Four paths to Liberation || Acharya Prashant, on Bhagavad Gita (2020)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: Shastra Kaumudi Live, 26.04.2020, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India  Context:   ~  What are the four paths to liberation as outlined in the Bhagavad Gita? ~ How does Bhagavad Gita describe the concept of Karma Yoga as one of the paths to liberation? ~ In the Bhagavad Gita, what guidance does Lord Krishna provide regarding the path of devotion or Bhakti Yoga? ~ Can you explain the principles behind the Jnana Yoga path to liberation as discussed in the Bhagavad Gita? ~ How does the Bhagavad Gita emphasize the significance of the path of disciplined self-control, known as Raja Yoga, for attaining liberation?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 Srimad Bhagavad Gita chapter 13, verses 24 and 25.

00:13 Some by meditation behold the self in their own intelligence by the purified heart, others

00:22 by the path of knowledge, others again by Karma Yoga, others again not knowing thus

00:28 worship as they have heard from others, even though they go beyond death regarding what

00:36 they have heard as the supreme refuge.

00:43 Some by meditation behold the self in their own intelligence by the purified heart, others

00:49 by the path of knowledge, others by Karma Yoga, others again not knowing thus worship

00:55 as they have heard from others, even though they go beyond death regarding what they have

01:00 heard as the supreme refuge.

01:02 Question says does Shri Krishna mean that those who are unaware of Dhyan, Sankhya, Karma

01:08 to go across the Bhavsagar?

01:11 If so why would one try to go to the level of Dhyan, Sankhya, Karma?

01:16 What is the fate of the ones who are unaware of them?

01:20 It's just that you will take a lot more time and a lot more effort and face a lot more

01:26 difficulty and that is why there is a particular order in which these four paths have been

01:33 narrated.

01:34 Shri Krishna is saying here the best would be an inner, innate meditativeness.

01:44 A meditativeness that actually requires very little knowledge or practice or instruction.

01:52 That's the best.

01:54 That's the best if you have it.

01:57 Then it just comes to you from nowhere.

02:00 Whatever you call it, truth realization, self-realization, it just occurs to you very magically.

02:07 You won't be able to explain how you know certain things but you just come to know of

02:11 them.

02:12 Shri Krishna is saying that is the best if you can afford that.

02:16 You know, it's not a thing of chance.

02:19 I use the word afford.

02:22 You have to pay for it.

02:24 You have to consciously, deliberately pay for it.

02:26 It doesn't come to you per chance.

02:30 What is the price that you pay?

02:32 You have to put your ego at stake.

02:35 You see the ego finds security in method and preparation.

02:43 The ego wants to say I need to be assured that things are alright.

02:49 The path of meditative realization gives you no certainty.

02:56 The ego wants to say I am going to the market and if I am going to the market then I need

03:05 to have money in my pocket in advance.

03:09 And that's so common sensical, is it not?

03:11 If you are going to the market, you want to ensure that your pockets have certain stuff.

03:19 That's the path of preparedness.

03:23 I am prepared in advance.

03:26 The path of meditative realization is the highest because it is the path of deepest

03:32 insecurity.

03:34 What does it say?

03:35 You go to the market.

03:36 You don't have money but you have the pocket.

03:39 Go to the market and if your intention is pure and if in the market you are trying to

03:49 pick the right stuff for yourself, then as soon as you will put your hand in the pocket,

03:58 you will find just enough change, exactly enough change to pay for the right good that

04:05 you have chosen.

04:09 But it's so unknowing.

04:13 There is no guarantee.

04:17 You are being told to be dead to certainty.

04:24 You are being told to put everything at stake and just when trouble would be about to strike

04:34 you, some invisible hand would come and save you.

04:40 It's like a trust fall.

04:47 It works wonders but not everybody is cut out for it.

04:52 Are you getting it?

04:55 So you have gone to the market and with great devotion, in all wisdom, you have picked up

05:04 what you want and you are now standing at the payment counter.

