Video 44

44. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 4 Verses 4-6 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] guru is the sound all right do i need to increase it giant it's good no let's say i'm back in here properly you can't hear santiagi i can okay that's good thank you um so giant is our co-host this evening and he will keep an eye out for people coming in let them in watch out for your questions in the chat or raised hands and we shall continue bhagavad-gita we have started chapter four and in this at the beginning sri krishna was praising this knowledge talking about the knowledge which he has given to arjuna in chapter 2 and 3. basically the knowledge of the self that you are the self existence consciousness place you have to realize this that is the purpose of life and that takes you beyond all sorrow also the knowledge of karma yoga how to convert our daily activity into spiritu into spiritual practice these are the two fundamental questions of spiritual life how do we become enlightened question one you might say that's the real question what else is there there is something else how do we live here now how do we live our lives and how do we become enlightened how do we live our lives here and that's these are the two questions which m the author of the gospel of sri ramakrishna he asks sri ramakrishna the second meeting with sri ramakrishna that how does one get love of god how does one feel devotion to god and also the second question is how is one to live in the world so exactly those two answers to those two questions one is the answer is enlightenment realize who you are second is karma yoga convert your activities into spiritual practice manifest that realization in your day to day life as he was doing so in the at the beginning of the fourth chapter he happened to mention that this is an ancient teaching it's not being given to you for the first time this ancient teaching which is the vedas was revealed by me to the sun god [Music] viva swan who transmitted it down to manu who transmitted it down to ikshwaku and so on so there was an ancient lineage of teachers and students over time this this teaching it became weakened it fell into the hands of people who were not spiritually disciplined who did not have the right qualifications who were distracted by the world and religion spirituality degenerated and so i am again giving you this knowledge today so what i gave in ancient times i am giving to you now arjuna immediately asks the arjuna asks the question which will immediately come to all of us just a minute knowledge is ancient fine and there were teachers earlier in students earlier and this knowledge has been given by different teachers to different students but how is it that there's one teacher alone you are saying you gave it at the at the beginning of creation to the sun god and which was passed down um and now you're you are the same teacher who's give giving the teaching to me how is that possible because you are about my you're contemporary to me you're about my age you're just a little bit older than me how is it possible that you have given so who are you who are you who can make such a claim i was just thinking even the most the oldest of teachers can't say something like that i one of my teachers who passed away last year he was a hundred and five years old so many of our senior swamis were elderly swamis swami caitanya who was one of the senior muslims in the united states now swami sarvadevanji they all studied under him he was their teacher too and he was my teacher it's like somebody who's been your grandfather's teacher your father's teacher and your your teacher too but even that very old vedanta teacher his name was or medha caitanya even that very old vedanta teacher even if he's 105 years old he couldn't have taught at the beginning of the creation of the universe and so even the oldest of teachers can't do that and krishna you look pretty young you are about my age how is it that you have taught this this teaching in ancient times so this is the perfect occasion for sri krishna to reveal his identity as an avatar as an incarnation so this there are some very famous verses coming along now in fact there are sometimes the people know only these verses from the gita which are coming in that one or two verses there maybe sometimes people know only these two verses so that's going to come now where krishna declares he is an incarnation of god notice he has not done that earlier it's only when he is asked then he tells he reveals his true nature even the teaching itself in the second chapter notice that only when he was asked by arjun arjuna had been saying so many things in the first chapter the whole of the first chapter krishna keeps quiet it's only in the second chapter when arjuna declares arjuna declares his helplessness i'm confused i don't know what's right and wrong you must teach me then only krishna starts teaching um so arjuna's question was verse number four arjuna aparambhavato janma param janma viva swata katha meta so your birth was recent and vivasvata the sun god we need not bother about whether there's a sun god or not that's part of the whole theological framework of hinduism but basically the point is this this teaching is ancient and the teaching comes from none other than god these are the only two points the sun god is very ancient and how should we understand this your claim you are the one who has taught this you are the one who has given this teaching in ancient times what was so it's also another point has to be noted what was given in ancient times as the vedas as the upanishads is now being given as the gita to arjuna so it's the same knowledge what is there in the upanishad is also here in the gita i remember i used to teach little kids in a school in india they'll her with their pete so um the boys who were almost all of them were hindus they asked um one of the one boy asked that christians study the bible and the muslims study the quran so if the vedas are our uh our central text foundational scriptural texts um but we don't study the vedas so i said then the final best teachings of the vedas are in the upanishads and they were like we don't study the upanishads either yes but you all studied the gita so although i know i knew the boys used to chant the gita geeta devi so you studied the gita so you know the central teachings of the upanishads of the vedas so that was arjuna's question how is it possible which means who are you and shri krishna here reveals his nature as the avatar i would like to tell you in brief what's going to happen now and then we'll look at the verses what what is coming up next so this whole question of avatars an incarnation of god there have been spiritual teachers throughout human history in every civilization include especially in india but there's always been a category of a special kind of person so in hinduism avatar is well known there are many many avatars famously every hindu knows about the 10 avataras of vishnu but it is a saying asan km avatara there are innumerable avatars in ancient times and now and in in the times to come so there's no limit to the number of avataras possible incarnations of god in christianity the incarnation of jesus christ is accepted so jesus is the son of god is actually the incarnation of god when he says i and my father are one he means that he is one with god so it is god alone who has come in the form of jesus christ so the incarnation avatar theory is accepted in christianity in buddhism the buddha is a special person there is no avatar in the sense that because there is no god so who is going to be incarnated but the buddha is there in islam the incarnation theory is not accepted but prophet muhammad is is seen as unique is not like everybody else and in judaism the prophets of judaism are seen as somewhat different