Video 48

48. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 4 Verses 14-17 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] guru so we are studying the fourth chapter in the bhagavad gita and the last time we saw this verse which is somewhat controversial especially in today's political and social climate uh because of the mention of the four castes there chaturavanyam guna karma vibhagasha kartara mapimang with um so as far as caste is concerned um let me just i just last time we discussed it i'll just summarize what is vedanta's perspective on caste so the verse means that the forecasts were created by me according to differences in guna which is aptitude or [Music] other nature of the person and karma occupation of the person and although i am the creator of this social order tastic mom me krishna know me to be not the doer akartharam having done all this i'm still not the doer and i'm unaffected by karma that is actually the point he wants to make here because the whole issue is with arjuna's you know question whether he should do this karma before him the action which he is facing whether he should perform it or not that's the whole issue but just because this topic has come up so we discussed the issue of caste last time and the summary of the discussion is this one can think of caste in three ways one is by nature a person's nature by the second one is by a person's occupation what people do in life and the third one is by birth which family they are born into so in sanskrit guna vura means quality is a nature karma karma means here occupation and then jyati jyati here means birth by birth notice krishna here mentions in the verse guna and karma nature of the person and the occupation of the person does not mention jathi at all krishna never mentions you belong to the cast you're born into he does not include that at all so the vedantic understanding of caste does not include jaati which means the family you're born into and that makes all the difference the whole point here is spiritual development not which kind of which cast one is born into so by quality by guna by the nature of the person what is meant here is the balance of the three gunas so there are some people who are by nature um introverted intellectual um artistic by temperament may be creative um easily interested in you know higher philosophical things spiritual matters and so on they have a preponderance of sattva-guna they're mostly satwik people generally introverted generally serene um sensitive intelligent creative so so a life of the mind appeals to them and they have of course everybody's constitution is composed of the three kunas sattva rajas and thomas but for these people their um the preponderance is of sattva so such people are called guna brahmana brahmins by quality by by the inner constitution and this is the most important thing the inner constitution is brahminical a person could be born in any family it could be born in india or outside the fold of hinduism wherever a person is of this constitution then the person is by constitution abraham and though a person may be born in a sudra family or completely non-hindu family outside maybe not even religious but but by constitution this person is a brahmana then there can be a person whose constitution inner constitution is a dynamic a person of action a doer not so much a thinker so rajas predominates but there is sattva and thomas but raj is predominant to the quality of action and dynamism so a person might be ambitious and out to you know do things achieve things in the world get things done and you know you call it a mover and a shaker in this country so such a person is by quality akshatriya leadership comes easily to such a person it could be a military person could be in the police or it could be in in the corporate sector wherever a kind of leadership a doer and achiever basically rajasik in nature but with sattva now if the sattva is less and thomas predominates and still a person is rajisic a person by nature becomes accumulative you know would like to get rich and have a lot of property and the more you have the more the more this the more one has the more this person feels better so this accumulative tendencies by by constitution by nature this person is bashiya gunavasha and if none of these are there if thomas predominates and rajas and satwa are less the person is by nature mechanical um given to may be easily given to indolence or um capable of mechanical work um so this person is by nature a sudra gunas so by qualities you have these four forecasts by quality by by inner constitution by inner constitution of the gunas brahmin being our constitution of the governors and the same thing you can see the forecasts from an entirely different perspective depending on occupation so does not matter what the quality of the person is another way of looking at caste is just by occupation division of labor and this is also very valid you see it in every society just as the constitution of the person by constitution you see brahmins krathriya's vaishyas and shudracast in every society of the world at every time in history just human nature the by occupation also you see them in every society every time of human history there are those who by occupation are teachers are philosophers or sages professors scientists writers through the intellectual class and that is by occupation brahmin could could be born into any kind of family could have different qualities also maybe by constitution the person might be a doer a mover and a shaker but uh just so that he has landed the job of being a professor in a uh in a university there you will find this person ends up being the head of the department and head of so many committees because this person basically likes getting things done likes taking charge um a purely brahminical mind would dislike um you know administrative duties in the university but this kind of person would be happy to be you know take charge of the university or something then the a person could be uh by occupation of aisha a trader um in the in the in business no matter what the inner constitution is by nature the person might be very sensitive thinker i met some people such people uh you know i i knew this person one of a very rich person in india ahead of one of the biggest industrialist families and he said to me he confided to me once that all i ever wanted to do was to study mathematics he was a a student of a very famous uh professor essen bush in calcutta and just because of his he was a you know son of a very rich and powerful industrial family so he was called back to take care of the business of the family but he said i always wanted to study mathematics and then so somebody by occupation could be um you know an assembly line worker or um you know a janitor or something like that a very you know unskilled kind of job although by quality may be different i mean quite quite something else entirely so by occupation