How to see Krishna even in the evil? || Acharya Prashant, on Bhagavad Gita (2020)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 28.03.2020, Month of Awakening, Greater Noida  Context:  अनन्याश्चिन्तयन्तो मां ये जनाः पर्युपासते । तेषां नित्याभियुक्तानां योगक्षेमं वहाम्यहम् ॥          ananyāśh chintayanto māṁ ye janāḥ paryupāsate          teṣhāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ yoga-kṣhemaṁ vahāmyaham Persons who, meditating on Me as non-separate, worship Me in all beings, to them thus ever zealously engaged, I carry what they lack and preserve what they already have. ~Shreemad Bhagvad Gita (Chapter 9, Verse 22)  ~ What does it mean to worship Krishna as non-separate? ~ What is Love, Compassion and Truth?  Music Credits: Milind Date ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 Shreemad Bhagavad Gita, chapter 9, verse 22.

00:14 Persons who, meditating on Me, as non-separate, worship Me in all beings, to them, thus ever

00:23 zealously engaged, I carry what they lack and preserve what they already have.

00:31 Yogakshemam Vahamemam.

00:38 What does it mean, comes the question now, to worship Krishna as non-separate or Ananya

00:46 in all beings.

00:48 I find it easy to see Krishna in animals, but I notice that I see the opposite of love,

00:55 compassion and truth in other humans.

00:58 I sense this is because my mind is dirty and unclean, so I see that in others.

01:05 Is the verse asking us to focus on what is loving, compassionate and truthful in other

01:12 humans instead of focusing on what is not?

01:15 No, no, no, there is just too much of pop spirituality in this question.

01:23 All these notions that you are coming from have sprung up mostly in the last 100 years

01:31 since the advent of industrialization and they all just rally against the one fundamental

01:43 requirement for spirituality, it is called discretion.

01:49 Discretion or Vivek is to differentiate between the temporal and the non-temporal, the true

02:03 and the false, the deceptive and the reliable.

02:09 Are you getting it?

02:13 But if you do that, then the false is not left with a place to hide.

02:24 Therefore the forces of falseness all have penetrated spirituality to create a kind of

02:38 neo-spirituality these days in which all falsenesses are acceptable in the name of unconditional

02:50 love or focusing on the positives and such things.

02:55 You get this?

02:58 Real spirituality is about rejecting the false.

03:06 Real spirituality therefore is uncompromising, harsh, ruthless.

03:12 Just reject the false, that's what real spirituality is about.

03:17 But if you are living in an age, in an era, in a society, in an economic system that is

03:22 dominated by forces of falsenesses, then it becomes imperative for them to invent a new

03:31 kind of spirituality that engages, even endorses all falsenesses.

03:40 So you have terms like don't judge me or don't judge anybody.

03:44 Now what does that mean?

03:46 That means don't call the false as false.

03:49 Because if you start calling the false as false, how will the false sell itself?

03:56 And how will the sellers of falsenesses profit from your pocket?

04:03 Therefore the new spiritual aphorism is don't judge.

04:10 Similar to this is belonging to the same family, love unconditionally.

04:16 Where is discretion then?

04:20 If everything is lovable, then the dirt within is also lovable.

04:29 Then what is the need to improve at all?

04:35 If one's dirty condition is lovable, is there a need to take a spiritual bath?

04:46 Similarly there are more such ajrejas floating in the spiritual places nowadays.

04:57 And they have become so commonplace that they have almost gained acceptability as something

05:05 scriptural.

05:08 People are surprised when I tell them that no scripture ever talks of such things as

05:19 looking at the true and the false in the same way.

05:28 No scripture ever says that the false is as lovable and as respectable as the truth.

05:39 So that's the backdrop from where this question seems to be coming.

05:43 Now the question.

05:47 You see, you are asking how to see Krishna in all beings.

05:55 It has to be done in two ways.

05:59 We'll elaborate.

06:03 Every human being, every sentient conscious human being is constantly in a state of an

06:13 inner strife.

06:19 There is the inertia of the body.

06:24 There is the inertia of prakriti that wants the status quo to continue, that wants the

06:35 past to keep rolling on into the future.

06:41 That's the law of inertia, isn't it?

06:43 If something is moving, it will just continue to move on.

06:49 In the absence of a resisting force, the law of inertia states that if something is moving,

06:55 it will simply continue to move till infinity.

06:58 It will never stop.

07:00 And if something is not moving, it will not move even in infinite time in the absence

07:08 of an external force.

07:11 So there is the force of inertia within us and it's something that has a lot of weight

07:24 and momentum behind it, that which is rolling, is rolling with a great momentum that it has

07:29 obtained from the millions of years of the past.

07:33 It is rolling on, it is rolling on.

07:35 It wants to keep rolling on.

07:36 It's a juggernaut.

07:41 It's happening within every human being.

07:43 Something within us just wants to keep rolling on.

07:46 It doesn't want to look right or left.

