Bhagavad Gita (60): "Four Types of Devotees" (Chapter 7, #13-18) by Swami Tyagananda

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[00:07:57][music] Oh shant the shant. Shanti Shantak Shant Shant Shant Shant Go Shant. Shanti Shant Shant Shant Shant Shant.

[00:09:21]May there be peace on earth and in the sky. May there be peace in the water and in all directions.

[00:09:30]May there be peace in the plants, in the trees, and in animals. May there be peace in the hearts of all beings. May there be peace in everyone and in everything.

[00:09:50]Fore.

[00:10:19]May all be happy and healthy. May all see what is good and may no one experience misery.

[00:10:28]May all overcome their obstacles and acquire good tendencies.

[00:10:33]May people everywhere find joy and fulfillment.

[00:10:51]Let us now spend some time touching the center of peace and joy in our hearts.

[00:11:00]A good way to begin the practice is to withdraw the scattered energies of the mind and bring them to rest on one point. That point can be our own breathing.

[00:11:14]Let us therefore practice breathing with awareness.

[00:11:18]As we breathe in, let us visualize that our body and mind are being filled with love, strength, and compassion.

[00:11:28]And as we breathe out, let us release all the stress, anxiety, and exhaustion in the body and mind. Let us practice this way for a while.

[00:12:30]Let us now turn our attention to the region of our heart.

[00:12:35]Although God is present everywhere and in everyone, the divine presence can be felt most clearly in our own hearts.

[00:12:44]We can meditate in any way we have been taught.

[00:12:49]To remain focused, we can take the help of a short mental prayer or a mantra or a divine name.

[00:12:58]Let us now spend some time dwelling on the presence of God in our hearts.

[00:14:01]>> [snorts] [cough and clears throat] >> home.

[00:14:48]May the divine lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality.

[00:14:56]May the divine consciousness fill our hearts and protect us.

[00:15:30]>> [cough and clears throat] >> So we begin today on verse number 13 in chapter 7.

[00:15:43]As we saw in this chapter 7, Krishna begins by describing his two natures parapraciti and aparriti higher nature and lower nature. And he says that this entire creation has come from the combination of these two.

[00:16:06]The world that we experience is although we tend to say it's the vantians will tend to say the it's unreal and it's an appearance that statement has to be understood in proper context that everything we experience is a mixture is a mixture of the real and the unreal.

[00:16:33]If it is something completely unreal, we would never experience it.

[00:16:40]If it is completely real, then we'll experience it it as it is. But somehow the real and the unreal when they get mixed up, we see something which is not as it is but distorted in some way.

[00:17:00]The example we often give is of a coiled rope in a semile lit room with without sufficient light and we mistake it for a snake.

[00:17:13]So the snake then this is the big question that they ask in vir text is the snake real or unreal and there are two words in Sanskrit they use for unreal. One is called assat.

[00:17:28]Sat is real. Assat is unreal.

[00:17:32]But they also have another one word called mitya.

[00:17:37]Now mitya also means unreal. So there are you could say two kinds of unreal.

[00:17:46]Uh, one kind of unreal is like totally unreal in the sense no one has ever seen it.

[00:17:59]Think in terms of let's say if I say a square circle. A square circle is unreal.

[00:18:08]No one has ever seen it in the past or present or future.

[00:18:12]It's totally unreal.

[00:18:14]But the snake you can't say it's real because when you switch on the light you know it's a rope. You can't say it's completely unreal either. I mean if it were unreal how you are seeing it.

[00:18:31]And so they have this category called mitya which is unreal but which appears to be real.

[00:18:41]And so this world belongs to that category. And also the snake in that example [clears throat] is a mixture of reality and unreality.

[00:18:53]So when when I say this is a snake, I'm really saying two things that this is something and this something is a snake.

[00:19:07]So if I break that this is the snake into two sentences. This is something and this something is a snake. The first sentence is real. This is something.

[00:19:19]What is unreal is my perception that that something is a snake.

[00:19:24]So this is a snake. This is this is the isness existence that the snake exist. The existence is real.

[00:19:37]But my idea that that which is existing is a snake that is unreal. So even the snake that we see in a rope is a mixture of existence which is real and the form which is unreal.

[00:19:53]And so everything the entire creation is a combination of the real and the unreal.

[00:20:02]So what is real in this world that we experience?

[00:20:09]One thing is obvious.

[00:20:11]I don't experience that. Oh, I I'm imagining the world or I'm thinking of the world. No, I'm seeing the world. So the world exists for me. [clears throat] The existence of the world is real just like the existence is real. Just like the existence of that object is real. But just as I instead of seeing the rope, I'm seeing a snake. Instead of seeing God, I'm seeing the world.