from other human beings it's just not like everybody else so whether a religion sikhism does not accept avatars as such but it accepts the speciality of this of the 10 gurus the gurus of sikhism so and jainism there is no god for incarnation but the titankaras the 20 40 tankaras are regarded as special beings so we see across all religions whether they even believe in god or not there is a belief in a unique person a unique person of special powers maybe the person is a human being but not like everybody else so the source of every religion there are these special persons this idea itself got developed into the incarnation theory in the theistic religions like hinduism and christianity now krishna will say that he is an incarnation of god what is an incarnation and how is it different from other human beings why only human beings because krishna or rama are they look like human beings or ramakrishna or christ how are they different from the rest of us remember in hinduism there have been non-human avatars also so the first avatar is it's almost like not almost like it is it does show uh you know like the evolution of life from a fish to a tortoise to the um half man and the board the board first varaha and then risingh the half man half lion uh to the wamana the dwarf to the human forms of god so all of these forms are divine forms and they are regarded as incarnations of god but we especially interested in the human forms of incarnation what are they and how are they different from the rest of us one is the birth of the avatara is different from the birth the janma of us we are jews sentient beings our birth and the avatars they don't see the birth of the avatar we say their appearance they appear and they disappear so ramakrishna says that the moon is reflected in the water and the little fishes at night they play with the moon they think it's another kind of fish they are happy to play with it and then the morning comes the moon disappears never was the moon in water it just looked like that and it played with the fish as long as then they delighted the fish but when it disappeared it's gone forever and leaving behind this memory of this extraordinary fish who came among us but they did not really come among us it's a lord lord himself sri ramakrishna was talking about the avatar incarnation who comes and human beings think that he's like a human being talk with him play with him learn from him and then suddenly disappears so the appearance and disappearance of the avatar are not like the birth and death of ordinary human beings like us how so so um ordinary human beings we are born under our karma under the force of our karma one second the idea is why or where do we come from we are born and reborn again because of our karma where does our karma come from it comes from our desire where does our desire come from it comes from our ignorance of our real nature we do not know that we are this infinite being existence consciousness place not knowing this we have a sense of lack of fulfillment we are not full we want things the moment we are identified with the mind all the desires in the mind are my desires i want i want my life to go this way i do not want my life to go that way i i have so many experiences i want to have and all of these desires in the mind they become my desires further when i get identified with the body the hunger of the body is my hunger the disease of the body is my disease so all of the problems of the world they make us acutely conscious of our incompleteness of our very unsatisfactory nature of our existence so because of that we have desire karma and because we have desire when we act with desire it leads to consequences results good action ethical action we say punyam or merit punyam is merit and that the result of that is sukham a pleasant life things will go well for you um evil action immoral action we call it papam demedit papa or sin nor demerit and the result of that is unhappiness unpleasantness in our life and generally we see a mixture of all of these so basically our birth is from ignorance ignorance of our real nature god has no ignorance at all god has no ignorance at all god is in fact all-knowing god is always always ishvar or bhagavan is always aware of his you can say his slash her or its gender is not important um divine nature that that the lord is none other than nirguna brahman that so the real nature of the lord lord is always aware of it not only that the lord is aware of everything else also that the lord is omniscient knows everything about the universe and everything about us and the lord acts out of freedom in sanskrit is a term swatantria or a freedom we do not act out of freedom we act out of ignorance and the results of the actions lead to our birth and our death so this is one big difference when the lord appears as an incarnation it is from knowledge and freedom when we come to this body we are born we don't appear we don't say i have now incarnated no we are born helplessly so and as a result of of our ignorance producing desire producing karma so that's one big difference where do we come from and where does the incarnation come from entirely different places entirely different backgrounds not only that another big difference is um the nature of the jiva and the nature of the avatara the jiva is always in bondage we go from life to lifetime in bondage until we get liberation until that time we are bound we are samsari we are travelers in samsara and we are bound to remain in samsara in bondage and that's because of the ignorance so we are we are trapped in samsara the incarnation is not trapped in samsara the incarnation comes here uh out of compassion not because the incarnation is trapped in samsara the incarnation comes so the difference is this when swami vivekananda said that nature has two kinds of creations there's a general creation of living beings and the universe material universe so prakriti or nature creates two kinds of things one is this entire universe and including our bodies our minds also they're all given by nature to us so sentient beings the body-mind of sentient beings and the external universe they're all created by nature that's one kind of creation and then swami vivekananda mentions nature is a special creation once in a while special product uh the incarnation of god and swami away can they say is like krishna or jesus so they are special products and we can say we are machine made generic product factory product and the incarnation comes as a sort of handmade product very very very special not at all in the the assembly line from which we are rolled off so that that's what will come now krishna will say that the difference between you and me you and me means between i um we are custom made rick is saying it's custom made made to order so krishna will say we'll see later the krishna says that you and i are not the same we are different i come from a special power of maya which which is only the time it is used is when the lord wants to incarnate he uses maya to come we are we are the general products of maya all throughout time practically what does it mean so maya produces or prakriti produces the five elements the ancient cosmology um the space and air and fire and water and earth and by a mixture of these five elements our minds and bodies are formed there are the five elements have a subtle form which produces our minds subtle body and the gross form physical form which produces our physical body that's the general creation an entire universe is also made of these five elements but all this is avatar theory right this is we are moving away little bit from advaita vedanta here advaita vedantes is not very good at our tara theory that's why sri ramakrishna said that when he told narendranat he who was rama he who was krishna is in this body ramakrishna but not in your vedantic sense which