there are these four um classes and then what is predominant you see in hinduism and in india actually by birth and that is karjati in fact in indian language languages in sanskrit and hindi and all indian languages jati basically means caste so why why does jati mijati actually precisely if you see the etymology and the what it means in sanskrit it just means birth yati means birth but birth and caste have become so closely entwined in our understanding in india so that's what caste basically means in india notice krishna has completely excluded this meaning of the caste by birth or brahmin or kratry or or any of the numerous subcasts krishna does not mention that at all it's of no interest to him um it's he says so that social order of cast by inner constitution and by external occupation that is found in all societies and that's what krishna is referring to i have created this social order this is found in all societies basically human nature and basically arrangement of society depending on your own nature depending on the arrangement of society there are inner constitutions aptitudes and there are actually occupations in the world outside so this is the understanding of caste but in india the whole problem is with caste by birth and this also is also let us be honest this is also part of hinduism because if not in vedanta if not in upanishads and the bhagavad-gita later on smithy texts they also freeze this system into place they talk about caste by birth and that has led to a lot of trouble you know exploitation over the ages and uh and then the present political scenario where caste is almost equivalent to racism like what how racism in the united is st term of abuse and the term in something to be you know fought against and corrected and overcome so caste has become like that in india so this is the point i wanted to make interesting about cast as aptitude and occupation so notice in our modern society this is the this is one of the beautiful beauties of our uh modern social order especially in the advanced countries of the world where there is freedom the one of the characteristics of freedom is according to your choice according to your aptitude you can pick up you can do what you want in life that's the whole idea of the modern economy and the modern education system you study you develop yourself educate yourself and then you have the freedom to do what you want in life so your aptitude you pick your occupation what you do in life so you are no longer trapped into an occupation which is not according to your aptitude you can move and change occupation peter drucker the great management guru he points out in his book management challenges for the 21st century that for the first time we have enormous choice imagine up to the um 19th century or so the vast majority of humanity they were stuck into the family they were born into they were stuck into the occupation their forefathers followed most people in the world unless you're a soldier adventurer or a pirate or something who moved from place to place mostly people he says they were born in the same place place grew up in the same place lived in the same place and died in the same place most people in the world throughout human civilization only few people migrated here and there all that has changed now he says in the 20 in the 20th century and he says more than one 21st century you will see you are born in some place you grow up in another place you work in a third place and you may be retired and live in another place you um you often marry outside your community you eat the food and put on the dress of various cultures in the world you change jobs occupations more than once in your lifetime that's common now it was not so common i understand i remember in india our parents and grandparents they mostly had one occupation they would enter into a job and stay with their job even now it's there but increasingly rare people jump from job to job a lot so this what it means basically peter drucker was pointing out the importance of choice and of making wise decisions about your life earlier decisions were mostly made for us where you will live what you will eat whom you will marry what job you will do where all these things were promoted as fixed you had no option really but this modern society it gives free play to these two ideas of cast that is your inner constitution and according to that you choose and move around your your not only your job your place of stay your education everything you have got lot of choice now all right um just one more point about reform so throughout the history of hinduism this caste has often been a problem and you will see great hindu religious leaders have always tried to reform it to make it not oppressive to remove its negative features gandhiji for example he struggled so hard against some of the worst excesses of the gas system which is like like untouchability and so on so now of course the modern society is a great leveler according to law everybody is equal before society that difference in notice law does not say that you cannot follow your inner inclination law does not say that you cannot have the occupation of your choice lord just says that this difference trying to pin down caste on the basis of birth no um no decision should be made on that it's legally unacceptable to discriminate on the basis of caste by birth you see it just says discriminate on basis of crack but what it means is cast by birth and krishna would fully agree krishna would totally agree with this what else should i say all right before i go on as anybody question in this regard um so somebody raised a hand krishnamurti yes namaste i i have this question uh shri krishna just said in this verse know me to be the eternal non-doer however in chapter 3 in verse 24 he also says that these worlds would perish if i did not perform in the action yes is there a way to reconcile absolutely absolutely this is this great secret of karma krishna is going to talk about it 18th verse if you want to jump in and take take a sneak peek we call it sneak peek you can take a look at the 18th verse but that will we will not get to it today that's the one of the most important verses of not only fourth chapter but also bhagavad gita the solution is here to this question how is it that he is not the doer of any action and yet he is continuously doing so continuous activity intense activity is fully compatible with the the total non-deworship of of non-dualism of advaita vedanta he's going to say and this is that is the great secret of action which is going to impart here so yes we look forward to that i have a question about the title of the chapter i have uh three or four gita's yeah and all of them have different for example i have one with prashankar it says about this yoga yeah i think it is and then i have another one it's called yes i have the ghana karma yeah so is this a matter of choice people change it yes that is true that