[00:20:44]So the world that we see is not totally unreal.

[00:20:47]The existence of the world is real. But my seeing it as a world with this gazillion objects and living and non-living entities here that's the perception of those forms is an appearance.

[00:21:03]Beneath that is that existence itself which is God.

[00:21:08]So if I take the form and the name out of that snake which I see what remains is simply the existence of the rope. If I take away all the forms and names of everything in the world, what will remain is God.

[00:21:25]So not that it it's any consolation, but we can't say that since God alone exists, we have been experiencing God all the time because there is really nothing else to experience. Nothing else exists.

[00:21:44]So in a way we have already realized God.

[00:21:50]One important caveat there. We are not seeing God as God. We are seeing God as the world. Just as I'm not able to see the rope as a rope. I'm seeing the rope as a snake.

[00:22:05]And so that doesn't help. I'm still afraid. I just feel it's a snake. In order for me to for that fear to go away, I need to see clearly and then I will see it's a rope and the fear and everything will go away. So if I look at this same world clearly, then I will see the reality as it is.

[00:22:27]So seeing God, we don't have to go anywhere. We don't have to do anything.

[00:22:32]Just begin to see clearly.

[00:22:35]And that's what is meant by saying blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. That purity of the heart means acquiring that clarity of perception. And that clarity of perception will come for a vidanta student to practicing those four basic practices beginning with discernment with non-attachment with all the qualities like restraint of the mind and so on and finally that intense longing to know the truth.

[00:23:04]Now what Krishna is pointing out in this verse that we will read is what this unreal part which constitute this world is and that is essentially what we call maya. That is essentially the characteristics of which are these threeas satwa tamas which hide everything.

[00:23:24]And in the earlier verse which we saw in our last class Krishna says whatever states arise from satwa rajas and tamas know them to proceed from me alone yet I'm not in them but they are in me. In other words I'm not controlled by the goonas I control the gonas.

[00:23:46]Right now the gonas control us.

[00:23:50]And now what we want is to change that.

[00:23:53]We want to be the controller of the gonas, not being controlled by the gonas. Let's look at verse 13.

[00:24:16]deluded by the products of the three gunas. All this world does not know me who is beyond these gonas and immutable.

[00:24:25][clears throat] So gonas are the way maya or ignorance manifest. So this includes attachment, hatred, delusion all of these things are results of these gonas and the whole world is mohitam deluded.

[00:24:42]Hence lacking in discernment. If I had a proper discernment, if I could distinguish between real and unreal, then I could see that the existence part is real. But the forms and names and color superimposed on it, that is only an appearance. And when he says all this world does not know me, me means the real self. The atman, the atman which is aam immutable.

[00:25:13]Immutable means everything material has these what they sometimes say shikaras in Sanskrit. Six kinds of transformation. It includes birth, growth, decay, transformation, all of those things. Everything material [clears throat] has these changes.

[00:25:33]Everything has an expiry date. The atman has no expiry date. And so that is what Krishna is pointing out here. So whenever Krishna says me, he is referring to the atman.

[00:25:47]So how do we go beyond this deluding power of the Maya which produces these three gonas that's described in next verse 14.

[00:26:12]This divine illusion of mine made up of the gonas is indeed difficult to transcend.

[00:26:20]Those who devote themselves to me alone cross over this illusion.

[00:26:25]Gi Asa mama maya this divine illusion of mind. So maya controls us but maya controls us simply not don't think of maya as some mysterious being controlling us. Maya simply simp simply means this ignorance.

[00:26:44]Ignorance controls us in the sense that when we are in the thr of ignorance we don't have control over things.

[00:26:54]>> [clears throat] >> Think in terms of again in um one way of understanding the way maya plays a role is when we go to sleep. When we go to sleep, how do we define sleep? One, what what when we to say a person is asleep? The only time we can say a person is asleep, not when you're simply lying in bed and the lights are switched off. Because we can still be turning and twisting in the bed. We are still awake, not really asleep.

[00:27:28]Sleep starts when this waking world disappears.

[00:27:35]So when I lie down in bed for some time, I know exactly who I am. I know exactly where I am. Then at some point and we don't never know the exact time unless you have a sleep app and you discover it next morning but we never know the exact moment [clears throat] when suddenly everything gets covered.

[00:28:00]I no longer know who I am. I no longer know where I am. So when that ignorance takes over that is my kind of individual maya and then this dream starts. We we can't control our dream.