he meant advaithic sense the theory of avatar says that maya directly produces the body of the avatar it's a very interesting concept and strange concept that it's not actually even the physical body of an avatar is not like our body it's not a product of ordinary matter like our body the theory of avatar says it's a mike body myka body means a direct product of maya not maya having become material elements and out of that the body is produced so that's why it accounts for the miraculous birth of of incarnations the immaculate conception in the case of jesus in the same same story we hear about ramachandra sri krishna about ramakrishna not a typical material natural event like the the birth of our bodies not like that so that's another big difference um in fact there's even a belief in certain vaishnava circles that one should not destroy the body of an avatar after the avatar has passed away the body remains so ramanujacharya's body is still preserved after nearly 1100 years i've not been to see it but it's just i don't think you can make out any features but it's a special mixture of chemicals so something like a like a mummy i think there's some effort has been made to preserve it so i remember reading after the the cremation of sri rama krishna after sri ramakrishna passed his body was cremated so vivekananda wrote sometime later a letter to his brother disciples saying that we have committed a great sin in in destroying the body of sri ramakrishna of course the ashes are still there in the main temple at balor but so it is a there's a certain belief that the body of an incarnation should not be destroyed it's a very valuable thing it should be kept um there's a question is is that why sri rama krishna could not bear yes so many things are very interesting about sri ramakrishna this is the first time that an incarnation has been studied and observed in such close detail and records have been maintained so extraordinary things which have destroyed would have destroyed the body of an ordinary person the kind of spiritual practices he underwent there are many extraordinary events about about the the body of sri ramakrishna one more difference between an incarnation and us the purpose why are we here and why is the incarnation here why are we here we basically say we don't know but anyway vedanta says are all the theories in indian philosophy vedanta and sankhya buddhism and jainism they all say karma we are here as a result of our past karma and in order to do what in order to experience the results of that past karma with the ultimate goal of one day one life attaining liberation moksha so why are we here the direct answer is our past karma which has accumulated over many lifetimes this accumulated karma is called sanjita karma accumulated karma in each lifetime a part of it becomes so to say ripened and it gives out results so the part which becomes ripened activated is called prarabdha which has started giving results so what result does it give it gives us a body it gives us parents it gives us experiences in this life a mixture of pleasant and unpleasant experiences and once that prarabdha is over this body will die and the subtle body with the reflected consciousness in it the jivata it will move on to other lives again propelled by karma we are propelled by karma and nothing else swami vivekananda i often quote that good good bad bad and none escape the law but whosoever wears a form wears the chain too what is the chain we are wearing our karma we are bound by our past karma and so all the experiences the major experiences we have in our lives are because of our past karma no one to blame it is something that i have cooked for myself over many lifetimes is it predetermined no no no only the major events so the body that i have the life the age how long i will live in this body my parents my general environment it could be a good environment you could be somebody was joking that it's a sign of great good karma to be born as a dog in manhattan you know you're really taken care of and pampered so great good karma in in to wealthy parents and you get a good education you have a healthy body things go well in life whatever you you're good at studies and when you when you start working whatever you touch turns into cold you everything goes very well and that's an enormous amount of good karma which is being used up so remember when things go well you're using up a lot of credit with god you're maxing out your credit cards divine credit cards and illness abuse failure struggling working hard no use nothing is working out at all bad karma and all of this mixture is what we experience in our lives all of it is cooked up by our past it's just the result the consequences of past actions but in the midst of this how we react and what we do that generates fresh karma we have that freedom we have some degree of freedom here with the same playing field some play a better game some play a worse game so the playing field is set by our karma but how we play to some extent we have some freedom and devotion to god grace of guru that increases the freedom gives us a lot of what do the bankers call it line of credit you you can you can use more than you deserve so that comes by the grace of god sometimes um avatar has none of these avatar does not come for this nor does avatar have a bundle of karma in the past the avatar is completely free so avatara comes for establishing spirituality remember the whole game of life why is it all going on always the goal is god realization we have come here for exhausting our past karma no doubt but what why this karma at all why are we exhausting past karma what's the point of it ultimately as swami very kindly says the goal of life is to manifest the divinity already within us to realize that you your oneness with god in whichever framework you understand it to attain nirvana salvation whatever you call it that is the ultimate goal it's a spiritual goal life is spirituality we don't as long as we don't understand it we suffer more we understand it the less we suffer actually so the avatar comes for establishing spirituality so very natural then as krishna says when spirituality goes down deteriorates god himself herself itself has to reincarnate has to come again to reestablish religion reestablish religion means to show that religion is real spirituality is real that you can attain transcendence of sorrow ultimate deep peace and joy you can attain it it's possible and it's the you must attain it it is possible and it must be done and the avatar shows that it's real it's not just some books some old stories and avatar also sets out new paths of spiritual practice a new view of religion comes with each avatar then another thing that davatara does is help the spiritual krishna will say all this i'm just telling you what's going to come avatara will help the spiritual you notice whether it's buddha or jesus or krishna or ramakrishna the first priority was a small group of highly spiritual people those who are who who are god seekers who who have been praying and meditating maybe life time to lifetime trying to realize god the first priority of the incarnation is to set them free because they are ready they are ready it just requires a little bit of grace to set them free so the incarnation comes for them number one number two krishna will say to destroy the wicked and destroy may not mean actually with arrows and missiles as in the past maybe but it's just to reform the wicked so that the wicked become good um so to establish religion and for the elevation for the liberation of the good and for the reformation of the wicked so that's the purpose of an incarnation again all this is highly developed in vaishnava vedanta in the dualistic theistic schools of vedanta advaita vedanta is like if you ask they are shrug all right if you prefer to think in those ways