what they have done and the the nature that they have acquired see in general desire is not under our control even for worldly things also it comes up from our past conditioning and for god's realization that also comes up from as a result of our spiritual evolution but in general it has come for all of us and it's it's a precious thing so one must cultivate that and nourish that once the flame is there one must protect it and it's a very valuable i would say it's the most valuable thing in our lives ultimately you'll see that's the only thing that matters our own spiritual journey and progress at the end of our lives you'll see that's the thing which you cherish above everything else in life that's entirely true my question in that regard also which comes up in in the same bhagavad-gita krishna says once you attain a certain level of spiritual uh maturity it persists and you start from that level yes so is it possible to extinguish that flame at all no no krishna says very clearly there is no loss on this path he says see this is a great difference between this and the worldly path between moksha and dharmar takama in the other things whatever you have started the money you have accumulated it will not be carried over to your next life the family and relatives that you have it will not be carried over to your next life nothing only some samskaras will travel with you and the spiritual work that we have done our sadhana that we have done the accumulated result of that that will always be that it's imperishable that's where we start off from the next life and it's its power is unmistakable that's what will so vivekananda says keep thinking good thoughts they they do not die they are always there with the they come to your help with the power of ten thousand angels he uses those words as we accumulate good samskaras they they are always there and they will take us god word krishna will say to arjuna in the sixth chapter helplessly you will be bought into spiritual life i said whether you want it or not a spiritual desire will awaken in you in your next life if a person has not end but advaita vedanta says why wait for next life let us be enlightened in this life so with that with that spirit uh let us bring the class to a close thank you thank you please stay safe take care everybody let me see this yes good to see you good to see your faces good to see everybody yes yes take care of krishna you