is true these things were added later on so this salutation that in bhagavad-gita which is considered to be an upanishad where krishna teaches arjuna and this chapter is called ghana karma sannyasa yoga in my book it's there these were added later on so i mentioned 18th verses being one of the most important verses of fourth chapter and of the whole bhagavad-gita another very important word verse is 24th verse brahmapanam brahmavi and that's why mother sudan saraswati uses that to indicate the whole chapter brahmapana yoga so yeah that's right now let us go ahead verse number 14 [Music] yo nation [Music] actions do not touch me nor have i any desire for their fruit he who knows me thus is not bound by actions here krishna is saying to arjuna that i perform actions you ha he's already said that in earlier chapters and yet i am completely untouched by action and by the results of action see when we perform action we are bothered first by the action itself karma it creates tension it creates uneasy it cures exhaustion worry anxiety all of it the work itself stress and strain whatever work we do so we are affected by the work karma and we are affected by the results of the work these works will have consequences so we do things wanting certain things i i work i will get money by this i will get promotion by this i will get a degree i study i'll get a degree some result i'll earn wealth i'll be knowledgeable i'll marry have children so and i'll i'll perform these rituals and go to heaven so all of these are results karma and why do we do work because we want those results that is called spriha the word used here is prihas priya means thirst so there's a thirst for the results of karma and why do we want the results of kaaba because we feel unfulfilled we think by these getting these things adding these things to ourselves getting money getting people maybe husband wife children grandchildren we will be fulfilled and you know accumulating property houses land cars gadgets will be fulfilled or i don't want all of that i i am thirsty for knowledge all right so i accumulate more books and more knowledge but i'll be fulfilled more vedanta books more vedanta classes earlier is to take notes and the notebooks would have lots of notebooks and then they invented the photocopier so for the people started photocopying everything books and now there is this recorders and all you have full of recordings of talks and lectures i am being fulfilled by more and more and more none of it is true it's like a bottomless pit whether you pour money into it people into it possessions into it knowledge into it none of it will work but we are we are propelled by these desires and we have just the opposite the other kind of karma when i'm doing something wrong and the result will be suffering i don't want that i'm scared of those results so uh hungry thirsty for certain results of work certain consequences and alarmed and scared about other consequences so this is our usual state we are affected by the work itself and we are affected by the results of that work um the work itself when i want something but the work itself is hard and so it's stressful for me but i really want the results of this this work and sometimes the opposite the action itself is very pleasurable i know it's bad for me maybe i have diabetes i should not eat these sweets it's bad for me but the action itself is pleasurable so i grab the sweets and stuff it into my mouth but i'm afraid of the consequences so both of them affect us and shri krishna says it doesn't affect me it doesn't affect me at all no no i do so much action look i am the creator of the entire social order your entire human society civilization everywhere at all times for all time what what you find in society i am the creator he just said this on the 13th verse and then he says even while doing all this work much more than you are being asked to do arjuna even when doing all this work i am not affected by the work nor am i affected by the results of that work how he says so because i am not this person you think i am i am this pure being existence consciousness bliss you see what is this thing that i am we come across you know existing things but krishna is being itself sat what's the relationship between existing things the things in the world we come across they have limited existence limited existence means all the people and the objects and everything from a mosquito up to a star system maybe a star it has a beginning exists and it dies is destroyed it could be a matter of a day it could be a billion years so everything in the universe has limited existence and located in some place not everywhere so it's a limited existence but what is sat what is krishna he says i'm pure being i am existence itself not a thing which exists therefore i am an unlimited existence unlimited existence means not an existence which begins not an existence which ends not an existence located in one place so this unlimited existence not located in time not located in place what is the relationship between unlimited existence which krishna is and all these limited existences which you see all around you look around your room and look at your own body these are all limited existences what is the relationship the relationship is just like a movie and the screen so the screen is this imagine it's that unlimited existence and every character and action and object you see in the movie the hero and the villain and the road and the car chase cards all of that you see in the movie they are the limited existences what is the relationship it is the screen alone which appears as a variety of limited existences you may notice all the limited existences in the movie they pop in and out of existence but what is constant scream what is it that you see pictures the movie not the screen though actually if you think carefully you are seeing the screen even when you think you're just seeing the movie you're seeing nothing but the screen so the relationship is that unlimited being who krishna knows i am that that unlimited being gives lens existence to all these limited beings that unlimited unlimited being is the screen in which the movie of these limited existences plays out that unlimited being krishna is unaffected by the activities of this these limited beings now do you understand why i krishna the unlimited being is not affected by the activity of this little body of krishna nor by krishna who is actually vishnu the creator of the entire universe that also does not affect me because that's all part of the movie the movie does not affect the screen i am the screen and i'm also the movie in one sense the screen is also the movie because the movie is nothing other than the screen so i'm also this the movie of the universe and i'm also all activities and how am i the doer of all activities in one sense the screen is the doer of all activities in the movie how is the screen driving a police car and chasing the criminal