[00:28:15]We have no control over our dream. We are just we just have to watch it. At least if you go to a movie, you have some control. If you don't like the movie, you can walk out or you can choose to go which movie you want to see. But dreams, it's a free movie. You don't have to pay anything, but you get don't get to choose it. You don't get to walk out of it whenever you want.

[00:28:36]And that is what is meant by saying this illusion of mind is indeed difficult to transcend.

[00:28:42][clears throat and cough] The only way the appearance of a dream can vanish is when I wake up.

[00:28:51]And although I'm using the word appearance of a dream, in the dream it doesn't feel like an appearance. In the dream, it appears like the real world.

[00:29:00]We don't even know it's a dream.

[00:29:03]Which really means right now this very moment there is no way to conclusively say that we are in the waking state.

[00:29:15]This could be a dream because we know a dream to be a dream only when we wake up.

[00:29:23]And that is why it's a it's a thing that we have seen on many occasions.

[00:29:27]Ultimately although we begin by speaking about waking dream and deep sleep there isn't really that much difference between waking and dream considering that in both the states while we are experiencing it everything is very real and this is not necessarily only a very vantic insight.

[00:29:51]You find it in the writings of Plato for instance in one place he says he puts it in a in a in a negative way he puts it this way there is no conclusive way to prove that I'm not dreaming at this very moment because again we will know it's a dream only after waking up and therefore to a [clears throat] in an advanced practice an advanced study the oponyishad itself. There is an opishad called the opanishad which which describes which says there are three kinds of dreams and so what we say three states we think that oh dream is one of the three states. Now the oponyish in that advanced study says there are three kinds of dreams. There is a waking dream. There is a dream dream. And there is a deep sleep dream.

[00:30:53]We can go a step further. Everything is a dream.

[00:30:58]Birth is a dream. Death is a dream.

[00:31:01]Going to heaven is a dream. Going to hell is a dream.

[00:31:05]Every night there is no we sometimes, that's what they say, we usually have several dreams every night. Most people we don't remember those dreams. We usually if we remember a dream it's the dream the last dream just before waking up that's the one fresh in our mind. But we effortlessly move from one dream to the next in a single night. [clears throat] Once you had [laughter] [clears throat] once you move from one dream to the next dream the earlier dream is completely wiped off aut which is how it's not very different from we saying oh I don't remember my past birth but it's a new dream I don't remember the earlier dream just and so even in a single Night we see several dreams. We enter into a new dream starts. The old the earlier dream is just wiped off. Not totally. It leaves an impression. The samscaras remain but we don't see the samscaras. We just just the perception is completely wiped off.

[00:32:25]So one way of thinking is that entire existence life after life not just waking dream and deep sleep but birth, death, heaven, hell, all of these things can be seen a series of endless dreams we are passing through.

[00:32:45]And the only way to stop these continuous procession of dreams is to wake up.

[00:32:55]If we don't wake up, we can keep on seeing these dreams. Some of them will be very pleasant, some of them not so pleasant. But we are being controlled by that Maya. So we don't get to choose what kind of dream will come. And at some point when this viraa the detachment that is spoken of really means at some point a person decides I'm sick of these dreaming I'm tired of these dreams like a groundhog's day at some point we realize there is a repetitive element to it it's all the dreams are not that uh unique lot it's like you go to see any movie or read any novel Well, how many new ideas or new plots they can come? It's just a combination of the same familiar um situations arranged in different ways with different names. You kind of think oh this is a great story but elements of that story have come in different parts in some earlier there isn't anything original left to be done in that sense.

[00:34:09]So that is what Krishna is pointing out here. This divine illusion of mind made up of the gonas is indeed difficult to transcend. But those who devote themselves to me alone cross over this illusion. So it is controlling us. It is difficult to transcend but it's not impossible. The only way to go beyond this is to be devoted to the truth.

[00:34:32]Devoted to me here means devoted to the truth, the reality of my being.

[00:34:41]So devote themselves to me alone in Sanskrit giving up all pursuits that take me away from God. If I focus completely on that then I can wake up from these dreams.

[00:34:57]So then the question is well at least in paper it just feels very clear. Give up all other pursuits focus on God alone.

[00:35:06]Then why doesn't everyone surrender to Krishna? I mean we all want to be happy.

[00:35:12]Here is a way to be happy. Why don't people do it? Krishna describes in verse 15.

[00:35:35]>> [clears throat] >> Those who don't devote themselves to me include the evildoers, [cough] [clears throat] the deluded and the worst of the human beings who are deprived of discernment due to maya and who resort to the ways of the wicked. The words used are evildoers, mudha, people who are deluded and the worst of human beings.