05:13 The fellow says this much is the amount and you have not cared to put anything in your

05:23 pocket.

05:24 You are relying totally on faith.

05:26 He says this much you have to pay and you put your hand in the pocket and you find that

05:30 much and only that much and you pay.

05:37 Knowledge is certainty.

05:41 Meditative knowledge is never a certainty.

05:45 But in meditative realization there is a beauty that defies all certainty.

05:53 You see when I speak, then I often request kindly give me fresh questions.

06:02 Do not give me a stale question.

06:04 Do not make me speak on something on which I have already spoken.

06:10 And in general I love spontaneous questions.

06:19 Questions that are arising afresh from the audience, the questioner.

06:24 That's the reason.

06:27 I fully well know that my responses cannot have beauty if they are prepared in advance.

06:37 And it's a thing of great risk you know.

06:40 But I want to run that risk.

06:43 Right now because of the lockdown and other things only a few of you are sitting here

06:48 to do the technical work.

06:51 But when I first started speaking more than a decade back, sometimes there would be big

07:00 audiences, hundreds of people in front of me.

07:04 And the questions would be all afresh.

07:14 And I was not a well known name in any way at that time.

07:22 And the audiences were young.

07:24 And young audiences are not very caring or respectful.

07:28 They can slaughter you if you talk nonsense to them.

07:34 Yet it was very important for me that I took fresh and spontaneous questions.

07:40 It was very important that I answered on the spot in the best way or whatever way that

07:49 occurred to me naturally and meditatively at that time.

07:55 That is the only way I can honestly relate to people.

08:02 By not knowing at all in advance what I am going to say to them.

08:07 If I know in advance what I am going to say to them, I start feeling uneasy.

08:12 I am at my best when something totally afresh comes to me and I have to go within deep,

08:21 deep, deeper and then an answer arises from there.

08:25 A totally unprecedented answer.

08:31 A response that I have never known before, heard before, experienced before and I hear

08:39 the answer for the first time just as the audience does.

08:45 That is the beauty in it and that is the risk that you run.

08:52 What is the risk?

08:54 You do not know what you would come up with because you have no control over it.

08:59 And you do not know what the response of the audience might be.

09:02 It is not a tried and tested answer.

09:04 It is freshly baked, totally untried.

09:10 It has just come up and without evaluating it, without judging it, you have just allowed

09:17 it to go to everybody.

09:21 And I am grateful that way has continued.

09:24 I am grateful that all these 8000, 10000 videos that are now there in the public domain, they

09:33 all consist of absolutely fresh responses.

09:47 It becomes very difficult if a topic is given in advance and one is asked to speak.

09:54 It has happened at a few places, a few institutions, a few centres.

10:01 They would say, but what would Acharyaji speak on?

10:06 And then I have great difficulty communicating to them that I do not speak on anything.

10:10 I just respond.

10:11 I have nothing of myself to say at all.

10:15 If you ask me something, a response would come to you.

10:21 So I exist not as a speaker but as a responsiveness.

10:28 But that is something that not many people often appreciate.

10:32 They feel I have certain knowledge that I am going to disseminate.

10:36 I have no knowledge.

10:38 I do not come from knowledge.

10:42 Because this verse is in front of me, that is the reason I am relating this.

10:47 I come from the point that Shri Krishna is talking of here.

10:51 He says of the four tiers of God realization, the highest is Dhyan or meditativeness.

11:01 That is from where I speak.

11:10 It is risky, mind you.

11:16 You have done something without knowing what you are doing.

11:21 And you cannot just do it on the spot without your entire life, without the rest of your

11:31 life being totally aligned to this moment.

11:38 You cannot be suddenly meditative on the podium if you have not been meditative throughout

11:45 the day.

11:47 You cannot suddenly be so faithful and risk taking here in front of the audience if your

11:56 entire day has not been aligned to this moment.

12:02 In some sense you could say my entire day is a subtle preparation towards this moment.