the whole point is to realize your brahman and that's it all right so this is the basic difference between avatar and the jiva before we go into the verses are there questions i can take a look at um circumstances sri ramakrishna's birth i re i strongly recommend christopher isherwood's book ramakrishna and his disciples so if you read it it's really wonderful it tells you the circumstances of ramakrishna's birth his life very beautiful book i think many people have been introduced introduced to sri ramakrishna through that book christopher isherwoods ramakrishna and his disciples pranav says christianity has a more formal way to conquer sainthood hinduism how do we know if someone is an avatar when they are still alive no way of knowing we really have who is liberated we really don't know who is among the liberated who greatly spiritual people who is an avatar one thing you should know is avatars are very rare very very rare enlightened people are more enlightened saints are little more common not common at all but little more so so don't go hunting for avatars there are people have a um sometimes they go hunting for enlightened masters why have you not started your spiritual practice yes i'm looking for a teacher there's so many teachers no no no none are apparently good enough for me my teacher must be an enlightened person i'm looking for who is enlightened how will you know and avatar especially how will you know the the only way to know an avatar is by the grace of a davatar if david reveals himself or herself to you otherwise no people thought in sudama krishna's time people thought he is a madman people in the kali temple we worship him as avatar everywhere now that's why swami vivekananda said it does not matter there if you accept him as avatar well and good for you if you had those who accept him some may accept him as a great saint some may accept him as a great spiritual seeker whatever it is in whichever way you profit from his life and teachings that's the most important thing swami vivekananda said that it's not compulsory for you to accept that srirama krishna is in avatar now christianity has a more formal way to conquer sainthood remember you can become a saint in christianity you can't become an incarnation of god there's this famous jewish joke you know um a rabbi asked a priest so in your church the catholic church how high can you go the priest said well if you're really a good priest you might become a bishop and higher than that then you can become an archbishop and higher than that well that's really difficult but some people do become cardinals you know they can go to rome and vatican and be a cardinal that's higher than and higher than that well there's only one thing that you can be the pope and that's it and that's very rare and higher than that well what's higher than that there's nothing higher than that or higher than that is only jesus and you can't become that you know only god is there and the rabbi said well one of our lads became that you know so jesus being jewish so one of our lads became that the highest is there a name for the karma we create in this life agamin kriyaman or prarabda karma but agami is the one which is added and it's going to be added to you and will become active in some future life um so isn't a saint different yes saint is different from an avatar saying to nabata are not the same a saint is like a very holy person and some of them might be liberated or enlightened persons shankaracharya is considered an avatar of shiva has considered an avatar of lakshman actually name and author of the book christopher wood somebody can write it here yeah somebody has already given it here rick has given this so there's a question about the ever free some are ever free ever free in the sense at one point they became free and they still retain their individual identity so nitya siddha nithya mukta so instead of giving up the individual identity and becoming one with brahman with the with the universal existence consciousness place they still retain a trace of their identity but they are not bound so they may come with they often come with god when god incarnates so ramakrishna is to say god brings some friends pals along with with him and they they become different things uh in different people in the play which god is going to enact so god's life what the events of god's life are called uh leela of avatar incarnations life are called leela divine play and that applies only to the incarnation of god you can't say my life story is a leader no that's not a leader that's just our life before i go into the verses the beautiful story about karma which i would like to share so i said um our what happens in our life is the big events are often determined by lot by past karma so i was in the himalayas it's a very touching and beautiful story so i'll tell you it's a little long um somebody's smiling that's the best kind of story um i was in the himalayas at that time and one day we had this little sometimes the monks would get together you know like it's like eating out eating out means you get together in one of the ashrams and you make some snacks and you sit together and eat like in india they call pakora i know you sit on the ground like literally on the dirt there and then you you don't eat from the dirt you have got leaf plates you know and then one of the monks was telling me you know swami where you are sitting this is where the famous yogi baba ramdev is to sit and eat pakoras and then go back to his cave and practice hatha yoga so we are just talking about you know in india this is he's a very famous yoga guru bhava ramdev so he's it's a huge like an industry a yoga industry has grown up around him yoga and ayurveda industry now an interesting comment was made by one of the monks you know the uh the yogi sitting in front of you swami so there was this old man in a white dress not a cloth of a swami just a white dress it's a little beard white hair and beard sitting there eating his pakora his name is indra yogi and he said the swamis told me that he his yoga is much better than baba ramdev's yoga because they used to practice here together and whenever the swamis had any problem health problem they would go to indra yogi for a solution some kind of practice of course ramdev was also was a good practitioner but this person was better and then this person also tried to spread yoga start a yoga school he went down from the himalayas started yoga camps where and ramdev was also starting yoga camps and whatever baba ramdev did succeeded enormously every camp was a success every program he was soon on tv and what not on magazines and brands were created in his name so now it's a huge huge phenomenon and whatever indra yogi did was a failure nobody turned up and nothing worked and finally he came back to his cave in the mountains and indra yoga is sitting there listening to all of this and he was chuckling to himself and you know like stroking his beard and sort of shaking his head so i asked this monk we went for a walk after the pakoras in the mountains over the ganga there this was in gangotri why does this happen we often see it we all know of people who are experts in their field you know you are maybe your classmates or somebody who was the genius but never made a name for himself or herself and there was this other people were not so good but they become millionaires and big success in it so we all know such people and why does it not work for someone why does it work so well for some others most of us are in the middle actually so he told us the story it's a very nice story which i'll share with you so the story is starting now so he said janakaraja the great emperor janaka father of sita and all so one day somebody asked him how is it that one man you have got everything you are an emperor you're you are an enlightened person so