and the getaway vehicle so pardon my examples i i actually because i lived for one year in hollywood i actually saw some of that happening and you could never believe i mean in our uh ashram which is a prime site for you know like cinema and tv and film shooting one day there was gunfire and i rushed outside and we saw this car serving to our parking lot of the ashram and this lady was standing with a long overcoat and she whipped out a gun and fired several times i was like my jaw dropped what's going on here it's only when the car backed out and again came back and again the little lady fired and i realized okay they're shooting a movie now all the things in the movie are actually being done by the screen in one sense because every existence of the screen dip or the movie depends on the screen it is nothing other than the screen appearing in these ways and yet the screen is completely unaffected by all the activities now do you see how such pure being is in one sense the doer of all the activities to the extent that they are real they are not given and in another sense you see it is completely unaffected by the all the activities you see another example i will give you your dream what happens in a dream you the dreamer you fall asleep first of all you forget yourself that you are on your bed and sleeping that is forgotten and now you the dreamer having forgotten your own existence as the sleeping person who's dreaming now you start dreaming a world what is that world you dream people and earth and sky and places it's a movie you're playing on the screen of the dreaming mind and even this would not be a problem the problem starts when in the movie you interview the dreamer you introduce yourself you become a character in the dream then you have good dream bad dream and many activities you do in the dream so in one sense you are the doer of all the activities in the dream because who else is the doer because that's the only only one there is you you are there yourself and everyone else in the dream is also you the dreamer and yet when you wake up you are not affected by anything from the dream even when you are sleeping even then all the karma done in the dream does not really affect you though it will affect the characters in the dream so this is why krishna is saying i am sat and all existing things are appearances in me therefore i am not affected though i am the doer of everything another way look at it as chit as consciousness it is pure consciousness unlimited consciousness what are we aware of limited conscious events we call them thoughts perceptions thoughts include memories ideas desires understanding ego all of these are thoughts perception is seeing hearing smelling tasting touching all kinds of sensations all of these what are what we call conscious events but they are so limited they flicker in and out of existence like fireflies in the darkness so i was a few weeks ago few a couple of months ago i was walking in the evening at uh in the central park suddenly entire lawn i mean there was a huge vast green fields mass of twinkling lights fireflies in the dark and it's apparently seasonal because now you can't see them our conscious experiences are like fireflies in the might in the mind little see flashes of thoughts feelings emotions perceptions coming in and going fleeting all the time but the the each perception each thought is different from the other one in the background is awareness and krishna says i am that unlimited awareness chit what is the relationship between that unlimited awareness and all these limited awarenesses is limited consciousness it is that unlimited awareness alone reflected in the movements of the mind appears as our limited awareness our limited thoughts feelings thoughts feelings emotions come and go awareness does not come and go awareness means consciousness so i am that unlimited consciousness not affected by the appearance and playing and the disappearance of these limited thoughts feelings perceptions look at it in another way ananda i'm talking about satchitanan the krishna is saying i'm sachidan so ananda unlimited bliss that itself appears we call it value let's call it value thing to be valued that itself appears as all the things we value in the world we value money we value people we value experiences we value art and science and objects and places and you know nature yet none of these things have any value you see what are you saying swami no entirety of value is in consciousness you the being consciousness that is the locus of value even someone so completely atheistic i just heard it from sam harris on one of the talks he said consciousness is the carrier of value think about it whatever we value think of we think of it as important worthwhile desirable it is all because you are a conscious being otherwise there is nothing it's just a mass of matter and energy moving in space because of consciousness consciousness is the locus of value not knowing this we find we the consciousness we the being we so we find consciousness we find value in the world outside it is value borrowed from consciousness and given to things which makes things desirable it is consciousness uh chaitanya is borrowed from um that unlimited consciousness and appears in limited firefly like perceptions and thoughts it is existence borrowed from sat which appears as the existence of existing things so krishna says i am unlimited existence i am unlimited consciousness and i am unlimited value which is called ananda therefore because i'm unlimited value i don't want anything in the world therefore i can work without any desire ups and downs in the world cannot affect me at all because i am pure awareness this conscious experiences anxiety stress pleasure even if they come they're nothing to me because i am the consciousness in which they appear and disappear i am not affected just like the movie screen is not affected by the happenings in the movie i am shut i am not affected by the birth and death of bodies beginning and end of actions because they all they depend on me their existence depends on me therefore he says because i'm i'm like the screen name actions do not taint me just as the villain the most villainous action in the movie does not taint the screen the screen does not get bad karma because of the nastiness of the villain screen also does not get good karma because of the kindness of the hero the screen is unaffected but remember the screen makes it possible makes the hero possible makes the villain possible like that i am nor have i any desire for any result of karma why not have any fear also why no fear and why why no desire no desire because i am unlimited value in the terminology i'm just using value is not there in the karma nothing outside nothing can add to me as in terms of value or desirability and nothing can affect me so i'm not afraid of the consequence of any karma then he says abhijanathi one so this is a crucial one who knows me