07:50 It doesn't want to exercise the brakes.

07:53 It doesn't want to see what was behind and what lies ahead.

08:00 It just wants to roll on blindly.

08:02 There is that.

08:06 But then there is somebody who is contained, confined within that rolling machine, who

08:18 sees no sense, no purpose, no gain in just rolling on blindly.

08:28 He also finds that he is in no position to stop the rolling movement.

08:40 The rolling machine, the rolling apparatus is simply too big, too heavy, very unstoppable.

08:48 So the only option left to him is to either adjust, succumb or reconcile in polite language

09:02 or find a way to be liberated, liberated from the confines of the machine.

09:13 That's what every human being is facing.

09:18 This is the internal situation within every human being.

09:24 And as we have already said, therefore, there are only two choices available to every human

09:30 being.

09:31 The machine will continue to roll on.

09:33 You cannot do anything to the machine.

09:39 It's almost as if the machine does not belong to you.

09:43 You are just an unwilling captive inside the machine.

09:47 You have been vested with no authority to tamper with the machine, apply the brakes

09:54 or do anything.

09:55 Right?

09:56 Don't you see that?

10:01 The heart keeps beating.

10:03 The lungs keep breathing.

10:06 The brain keeps thinking.

10:08 The machine rolls on.

10:11 What can you do about it?

10:13 You cannot do anything about even the most important event of your bodily birth.

10:23 Why you consulted?

10:26 You are so helpless.

10:27 It all happened without your consent.

10:32 You are not even engaged in the process.

10:36 You were just handed over the body and you are asking, "But why?

10:40 Why has this been given to me?"

10:43 You are handed over the body and the body has not been given to you as a gift.

10:48 The body has been given to you as a jail.

10:54 You have been told, "Here it is."

10:56 And you have to live within it.

10:58 And you cannot do much about the body.

11:03 Superficially, you can change the body just as a prisoner can choose to paint the walls

11:15 of his cell.

11:17 Can he not?

11:18 Superficially, you can choose to do something with the body.

11:22 So, you can, for example, lose weight or gain weight.

11:25 You can get a haircut of your choice.

11:29 You can even get your face modified.

11:34 Some surgery, plastic surgery or something, Botox and such things are happening.

11:41 You can get a dental job done.

11:45 But does any of that alter the fundamental tendency of the machine to keep rolling on?

11:53 No.

11:55 So confined within the machine, you can at best keep fiddling with the machine in a very

12:02 inconsequential way.

12:05 Really you can change nothing about the machine.

12:08 Really you can not change your primitive and fundamental biological tendencies.

12:14 Nobody does.

12:15 Now, you are left with two choices.

12:20 Either adjust and say, "But this will continue.

12:23 So I might just as well reconcile, adjust and make merry in my confinement."

12:38 I have come to terms with the reality that this is what is called life.

12:43 And I don't want to spend this life fighting an impossible war.

12:48 That's what 99.999999% do.

12:54 They say this is an impossible war.

12:57 So I'll simply accept my fate and decorate the insides of the juggernaut.

13:07 Or you could imagine a huge cylinder that is rolling on.

13:15 And somebody is caught inside that cylinder and is either painting the insides or doing

13:25 some other stuff.

13:29 Throwing a wedding party, earning money or building a house, all inside the rolling cylinder.

13:41 How comfortable would it be by the way?

13:44 Your house is inside a rolling cylinder that is rolling without your consent into a future

13:55 that is unseen, not determinable.

14:02 And yet you choose to just keep celebrating inside your captivity.

14:16 That's the choice most people make.

14:21 How do you see Krishna in these people?

14:24 That's what the question is.

14:27 How do you see Krishna in these people?

14:30 You see Krishna in these people by seeing that they too somehow want to avoid suffering.

14:40 It's just that Krishna's maya is such that in the process of avoiding suffering, in their

14:51 quest to avoid suffering, they are just bringing more suffering upon themselves.

14:59 So here what you see is maya in operation.

15:04 You see what is the aim of even maya?

15:07 What does maya promise you to allure you?

15:10 Maya promises you freedom from suffering.

15:13 Does maya come to you and say that I'll make you suffer?

15:16 No.

15:17 Maya seduces you by offering you happiness.

15:19 Does it not?

15:22 So when you see such people, you have to see Krishna by realizing that everybody is after

15:29 all working for happiness.

15:33 And so great is the yoga maya of Krishna that people in spite of wanting happiness work

15:44 against their own happiness.

15:50 And then there is the remaining little fraction 0.0001% who are directly targeting freedom

16:02 or Krishna.

16:03 Both are synonymous.

16:04 Krishna is another name for freedom.

16:08 There is that minuscule fraction that directly targets freedom.

16:14 Especially when you look at them, there is no need for conjecture left now.

16:24 Those people are Krishna personified.

16:29 There you see the love of consciousness for freedom.

16:38 There you see how each being is so desperate to reach the same point it is coming from.