janaka is always known in the in our stories as a brahmagyani one who has attained knowledge of brahman is an enlightened person you are an enlightened person and the mother of the universe is your daughter sita and god is your son-in-law rama how does one person attain all of this you're an emperor and you are an enlightened and you have realized brahman and you are jivan mukta free in this very life itself the mother of the universe is your daughter and god is your son his son-in-law rama and sita how and so janaka thought it's true how do i how did all this happen to me i don't see myself as special so at night he had this dream um next if you want an answer to your question jennica start walking tomorrow uh start walking to the west and where the sun sets there you will find a man a yogi who's sitting there and eating leaves ask him he will he knows the answer to your question he will tell you so janaka starts walking and walking and walking and finally at the end of the day he's tired he sees under a you know there's a big tree under that the pile of dry leaves and there's a yogi sitting there in matted hair eating dry leaves janaka says that's my man and he goes there before he can say something the yogi looks at him and he says i know the answer to your question emperor janaka so he knows who he is and what the question is but i won't tell you you rest here tonight tomorrow in the morning if you want to know the answer to your question start walking to the west and you keep walking and walking and walking till you find you know where the sun is setting that will be the way it said where the sun is setting you will find a yogi who's eating ashes he knows the answer you ask him next morning the emperor starts walking and walking and by the way we were walking while this story was being told i got the feeling that the story was being prolonged for my benefit till th you know he would this person i would take walks with he would make stories last till sunset strangely enough as sun set the stories would come to abrupt ends you know because it's got too dark anyway so he finds this yogi sitting and eating ashes and before he can say something exactly like that and like the earlier incident the yogi says i know your question emperor janaka but i will not answer it tomorrow in the morning if you really want to know the answer to your question i'm not extending the story this is exactly it was as it was told to me i'm speeding it up a little bit you have to keep walking to the west you will finally come to a village where you will find in the village headman's house a baby has been born and the baby is going to die the same day so uh this baby go and ask this baby the baby knows the answer to your question the baby will tell you the newborn baby so janaka starts walking and walking and walking he comes to this village and he goes to the head man's house the headman is delighted to have a visit from the emperor and says is it true that you have a newborn child yes we have been blessed with a newborn child can i see the newborn child in in private they said yes please bless the child and she goes to the newborn child and everybody leaves their room and luckily their child doesn't tell him to take a walk again so this child says a child can speak presumably in sanskrit i suppose says to the emperor i know your question and i shall tell you the answer many centuries ago in this um village here lived a poor widow and she had um three she had four children and uh she was finding it difficult to make ends meet she would beg for food and bring back and so there came a time when they had starved for three days they hadn't have any food and the children were very hungry and the poor mother finally got four chapatis four pieces of bread and she didn't want anything for herself she just gave the four pieces of bread to her four little sons at that time comes a guest so this is a typical indian story a guest comes and if a guest comes you have to feed the guest and the mother said but i have nothing to feed you sir i had only four pieces of bread but i can't give them to you because i've already given them to the my children who are very hungry and it belongs to them now you have to ask them the guest said i am very hungry i need that bread so he goes to the eldest son who's just a little boy maybe 10 or 11 years old give me your piece of bread and the boy said what will i what will i eat will i eat leaves dry leaves i'm giving you the piece of bread will i eat dry leaves and uh um so uh he asks the so he did not give the piece of bread and the baby said you know that that first boy uh he is born as this yogi whom you met he spends his days eating dry leaves anyway the guest went to the second son who was even younger and asked for the piece of bread and the son refused little boy refused i'm hungry if i give that to you what will i eat will i eat uh ashes and you know that boy he was uh he's born as this yogi who lives eating ashes and then he went to the youngest the littlest kid the third kid was even younger and asked can i have your piece of bread and the little boy said i'll die if i give you this piece of bread and that little boy oh emperor i am and i died and i am born and every time i'm born and i die the same day all these years i i keep be getting born and dying the same day today also i know i will die um then he went to the last little kid the guest and said give me your piece of bread who was maybe just five years old even before he could ask the little boy held out that piece of bread and gave it to him the chapati and the guest was satisfied and the little boy the youngest son he perished of hunger that very night and the baby said oh emperor that little boy you are he went straight away to heaven for centuries together and he was born in this life as an emperor who attains enlightenment whose son whose daughter is the mother of the universe and god is the son-in-law of that of this that same little boy so that's a very beautiful story but the whole point is the power of of karma the whole point of the story um luckily by that time the sunset was near and the story came to an end so i was but it's it's so uh the whole point of the story is that karma is very powerful so his explanation was you're looking at bhava ram dev today so he must have done something extraordinarily good in his past lives so whatever he puts his hand to he is extraordinarily successful but that does not mean that the other person who's not successful is working hard it's not does not mean that it's lost that also generates good karma which is accumulated so one should keep on trying another point another monk made it's important to note to activate good karma effort is necessary i'll tell you this is another monk ramananda saraswati said um when you serve rice in india you have huge pots of rice so you need a huge ladle and there are metal ladles you have to break the rice and then bring it out and then serve it and we put it in smaller buckets and it at that time as a novice in our monastery that was one of my duties it was hard work and it was very hot and humid there so these huge giant cauldrons of rice would come and from that you have to bring out the rice and put it into smaller buckets which are then taken for serving food to people who are eating now this monk gave up an example of karma he says if there is a lot of rice if there is a lot of rice in your big cauldron in the big pot even if you put the little in one just a little bit a lot of rice will come out just a little bit you try a lot of rice will come out if there isn't much left then you have to put it in really deep into the that big part into the huge cauldron and from the bottom you can get some rice and if there is no rice left in your cauldron in hindi he said i can't translate into english he said he'd just get a clanging sound