in this way karma that person will not be affected by karma that person will not be affected by karma here is the crucial thing the beauty of advaita vedanta having said all this i am this unlimited being i am this unlimited consciousness i am this unlimited value ananda now you see why i am not affected by karma though i am doing all karma so the problem here is not krishna problem is with arjuna arjuna's problem was should i do this karma or just become a sannyasi and go away i don't want to fight this karma i want to fight this battle krsna says if you understand this what i have just said to you you will not be touched in by karma also just like i lost like me how how because you are the same thing what i am you are also you are unlimited being your unlimited awareness in your unlimited value you not the body because you as consciousness you are consciousness you are nothing other than consciousness and consciousness is nothing other than you this is a very important equation if you are consciousness then you are not body not mind there are appearances and disappearances in consciousness and not only that if you are consciousness consciousness is also you there is no other consciousness except you you the consciousness no no this krishna no that krishna is not other than you there are these villains duryodhana and others they are my brothers yudhisthira and hema and others they are none other than you whatever is is that one consciousness if there is anything other than that that must also be that one consciousness so therefore when you realize this when he says yo mam who knows me like this he will be free of karma how do you if i'm if i know krishna is this unlimited being consciousness value ananda how will i become free because i am that amram has me tattoo that thou art therefore you will be free therefore the point is his advice to arjuna is first of all you cannot escape from karma if you run away also you will continue karma if you go to gangotri and sit and meditate there you will also do some karma there you cannot escape that's your nature notice in the the caste system which krishna talked about arjuna by quality is a warrior his inner constitution is of that of warrior and another point his occupation is of a warrior because he is he is the commander of the army he is one of the generals in the army and by birth jati also he's a warrior he's born into a royal family so his very constitution will make him work will make him active so you cannot escape from karma and krishna is saying you need not try to escape from karma also you cannot escape from karma you need not try to escape from karma here i am showing you how you can do this entire activity and become enlightened okay else yeah so this is a good point two people have asked questions giant bill the creation of the universe like in the old testament you know god did all these things over six days and then on the seventh day he had a rest where or took a rest so it sounds like you know creating the universe was not effort free you talked about two aspects of work both the fruit and the work itself now in the pedantic views god doing these things effortlessly creating this dream or movie you know when a movie is made it actually takes a great amount of work to make a movie yes but god seems to do this movie effortlessly yes absolutely so in the vedantic scheme of sayings god created the vedas which from a vedantic perspective is a much bigger job than creating the universe so and it says just like breathing in and out so the god breathed out the vedas as effortless as breathing out so god created this universe um in the munda kopanisha that is said how does god create the universe brahman so god here would mean this pure being consciousness bliss or unlimited existence unlimited consciousness and unlimited i'm using the word value unlimited bliss with the power of maya is the creator of this universe so there's a famous verse [Music] um [Music] means the immutable what is the immutable nothing more than what we just talked about unlimited being unlimited awareness unlimited value or bliss from that entire universe issues forth now is it a movie or is it actual creation so it just comes forth how three examples are given one is just as the spider spins its web the spider's web emerges from not from anything else but from itself so this points out what is technically called the material cause of the universe in sanskrit upadhanakaranam the material from which the universe is made it's not that god is there and there is some free floating matter left over with which god starts working and makes a universe that was one theory uh nyaya theory holds on to that that there is there is already space and there is free floating atoms they actually use the word atoms and by the will of god these atoms come together to form planets and stars and people and all pretty sophisticated for imagine for thousands of years ago but no vedanta does not say that upanishads say that it's a projection from itself that ultimate being it projects from itself it is being it is awareness it is all value it projects a universe which also exists not other than this being it is its own being which appears as the universe and there is awareness because it is awareness itself and there see it seems to be valuable because it is value itself so but when it is projected in this way it is limited because it's not real it's a projection so the existence of the universe is a fractured temporary fleeting existence the awareness of the universe is scattered into limited little flashes of thoughts feelings awareness and the value in the universe is tiny bits of pleasure let us say a possibility of happiness scattered in the universe just like a spider it projects the universe from itself and brings it back now since the web is nothing other than the material of the spider's body similar the universe here though it seems to be made of dull dead incentive matter is nothing other than being consciousness so it's only actually that only exists even when it appears to be a universe just as when it appears to be a world in the dreamer's mind all that exists is the dreamer's mind nothing else it appears to be building and places and so on and so forth you have to call it it's like a movie like a dream um the second example is used here is so uh is it a lot of effort he says no just like plants and creepers and herbs they grow effortlessly from the earth herbs and you know shrubs they grow effortlessly from the earth just like this the universe appears effortlessly from brahman brahman doesn't have to put in any effort though there's something called brahma the creator aspect of brahman who is very busy who has to construct the entire universe so that's why and then a question might be asked so is the ultimate reality something insentient like the earth from which plants are emerging that we can counter act such a such a doubt the example is given just like hair