[00:36:06]Ways of the wicked, auram bhavam in Sanskrit which means which includes all kinds of wickedness.

[00:36:14]Um there is this um two names come very often in um mythology das and assuras. So dwas are the the forces of good and assuras are the forces of wickedness.

[00:36:33]There was I was looking at the [clears throat] uh ethmology of the word assur and it's undergone a a great transformation according to some scholars. So in most ancient texts assura really was a very positive term. It it signified power. It it was actually identified with the divine.

[00:37:00]So in the early Indo-Iranian languages, [clears throat] a sura was actually identified with God.

[00:37:08]But that's why you and that's why actually even in our prayer that we do towards the end the ahura mazda of the zorostrians the ahura is really the assura and that's how we often point out about how the word hindu has also come. There was the river called Synindhu and the and the the words with S got pronounced with an H sound in ancient Persians. So Synindhu was pronounced as Hindus. When the British colonized India, they dropped the H. The river now became Indas and the people became Indians. So none of these terms are indigenous. it kind of been uh just the word Hindu itself was also not referring to religion per se. It's a [clears throat] geographical term on the people who lived on the other side of the river.

[00:38:04]In fact, none of these ancient text has the word Hindu in it. Again, so it's not something um a very ancient term although that's how the tradition now is being being recognized.

[00:38:18]So the word assura at some point it underwent a change and and when and it entered into in a more later period in the Vedas. Um you have the das theyas become prominent. They were the shining ones the celestial beings of the of the the celestial world. So they and then assuras became the counterforce the the forces of wicked wickedness. And so here auram bhawam mean ways of the wicked. So every form of wickedness gets personalized in these ancient text as a form of assura. So [clears throat] it's good to keep that at the back of the mind.

[00:39:02]So these people who have different forms of wickedness they just don't feel the imp inner impulse to turn towards God to turn towards truth. So although there is a way to get out of this mess of the ignorance, these people who are in the thr of wickedness, they don't feel that impulse to turn to the reality to God. Then which are the people that do turn to God?

[00:39:36][cough] This is described in verse number 16.

[00:39:46]>> [clears throat] [cough] >> Four kinds of good people worship me Arjuna the distressed the seeker of knowledge the seeker of enjoyment and the wise or best of the bharatas.

[00:40:21]So these wicked people are not going to turn to God. But Krishna says four kinds of good people do turn to God. And he describes them as arto, jityasu, ararati and dyani. Those are the four terms in Sanskrit which means the distressed araha. The seeker of knowledge jityasu, the seeker of enjoymentari and nyani the wise.

[00:40:51]And he refers to them as good people.

[00:40:54]They are good because they have made the right choice. Because we have lots of choices in life. If you make a good choice or we can make a bad choice. But Krishna is saying these four kinds of people have made a good choice. So they turn for divine help. They turn to God.

[00:41:14]But they are of these four kinds.

[00:41:18]The distressed ara means we know every one of us have had have had um different kinds of pains and suffering in life which could be at the physical level, mental level, emotional different levels. And so when we are suffering, what do we turn to for help? And of course, if you have a headache, we can of course go take a Tylenol.

[00:41:51]That's so much more practical way to do it. But that doesn't preclude a devotey from even just remembering God and saying, "God, please do something for my headache." But I'm also going to take a Tylenol as a backup. So, we have to see which is the backup. Whether the Tylenol is the backup or the prayer is the backup. But that is one reason most of the time when there is suffering we even if we may not be so diligent in thinking of the divine on an everyday basis especially when we are having pain and suffering that becomes that it becomes a little bit easier for a devotey to think of God and they are called the aras the distressed.

[00:42:40]Then there are those who are jityasu when you look at the world so many questions come to mind.

[00:42:49]Not all questions can be answered by reading books, listening to lectures and especially questions to these some the fundamentals of existence itself or questions related to the transcendent.

[00:43:03]So the desire to know some people say let me seek divine help because all these other material help is not enough. Let me seek God's help in getting answers to my questions and that are called jinyasu.

[00:43:22]The third is arari.

[00:43:25]Ara in Sanskrit means meaning.

[00:43:28]It also refers to an object.

[00:43:31]In fact, an object, the Sanskrit word for object is parad.

[00:43:37]Now, parad means word. Ara means meaning. So really, every object is a word meaning.

[00:43:48]And so that's a big subject. We won't go into it now about the connection between the word the sound it produces and the object that is referred to but ara and arti arti means one who wants.