no matter how much he puts his ladle you know inserts it into the huge cauldron there's just darkness inside it's nothing it's just a clanging sound but the point is you must use the ladle to try to get something then only your karma is activated and all no effort goes to waste if there's nothing happening now it will happen in the future okay so this is the background let me now go into the verses this was strictly not necessary not related to the verses but it was nice story i wanted to share now we'll understand the verses very well shri bhagavan watcher the blessed lord said i have had many many births earlier o arjuna and you have had many many births earlier over tuna i know them all not only mine but yours too and everybody's births you do not you don't remember your own births so here see he's first of all making the difference between an avatar and ordinary uh human being an ordinary sentient being avatar is avatara's knowledge god is omniscient and the omniscience does not go away avatara may just look like you and me the incarnation of god just may look like a human being just like you and me but the omniscience of god and the power of glory of god is still there so krishna says i know it all i have come many times earlier as not as a human being as an avatar as an incarnation many times have i been incarnated earlier so we say the god comes as many incarnation one after another it's the same lord same god who has come at these incarnations in different times and places and different civilizations you have come oh arjuna not as an incarnation but as a human being maybe as animal births also something many many times but you don't remember any of that i remember all of that not only myself all your births also whatever has happened to us in the past god knows i don't mean in the sense god knows what has happened god really knows what has happened to us in the past god knows what is happening to us now and the lord knows what will happen to us in in this life and in future lives until our enlightenment everything is known to the lord some yogis can find it out also this one monk who was serving swami brahman and the rakhal maharaj so he was massaging swami brahmana so ramahanda said once when he was the president of the orders brahmananda he said to this monk massage my feet and he was massaging his feet and he writes at some point i felt i'd lost track of time as if i had dropped out of time you know i noticed swami brahmana and they were sitting up and listening closely and i was saying certain things and the moment i became aware of this swami brahman they lay down and appeared to lose interest so later he realized that swami brahman i was asking him who are you and what are your past lives what are you here for what what what are you going to do what is the you know so finding out everything about you so it's they're locked up uh in in our experiences in our in our subtle body in the chitta we just don't have access to it patanjali yoga sutra says we can actually access the memories of past lives but don't try to do it it's not a good idea i think with sister nivedit or sister christine who asks swami vivekananda can we know our past lives and swami vivekananda scolded her saying that sufficient unto the day the evil thereof you can't handle the problems of this life and you want past lives what will past lives be like something like this like little better little worse what's the point of trying to find out all that so shankara's commentary says you as a jiva you have limited knowledge i as the lord i have unlimited knowledge even becoming an avatar it does not restrict my powers and then he goes on to say verse number 6 [Music] i am unborn though i am unborn i seem as if i am born though i am unchanging i seem as if changing you know krishna is a baby the baby krishna as a young boy as a teenager as the youth who is the middle aged krishna who is the charioteer of arjuna and so on seem to be changing but i'm unchanging um bhutan ishwaro pisan though i'm the lord of all beings i appear as in the in the household of uh vasudeva and then live my life among cowards and now i am your driver your shafter arjuna's driver of the chariot though i am the lord of the universe so being the lord of the universe the lord can can act in a very humble way i remember this talking about the glory of being the lord of the universe so this beautiful scene in a movie i had seen um i think it was um ten commandments it was a movie about jesus um no not it's about ten commandments actually it's called a hollywood movie called ten commandments were very popular but jesus is there in just one scene in the whole movie um as far as i remember but it was unforgettable i still remember it so these roman soldiers you know they're marching past taking the slaves past and they go through through nazarene and jesus of course at that time unknown as yet he is just a carpenter and so this poor man wants some water that's the movie the way they have shown the movie ben hur yes somebody said ben hur right it has been heard not not ten commandments it's been her so some of you those who have seen it you remember the scene so jesus gives goes and gives water to the suffering man and one of the roman soldiers angrily comes up to prevent him maybe to beat him to stop him from giving water to that suffering that this prisoner or slave or whoever it was and all you see in the movie you don't see the face of jesus all you see in the movie is just the back of jesus's head jesus stands around and looks at the roman guard the soldier and the entire thing is so well depicted in the expressions of that roman soldier first an arrogant angry expression then a stunned expression stand at what just looking into the face of this ordinary man stunned expression then a fear comes over him and then he's he's humbled and then the scene shifts to the roman guards taking the prisoners away into the distance and this guard who saw the face of jesus he kept keeps looking back at that little village where where jesus was he doesn't know who he who he saw for that one moment but it's like looking into the face of god so ishwar bhutanam is the lord of all beings there's a very beautiful hymn about srirama krishna shishu samyam agamyavaram in one phrase as simple innocent like a child first part of the phrase then the next part is agamiya pranam yavaram whose majesty is unapproachable you can only salute from a distance same two things in the same person just like a child as innocent and simple as a child and yet when he wants it is uh it is it can be awesome and terrifying people you can't even approach him the only thing you can do is salute from a distance and that's just a tiny tiny fraction of the magnificence of the avatara we have seen it in other spiritual persons also i have seen it in for example swami bhutisha nanduji i'm not now talking about avatars i'm just talking about i was about a highly advanced spiritual seeker how they could project a simplicity and sometimes an awesomeness without any effort i could see this 97 year old man old monk sitting there hundreds of people sitting around with the word he could make us roll in laughter and you know joke and and then with the next word he could bring a deep silence into the room absolute quiet and 50 100 monks would be rendered speechless we would just bow down quietly i've seen in more than one occasion and they're unforgettable locations there's certain power this this old man could radiate out from himself and that's just a human being has become very spiritual imagine an incarnation of god so that is bhutan ishvaropisan i am the lord of all beings but still i appear as an ordinary human being then prakritim swam adhishthya sambhavami atma controlling my own prakriti my maya i appear in the world of human beings in your world um sambhavami i appear not i'm born i