16:52 How we all cannot exist without that one thing, call it truth or freedom or whatever.

17:04 But such direct evidence is available only in one in a million people.

17:16 In the others, you will only see indirect evidence.

17:24 So when you look for example at an instance of obvious evil, how do you see Krishna there?

17:33 You see that this person after all is seeking freedom from his suffering.

17:40 He too is seeking Krishna.

17:43 But he is under the spell of Krishna's maya.

17:47 Therefore he is not seeking Krishna directly, he is seeking Krishna indirectly.

17:54 Therefore he does deserve your compassion, but because he has chosen an indirect path

18:00 now, therefore direct compassion will not work with him.

18:06 What Krishna displays towards Duryodhana on the battlefield of Kurukshetra is surely compassion

18:13 but indirect.

18:18 Towards Arjuna, Krishna is displaying direct compassion.

18:23 Towards Duryodhana, Krishna is displaying indirect compassion.

18:27 How?

18:28 The best way to demonstrate or rather sometimes the only way to demonstrate a person in the

18:39 wrong that he is indeed in the wrong is by defeating him.

18:49 What is it that supports his wrongness?

18:53 His confidence that wrongness will win.

18:57 How do you then liberate him from his wrongness?

19:04 By demonstrating to him that wrongness will not win.

19:07 Therefore by defeating Duryodhana, Krishna is offering his compassion to Duryodhana.

19:20 You have mentioned here that when you see the opposite of love, compassion and truth

19:32 in others, then you tell yourself that it is because your mind is dirty and unclean,

19:39 therefore you are seeing dirt and unclean stuff in others.

19:46 No, please.

19:48 Avoid this attitude.

19:52 If you see dirt, clean it up.

20:01 It is stupid to see dirt and say, "Oh, it is appearing like dirt because my mind is

20:10 dirty."

20:14 Such an attitude can be especially dangerous in coronavirus days.

20:24 You cannot say that the virus too is an embodiment of Krishna and everybody who is carrying the

20:33 virus is actually not sick but is appearing sick because your mind is sick.

20:41 No.

20:43 Sickness is sickness and virus is virus.

20:48 Clean up and avoid.

20:53 Love is a highly exclusive thing.

21:01 You just cannot love wisdom and nonsense in the same way.

21:12 You cannot talk of the highest and the lowest in the same breath.

21:20 You must learn to exclude.

21:23 You must learn to reserve.

21:28 You must learn to see distinction before you come to see unity.

21:38 If someone starts talking of unity without firstly being adept in the art of discretion,

21:49 then he is just fooling himself.

21:53 It's a process in levels.

21:59 At the lowest level are people who see no distinction.

22:03 To them clean and unclean are the same.

22:09 To them right and wrong are the same.

22:11 Therefore, in the name of rightness, what they usually do is something wrong.

22:18 To them dharma and dharma are the same.

22:20 Therefore, in the name of dharma, what they usually engage in is adharma.

22:25 This is the lowest level of people.

22:28 They just cannot differentiate.

22:34 They have no discretion.

22:35 Now, from this stage to take you beyond this stage, spiritual practice starts.

22:45 And spiritual practice is about learning to differentiate.

22:52 Learn to differentiate first of all.

22:54 Learn to see that truth and maya are different.

23:02 Learn to see that wisdom and foolishness are different.

23:10 Learn to see that freedom and bondage are different.

23:18 And once you have become adept in seeing the differences, you then come to a point when

23:32 you see that even that which is false is false only because it was approaching truth in a

23:45 convoluted way, in a personal way.

23:49 So the false too is actually a lover of truth.

23:55 Therefore, the false too deserves consideration and compassion.

24:01 But that is after stage two.

24:06 In stage two, first of all, you must practice the art of vivek or discretion, differentiation.

24:16 And only after that you come to a point where you become capable of ananyata or unity.

24:26 Most people in the name of the unity that belongs rightfully only to stage three keep

24:34 themselves on stage one itself.

24:39 What's common between stage one and three?

24:41 On both these stages, there is no distinction.

24:46 But in stage one, there is no distinction because you have no eyes, no senses, no faculty,

24:53 no wisdom to differentiate.

24:57 And in stage three, you see no distinction because now you can see the true even in the

25:04 false.

25:05 Are you getting it?

25:09 Don't skip stage two.

25:11 Stage two is where the work lies.

25:14 Stage two is where the practice lies.

25:16 Don't just try to have a shortcut to stage three.

25:24 Stage two cannot be bypassed.

25:31 Is that clear?

25:34 Be intolerant towards falseness.

25:37 That's stage two.

25:39 Most of us require that.

25:42 That is the only practice.

25:43 Stage three happens on its own.

25:47 Love comes on its own.

25:50 Great acceptance comes on its own.

25:54 Love has to be practiced.

25:56 You practice stage two.

25:58 That's your job.

25:59 That's sadhana.

26:00 Are you getting it?

26:05 [Music]

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