emerges from from a living body so it's not an incentive body it's i'm a living being from this the hair emerges but the hair is actually dead or the nails emerge actually dead so an insentient universe emerges from consciousness or appears in consciousness um a universe subject to birth creation and destruction birth existence and destruction appears in unlimited existence universe which is entirely valueless in itself appears from unlimited value [Music] this is probably more information than you asked for and an english endologist a couple of hundred years ago uh saw he he translated this verse and he said that ancient hindus worshipped a giant spider no they didn't it says means just like it's an example it's not they're not watch yeah you are still muted can you unmute yourself right yeah hello okay um this is probably going to be a bit garbled because i'm not quite sure what i'm really asking but as biological beings we're all made up of single cells like billions of billions of single cells so at the base most basic level a single cell is compelled by desire and diversion you know that that's the basic mechanism and so like because we are composed of all this these single cells which have that as their basic uh drive can we really overcome that i mean it seems like an enormous force to overcome or is it like we don't need to overcome it but there's a way of detaching our identity with it yes i what you're saying reminds me of this time i i read richard dawkins the selfish gene so i was really impressed by that book i loved it i mean it was very interesting and i'm i was touched by the appeal he makes at the end of it he says i am not saying that we have to be selfish i am not recommending selfishness i am saying just the opposite in fact we have to be special children have to be taught unselfishness we have to be taught values because our body system our biological system has these drives which are basically animalistic tribes so and they might not at all be compatible with modern civilization so they have to be educated and directed a higher form of that education and direction is spirituality found in all religions of the world control and discipline of our biological powers of the body and the mental powers of the mind so that they can be directed towards enlightenment guard realization so is it a battle not necessarily in in an even deeper sense than biology the whole game is one of expression of our divinity that we are all going towards enlightenment so these bodies are there to help us these minds are there to help us sometimes by obstructing us and pulling us in different directions they do help us we learn to overcome and command them as instruments so that it takes us towards god realization instead of embroiling us in biology and in matter hello i have one question who is this who is this somebody disappeared hello yes can you tell us i have a question yes what tell us your name with the other yes how does the life begin how does life begin well i mean you should ask biologists that notice from people have tried to make the lightness rescue yes i have ready yes but they're unable to constitute a living being out of a non-living i don't i don't know about that because i don't know about that because actually i heard a biologist a scientist who told me a couple of years back they have made tremendous progress towards that and they can sort of synthesize living have been matters in a test tube yeah put all the things and they were unable to make a life like a life will have a metabolism and reproduction yeah but different things you do remember you do realize that's a scientific question how does at one at one at what point does life begin that is something that science has to resolve um they were unable to come to i understand you have to mute yourself now okay so i i got the question so uh yeah i have come across people who have said for example uh massimo who is a philosopher and a biologist so we had these discussions about consciousness i used to go to this but he ran something called a philosophy cafe i'm sure it's moved online now but earlier it was right here in the neighborhood size to go and attend it and uh so the discussion was about consciousness and the hard problem of consciousness he said he's of course a reductionist he says it's a feature of biology and he said exactly this question which he just asked the other just asked he said that people you used to think that life is a mystery and we will never understand life and he said now that is not true we'll understand life down to the molecular level creating life that's you have to ask a biologist whether it is possible i'm sure it is possible in principle and i've actually heard of people synthesizing living matter out of non-living matter that's the limit of my knowledge um yeah notice from a vedantic perspective there's no problem even if you want to create life a life is an object or not is an objective process so it's part of maya so from non-living matter to living matter the transition is a matter of detail of scientific knowledge if you find or find out sometime you'll be able to create synthesized living bodies even maybe science fiction may be now but possible in the future so because it's an object one object into another object no problem in principle all right now nobody else all right let me just go ahead and do verse number 14 15 you have done 14 15 16 and 17 see krishna is now going to build up to the great 18th verse which is one of the pivotal verses of not only fourth chapter but of the entire bhagavad gita and in very mysterious cryptic paradoxical language so that's going to come i mean now the next three verses are build up to that you can see a big announcement is coming now it's an important thing why the realization of our true nature that is enlightenment but as long as we are people in this body and mind and we are located in a particular situation in society we still have to live our lives so how do bring to bring to bear our enlightenment our realization that we are this awareness infinite awareness being even if we realize it how does it affect our day-to-day life how can we make our lives blessed that's the big question that's like the million dollar question so that's what krishna is going to talk about how to demonize our life by karma he means our day-to-day activities our life in this this world so how to bring our advaithic realization and make it manifest in our day-to-day life so that we will talk about in the 18th verse now big build up advertisement 15 16 17. [Music] [Music] so thus knowing even the ancient seekers of liberation performed work of your therefore perform work alone done by the ancients so here krishna is saying it's not a new knowledge i'm not selling you something that's just i have invented just now so you see in hinduism and in the indian way of thought old is gold so everything has to be traced back if it's genuine it has to be traced back to the