appear with using the power of my pr prakriti that special power he says it is called yoga maya um so advaita vedanta does not make much of it it just says it's maya by the power of maya but as swami vivekananda said there are two kinds of creation of maya the entire universe and us and the second kind is incarnations of god so when rama comes krishna comes or jesus comes or ramakrishna they are special manifestations of the divine this this theory is much more developed in vaishnava vedanta not in advaita vedanta because avatar incarnation of god is very important in vaishnava vedanta so there they say it's not just the ordinary maya which vedanta advaita vedanta talks about the ordinary maya is that and from that the entire universe is produced but um they say that god for for the vaishnava vedantis god is the ultimate reality it's a personal god so krishna or narayana express or vishnu satyadananda existence consciousness bliss each has its own power now we are moving outside advaita vedanta each has its unique power sat existence has a power called sandini shakti the power to be bring things into existence chit consciousness is sam with shakshakti the power to know everything and ananda bliss has a power called ladini shakti the power of divine bliss so this power of divine joy or bliss this is what manifests as sita radha mary as as sarada as the divine mother or the divine concert of of avataras so this is called the shakti of the avatar specifically in vaishnavi vaishnava vedanta they say it's the ladini shakti the one which is the spiritual bliss of god that is sita radha or sarada and what do they do when the incarnations come they use another kind of power which is called kripa shakti or anu shakti power of grace this is very important in christianity because the whole point of the incarnation of jesus is grace it's the grace of god come in the form of of jesus what is the point of this grace the thing is as far as vedanta is concerned we are brahman we do not know it and the upanishads tell us about it and tell us how we can realize it and that's the end but we have this enormous load of karma past karma which does not enable us to progress in spiritual life it's like being tied down it's like being held down we have very little freedom and power we need help and this help is what god gives especially through an incarnation an incarnation is full of grace if you take refuge in an incarnation sudama krishna said this again and again you can have a little boat by which you go out into the river or the sea or you can have a huge steamboat in those in those days the british has had introduced steamboats in the river ganga so sriram krishna had seen them on a steamboat hundreds of people can be carried others highly spiritual people others like little canoes or little little boats which can barely take the one person and if it gives the example of a little twig floating on the river that's the ordinary spiritual teacher that will cross the ocean and they can float across into the ocean but even if a crow tries to sit on it it will sink so it has no power to take anybody else across most spiritual teachers who are advanced spiritual seekers they can they take care of themselves and they can become enlightened and they do become saved but they have no power they can inspire and teach others but they really do not have indirect power to uplift others incarnations and some highly spiritual some great spiritual giants they have an extra power the power of grace what does grace do it wipes out bad karma it activates our good karma so that spiritual life becomes possible in this life itself what was not possible for us what would have taken us many lifetimes is easy of achievement if one takes refuge in the avatar this is all avatar theory so incarnation is special in this sense the same realization we will get um it works in two channels i'll say this and end it works in two channels for the gyanis for those who want walking on the path of knowledge this grace manifests itself as a tremendous inquiry in sanskrit jigyasa brahmaji gyaasa an inquiry into the ultimate reality who am i what is all this this enquiry this tremendous inquiry itself propels you through vedanta you you will not rest until you have realized that you are brahmana and for devotees this grace it manifests as what sri ramakrishna used to call vyakulata a great restlessness to see god to find god by vyakulata by this great restlessness to find god which you see manifested in the life of sri ramakrishna to the maximum i must see mark ali the mother kali he must have the vision of that how restless he was and later on in life he would say one thing necessary to see god is vacuolata the restless divine discontent to see god i must have god what happens by this by the fire of this divine discontent the vasanas the worldly desires the impurities that which ties us to the world they are burnt off and one goes ahead to god realize one attains bhakti one attains true love of god that's one path the for the non-dualists what happens the tremendous eagerness to realize jigyasa inquiry that destroys ignorance and brings about knowledge both are the result of the grace of god holy mother in banaras she was in banaras at one time at that time swami brahmana and a group of monks had also gone to our hospital in benares and they were visiting that ashram one day holy mother sent word to swami brahmananda ask rakhal what is the need to worship the divine mother the point being here are the texts upper okay nobody drinks and you attain youtube classes and become enlightened that's it i'm just oversimplifying but that's what that was her point what is the purpose of worshiping the divine mother if you want enlightenment and swami brahmananda sent back his answer in bengali he said brahman the keys to the realization of brahman are in the hands of the divine mother but she who makes it possible there might be rare instances who goes directly but even that is the grace of the divine mother dotapuri had to realize this the guru of sri ramakrishna he was enlightened from childhood he had tremendous dispassion tremendous eagerness to realize god he got the company of monks as a young boy he became a monk he was blessed with strong health pure mind tremendous concentration and within it that still took him 30 years and he attained nirvikalpa samadhi he realized that he is brahman but he didn't have that compassion for others he did not realize all of this is due to the grace of the divine mother it's everybody is not blessed in this way so then suramar krishna taught him that lesson that even all this enlightenment whatever you have got and the life of an enlightened being that you are living on this earth all of that is by the grace of the divine mother all right the next verse would be the purpose of the avatar a very famous verse number seven and eight we will do next time let me quickly see and three have raised their engine yes um yeah namaste so and avatar never really disappeared right because sometimes when a demon feel like we have seen when they pray to krishna or drama they appear again to the devotees very very good point so the avatar disappears means the physical form of the avatar disappears after the avatar leela on earth but the avatar retains that form because people from from that time onwards people will worship him generation after generation worship the avatar in that form so that form is retained and god can appear in that form to the devotee so if a worshiper of krishna thousands of years after krishna may be mirabai so she she sees god in the form of krishna you can see god in the form of rama you can see god in the form of krishna jesus appeared to a number of christian mystics so if you worship god in a particular way you can have the vision of god especially through an avatar that form is retained you're