12:11 In other words, you could say I do not prepare at all.

12:15 There is no preparation going on.

12:17 The entire day is in a hidden way exactly what this moment is in an explicit way.

12:28 Right now I am just explicitly doing what I continue to do implicitly the rest of my

12:35 day.

12:37 So that is the price that you have to pay.

12:39 The price is that you have to be your entire life what you are here right now.

12:47 And if you cannot be exactly what you are here right now throughout your day, then you

12:55 will start bumbling and fumbling and stammering when it comes to this podium.

13:05 You will no longer have the certainty, the sureness and the faith to proceed with your

13:12 spontaneity.

13:13 You will start having self-doubt.

13:17 You will start asking yourself am I making sense or I am just blabbering.

13:25 For you to remain your sureness, for you to assuredly proceed through your spontaneous

13:35 response, you need to have practiced it throughout the day.

13:46 So that is the reason it is the highest thing because it demands the highest sacrifice.

13:51 It demands your entire day.

13:53 The highest sacrifice is what?

13:55 Your entire life.

13:58 To be spontaneous on this podium, you need to be spontaneous and faithful your entire

14:06 life.

14:07 A big price to pay but the returns are bounteous.

14:17 Then there is Sankhya.

14:18 Sankhya means the path of Jnana.

14:21 So you could take that path and it is a beautiful path.

14:27 In fact even those who belong to the topmost path must have knowledge as well.

14:38 Knowledge helps you stay on the path of Dhyana.

14:42 Knowledge is like an ancillary.

14:44 It cannot be the central thing obviously but there are times when you require knowledge.

14:49 So obviously meditation is the central thing.

14:53 Not meditation of the kind that you call as meditation mind you.

14:56 When I say meditation, I mean a totally different thing.

15:00 For me meditation is life.

15:02 For me meditation is not one of those methods that you keep practicing.

15:10 So often you require knowledge to stay settled in your meditativeness.

15:20 Then Sri Krishna says, well if neither Dhyana nor Jnana is your cup of tea, then Karma,

15:34 what does Karma mean?

15:39 Act as my agent, act as my devotee, act for my sake.

15:47 That's Karma.

15:49 And he says if you cannot do even that, then just worship me just as all others do.

16:00 At least you will not be spending your time doing nonsense.

16:05 Even if you are involved in a superficial kind of worship, at least your time and your

16:12 resources are not going in directions that could have been even worse.

16:19 So fine.

16:20 But this fourth way obviously is the fourth way.

16:25 It is the least preferable way.

16:28 That's why it has been put at number four.

16:31 Else it would have been talked of at the outset itself.

16:36 There was no reason the other three ways needed to be mentioned.

16:44 So do not be too tempted.

16:46 Do not feel that meditativeness and Jnana are needless because Sri Krishna is saying

16:55 that even the fourth category people will ultimately go across the Bhau Sagar.

17:02 They will go across the Bhau Sagar because that's the destiny of all consciousness.

17:08 But they will go across Bhau Sagar in the most terrible of ways.

17:15 Drowning, fainting, screaming, yelling.

17:23 Is that how you want your river ride to be?

17:29 Or do you want to take the royal speed boat and speed across to your glorious destination?

17:42 You would have surely gone through the formal education system.

17:50 How would you like to make it through?

17:59 Going from class 6 to class 7 in three attempts, having been kicked out of four schools and

18:08 then managing some kind of a fraudulent certificate from one of those shady institutions that

18:22 say that even if you are class 7 fail, we will still give you a high school certificate.

18:30 You can do all those things as well as the fourth category of students often do.

18:39 Or you could keep flying through the grades with distinction.

18:48 Ultimately, 20 years later, you will say you see that fellow earned a bachelor's degree

19:02 and I too did.

19:04 So what's the difference?

19:06 But probe your heart and you will find there is a lot of difference.

19:11 He's a royal bachelor and you somehow just struggled your way through education.

19:36 Use the royal way.

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