vedas to the upanishads if you say it's absolutely new i remember this in uttarakhand one person came and said to asadu oh my teacher has told me my guru has told me such and such things which are not found in any of her texts and the sadhu replied why are you abusing your guru why are you abusing your guru so it's a term of abuse to say that my guru is being creative so that's so startling to a western mindset because you have to be creative to be new there as far as spiritual knowledge or vedante is concerned or philosophy is concerned you must connect it back to tradition to lineage and see that this is a development of what i am saying may sound new but it's basically a development of an ancient insight so that's what krishna is saying here know this this secret and what is the secret the details are to come in the 18th verse the knowing this secret ancients your ancestors did their duties they lived like they did not run off to gangotri and meditate they lived in life and you know they were your ancestors were kings so they performed their duties and they were engaged in action and who were these not all kings not all princes it is like you mumukshu those who desire enlightenment those who desire moksha so arjuna what has happened now is arjuna was had come to fight the battle then he had qualms about it and he asked krishna krishna teaches him about vedanta now is interested in vedanta he wants to realize his true nature and be free so he is now a mumuksu a person seeking enlight enlightenment and freedom now so krishna is telling giving him advice as a spiritual seeker what about your life what kind of life will you lead will you become a monk which he wants to do arjuna or will you fight this battle and he says look at your ancestors there were many others who were like you spiritual seekers and they did their duty they performed action in life they didn't run away and they were spiritual seekers and they became enlightened therefore guru karma eva therefore you too follow their example i'm not giving you examples because i am an incarnation of god or i'm not giving you examples of sages in the forest i'm giving you examples of people like you who are spiritual seekers in ancient times just as the ancients have done in past times then krsna says 16th verse even the wise are deluded as to what is action and what is inaction i shall expound to you the action that action knowing which you will be free from all ills so why am i saying this krishna why is krishna teaching this this is not a simple matter the secret which i'm going to reveal again 18th verse is that that karma what is action what is not action even wise people khawaya kavi literally means poet but in the ancient times kabhie meant you know they called kranta darshta that means those who are far seers would see into human destiny who were very wise people sages rishis and in fact in upanishad brahman itself is called kavi ultimate reality so poets take heart you have a glorious lineage of the greatest sages and ultimate reality is also called are called a poet the ultimate reality is also called the poet in fact in the uh i'll explain this but let me just before i forget i was just reminded of a monk i saw it in gango three who had lived there for 40-50 years in little hut so he was the sevak the one who served a very great enlightened person uh who lived maybe 50 years ago 50 60 years ago and this monk whom i met in his old age he was not very scholarly so so he asked his guru his guru is to teach vedanta upanishads gita shankara's commentary and all the other disciples who are all monks they're very scholarly so this young man at that time 50 60 years ago he asked his guru what am i to do i do the work of the ashram the little hermitage there i do it seriously i i clean the place i get things ready i warm the food so the monks used to beg for food and bring the baked food and this person this monk i met he would warm it up and wait for the class to be over so that everybody could eat he didn't understand much of the class because his sanskrit was non-existent he was not well versed in logic and all of this so he asked his guru what do i do then and he said worship god with open eyes his guru told him 50 years ago half a century ago and when this old man told me his eyes were shining with joy and tears when he related to me what his guru had said i think quoting kabir kulein with open eyes see your lord saab means the lord with open eyes see the lord and then he says my guru spread his arms like this and showed that very place where we were sitting there the panorama it's a magnificent panorama you can see towering uh the real giants you know soaring up 20 000 feet 25 000 feet with glaciers running down from the top in the summer so the whole place was still and there was no snow there but the tops were of course always in snow and uh um deodar forest all around and far below the ganga a narrow stream rushing past and his guru said you know look upon the poetry of the lord poetry of the shining one the poetry what is the poetry what is the poem the universe which neither ages nor dies it is ever renewed so this is an ever-changing universe but it's ever renewed the creativity of the lord that the greatest of poets is endless look upon the poetry of the lord pashya they was good and over 50 years he has followed his guru's instructions fulfilled the old man was very fulfilled i mean i found him to be full of joy i found him to be full of joy the people around industry and the locality they were warned me against him because he's supposed to have a very hot temper and i got flashes of that also but you have to put up with it to get to the treasure that's the soil you have to dig through to get to the buried treasure it's what he does to drive away casual visitors so you get yelled at and scolded and i had to put up with that then he really he talked about his inner realizations and he shared these unforgettable i would rush back to my little hut and as the sun set up that absolute darkness so that i wouldn't forget what he had said i would scribble it down i had a book so i would scribble it down the back cover of the book i still i bought it to the united states anyway not relevant to today's discussion here it means the wise persons are also deluded about what is work and what is not work that secret karma prabhakshiyami here karma means work but that secret of work i will tell you that that secret even the wise people of ancient times did not understand i will tell you that by knowing which yad gyatva yet means from the unholy from the inauspicious what is that samsara from samsara you will be freed from samsara by knowing that secret yet just you need to know that then 17th [Music] here very nice verse arjuna might think so what is the meaning of the words there is something to know about action prescribed action there is something to know about prohibited action and also about inaction the way of action is