correct that form never disappears then next gabriel you can sorry yeah hi swami hello i love you guitar class and i have two questions yes do you think most or all things were enlightened that's the first question and second question is when you talk about the divine mother for me i was raised a catholic so of course i think more of the virgin mary yeah so would she fall under the category of dubai um it seems to have frozen a little bit froze for it froze for a moment yes uh okay so where all saints liberated enlightened eventually yes so what people we consider to be saints are definitely people who are spiritually very advanced whether they are liberated or not enlightened or not how would we know but we can know this much that they will surely they are either enlightened or they will be enlightened very shortly once you are at that level you're spiritually very advanced enlightenment is a matter of course and would the divine mother mary fall uh with the mother mary fall under the category of of the divine mother yes yes the vaishnavas would say that it's just like the lady shakti radha and sita or mashaara the mother mary the whole purpose of worshiping mother mary in notice in the catholic church it's as an intercessor who prays for us who pleads for our case to god so it is that power it's basically the power of grace that comes through she is full of grace yeah so when you say it's the divine mother who has the keys to rana guyana yes so the mother mary mother mary yes certainly mother mary you can pray to mother mary and she helps us into brahma again which we would not deserve or get by our own efforts next you're next swamiji for us the chip the memory is a part of the sukshmi shari which goes from birth to birth so we don't remember due to the limitations of our mind yes so the memory is retained but we don't remember it's because we are our minds are occluded covered veiled by agyana our powers are very limited even we can remember patanjali yoga sutra says by certain practices advanced yogis can uncover memories of past lives which means the memories are still there they are in the subtle body another thing is said is that in the last life you will have like a flashback of all previous lives the bodhisattva in bhagavan buddha remembered so many past lives so that means the memories are there but they are not accessible to us we the whole point is as jivas our powers all kinds of powers memory intelligence creativity imagination all of these are greatly limited limited contracted we hardly remember what happened last week we hardly remember what happened one or two years ago we have no memory of our babyhood almost very few people have forget past lives so the transition from one life to another would have been such a big trauma for us it's all blocked but still you're right it's all there but inaccessible to us but for krishna he knows not only his own but he says bhutan is the lord of all of us also so all our memories also he has got the password to all all the data banks he can access everything who we are what we are and what's going to happen to us yes rick you next when people like you were just saying have visions of jesus or mother mary or krishna or i know people who have had very clear encounters with brahmana do you think that that means that somehow the divine is just fabricating a vision for them or do you think that these beings still exist on some level like ascended masters and they're kind of intervening in human affairs by appearing to these devotees um the second which you said that these beings exist in some form that is basically the theology of most theistic religions not not even that even not only that even the non-theistic religions like mahayana buddhism would say there are multiplicity of buddhas who actually exist and who help beings through um in you know through their spiritual quest from lifetime to lifetime and they are they are accessible so that would be the answer the second one would be the uh would be the answer but if you want to be very minimalistic about it uh very non-dualistic about it sri ramakrishna says at one point he saw how photographs were taken in those days somebody showed him there's a glass and then you put a thing silver nitrate or something over it and then it's exposed and the photograph is an image is captured there and he said it's exactly like that what happens in bhakti is that like the silver nitrate you smear your mind you condition your mind in our words with a devotion in a particular way and a particular divine form and name so when the light streams through it it appears to you in that particular form it's still the same light it it is the divinity it is god and appearing to you in that form and that's all right and he says if it's just a glass it goes on to say if just a glass without the silver nitrate without smearing it with anything it's just just clear light will stream through it so that means uh i think the second one is the non-dual realization the formless light that one infinite being without expense exp without limit you realize that an expanse of being without limit the earlier the former is the devotional path so there you see there is no no ontological commitment to the existence of multi multiple divine beings it is more a conditioning of our minds than anything else but remember it is still not only not still it is an experience a genuine experience of the divine if you see it through whether it's the conditioning of your mind or whether it's a separate being coming to you from some other other plane well if it's a separate being then that would sort of refute the notion that the liberated being is like a drop into the ocean and no longer retains any sort of individuality so there again that the theologies would make distinctions between those who retain their individuality they are called the eternally liberated and they are apparently there are hosts of them there are many of them and there are those who have forever given up their limited individuality so you see the difference in mahayana buddhism and theravada buddhism the buddha is thus gone and the buddha is not there the teachings are left behind for us to become an arhat and be free but in mahayana buddhism we have a whole there's a subject called buddhalogy a whole range of buddhas of various worlds who exist and who are really there out there who help us oh it depends upon your taste some are minimalistic some want a more baroque gorgeous religion there must be some reality to the situation regardless of our taste i mean our taste doesn't write how the way the universe works or uh it could be this way as srinama krishna would say in reality is infinite and you could take this path or that path the one path would be to take the help of these spiritual beings who are really there who are really there that's it the other path would be to go to the reality behind all of these the ultimate fundamental reality of the universe which is a non-dual existence consciousness place and sort of disregard the all of these as appearances yeah i think on that high metaphysical note we'll bring it to an end oms [Music] would you put a link to the you know the the paypal button i think there was a discussion about that some of you said many of you have responded generously sending donations and things and some have actually written checks some tried to send money from india don't try to do that it's really difficult it's just the people who are who can do it easily and for your benefit i think our co-host will put the button on the chat you can just click it and so yeah so you can just go to the chat maybe and take a look yes so do contribute whatever you can it's like a you know bill used to go around in the basket and collecting five dollars and ten dollars here uh so this is like the virtual builds basket like the virtual builds basket here