mysterious so when he says there's a secret to know about action wise people were confused arjuna might think just like the rest of us what's there to be confused about action it's pretty simple when you do something when you walk around and use your hands and feet and you talk you're doing something even when you think you're doing something when you sit quietly you're not doing something so when you're doing something that is action karma and you're not doing something that is a karma in action what's the big deal here so i'm saying this from shankara's commentary shankaracharya introduces this verse in this way so karma and karma are very well known what's the big deal here and krishna says no not at all you would be surprised what is action what the action is again of prescribed and um and prohibited do's and don'ts both are actions he says means the things to be done vedas tell you to do this and nishida prohibited actions the vedas the scriptures the private is a good deal of religion preparatory religion foundational religion is ethics the ethics of do's and don'ts there is something to be understood about that and there's something to be have understood about non-action also and mysterious ghana karma nogati mysterious indeed are the ways of action here action just just consider our entire lives what we consider to be our waking life whatever we do in life in personally in your with your families and in community and in your careers whatever we do all of that is action and there he says there's a great mystery to be learned so how do you manifest your spiritual realization in day-to-day life 18th words to come next time all right let me look at the comments krishna is an actor he's brahman he's always brahmana and non-doer his nirkuna brahman he's always ningunagraman so even when action is going on has no reference to that he is being itself but when you consider the world and all individuals then that same uh being itself is the god of this world the lord of all individuals brahman how does one work without the presence of desire ah yes so remember desire of different kinds what is desire one desire is i want to accumulate wealth i want pleasure all the limited things that we want to fulfill ourselves it's born of ignorance we do not know our unfulfilled our our ever fulfilled nature our limitless nature we do not know that and therefore out of that ignorance is born the desire to fulfill ourselves by objects objects just does not mean gadgets it means everything in this universe we do not know that it is just like the that story of the prince and the princess of kashi trying to fulfill a desire for something that does not exist apart from him so this is why most that we act this is the action prompted by desire in sanskrit sakama karma and this leads to samsara some of it may be as krishna will say that some of it may be good action some of it may be bad action good action means permitted moral action there's nothing immoral about chasing pleasure there's nothing immoral about earning money there's nothing immoral about wanting achievement and greatness in this world name and fame in this world there is nothing immoral at all about wanting to go to heaven after death all of these are within ethics these are all prescribed actions but it must be within the limits of ethics so accumulating wealth by unfair means by stealing bribing no that is immoral grabbing my you know wealth or pleasure by hurting other people depriving other people that's immoral and so on so um fulfilling your your desires within the limits of dharma it is called they call it prescribed action prescribed action will lead to you fulfilling your your desires within the limits of dharma nishida means prohibited action private action is stealing and murder and lying they may lead to you fulfilling your desires but they are private they are dharma they lead to sin and to bad results bad karma which will ultimately lead to unhappiness and private action leads to punya good karma which ultimately leads to happiness so in this way one can get happiness and avoid as much unhappiness as possible you might say perfect this is what should be taught no there's one great great defect in all of this the great defect it it's all limited it's all unfulfilling and in the end and ultimately it's all false it's an appearance it's the movie it's the movie it's not the screen so one can go on like this if you want to go on then religion tells you a sustainable way of going on a dharmic way of going on in this life this life next life next life better and better lives and that's it but still limited still ultimately unsatisfying still there will be birth there will be old age disease and death and rebirth this will go on we are at the next level we are shoes all of us we want to get enlightenment so this whole range is not at all for us for us is moksha so you are mumukshu you are not without desire the desire is for liberation mumuksu literally means one who wants look at the word wants desires freedom desires god so our goal our desire is god realization he said how can you say that we are without desire this should not be counted among you see ram krishna was very clear he gave the example i'll try to translate into english michiri mishti modernoi so sugar candy is not to be counted as a sweet the sweets produce acid reflux and the sugar candy put in water and you drink it it reduces acidity so it kills acidity it's a roundabout way i mean in bengal it's much more direct so what it means is the desire for god is not to be counted among other desires it destroys worldly desires it sets you free from the world worldly desires trap you more and more in the world if the desires are not regulated by ethics you are trapped in the world it becomes a hellish life if the desires are regulated by ethics then you have a good life here and hereafter heavenly life but again limited still worldly worldly another world still world is there this world the next world world is there trans migration will go on and ultimately suffering will grow and go on if you want to be totally free of limitations totally free of suffering you want truth you want the infinite you want god whatever language you use then you have to come out of this cycle of desire and fulfillment unfulfillment desire fulfillment again unfulfillment goes on you must go from the finite to the infinite that desire for the infinite is no desire at all it takes you out of this cycle of desire so a person has to be a realized person because he can free from the actions of his karma not before that it is true in other words only a given book that can be freed from the results of one's karma that is true that is true yeah and before being a jivan mukta also if one does karma as a worship of god then also you are free it will liberate you it will take you to liberation all right next week the real what has been advertised so far 18th verse is going to come up next week um [Music] namaste