[00:44:11]So we speak about for instance vidya vidya is knowledge arti one who wants knowledge.

[00:44:19]So arti means one who wants. So ararti means or someone who wants something that makes life meaningful and for many people life will become meaningful when it is fun when you have means to acquire things and ara therefore often can refer to wealth because if you have wealth if you have money to buy things then you can get whatever you want. So Artari here can also mean someone who seeks um objects or seeks wealth. But of course enjoyment can come through having objects of enjoyment. So Arti can mean seeking objects of enjoyment. Seeking enjoyment itself.

[00:45:07]Um sometimes power having a lot of power gives us the means to itself that itself can bring a lot of enjoyment. So those who are power hungry can also be called ararti. So the word ararti in Sanskrit here can can refer to many different things. So whichever becomes the source of enjoyment which brings some fulfillment to me and I'm seeking that then I am an eartharti. And finally the wordani and it often gets translated as the wise. What it means here is if someone is seeking for enjoyment, someone is seeking for knowledge, someone is speaking from freedom from pain and banani here means one who is seeking God.

[00:45:58]So one way of translating dyani is a true spiritual seeker. So Krishna says all these four kinds of people are good because no matter what they are seeking they are made a good choice because they are turned to God seeking God's help to acquire the things that they need.

[00:46:23]Verse 17.

[00:46:40]Sacha Priya among them the wise who is ever steady and totally devoted excels for I am supremely dear to the wise and the wise is dear to me and this is important to keep in mind so all these four because they turn to God they can be thought of as devotees as bhtas because they are turning to god seeking god's help now turning to God can be done in two ways.

[00:47:14]There are two kinds of devotions. One is called sakama bhi. The other is called nishkama bhaki. Sakama means with desire. Karma is desire.

[00:47:27]So turning to God who devoted to God who recognize the power of God to give them what they want. But I turn to God because either I want freedom from my suffering, either I'm seeking some enjoyment or I'm seeking knowledge, seeking answers, seeking information.

[00:47:47]So there God is not really the goal.

[00:47:53]God becomes the means to a goal that I turn I turn to God because God can give me this or God can give me that and so on. So that is bacti because I have turned to God but I have turned to God as a kind of a a divine ATM machine or or or an or a divine 911 number. It's like because I'm in trouble. I need help. Do something.

[00:48:24]By it is bi. It is devotion. It's a devotion not necessarily to God but recognizing that God can give me what I want. Now the fourth one theani the spiritual seeker is different. The spiritual seeker is not seeking anything from God. The spiritual seeker says I just want God. I want God because God is God.

[00:48:48]Not in fact in the higher stages of devotion. Normally one might say okay I'm not seeking anything any material benefit for myself neither for my body or mind or anything in the world I just want moa I just want bacti I want freedom I want perfection which is definitely better than asking for material things but in the highest stage of bacti the devotey says I just want god I the devotey doesn't even ask for moka doesn't ask for anything the devotey says I just want god and if by just being in god's presence even if I have to suffer even if I have any amount of pain I don't care I just want that is love the highest form of love is when you don't ask for anything the highest form of love love is a form of giving not receiving.

[00:49:52]What generally goes by the word love that we use in our day-to-day usage, it's more transactional. It's I give you this, you give me that.

[00:50:03]But love for God, sometimes people can have that kind of a transactional relationship even with God.

[00:50:11]It's like, oh, I did so much puja. I did so much japa and nothing happened. I didn't get anything. It's like, what am I doing? Some kind of a payment? what God is going to say how much japa I did okay then I give you this it's not a transaction so if we think that what prayer worship meditation I do and in return I should be given something that may not be the best way to do it that my prayer my japa my meditation I do it because I love god that's what devotion that's the spirit of devotion So that's why Krishna says among them the wise who is ever steady and totally devoted excels. So what he's saying is all the four are good. He it's not as if he says I'm supremely dear to the wise and the wise is dear to me. That doesn't mean that the other three are not dear to him. That all of them are dear to him.

[00:51:13]But he says most dear among them is the spiritual seeker because the spiritual seeker wants God for God's sake, not for anything else.

[00:51:26]And that's important.

[00:51:30]And that's he described in verse 18.

[00:51:48]They are all wonderful. But I regard the wise person as my own self. With a focused mind, the wise one is immersed in me alone at the supreme goal.

[00:52:00]This is very interesting this verse. He says the wise one regard the wise person as my own self. The highest expression or highest consumation of love so to speak is when this eye completely gets out of the way.

[00:52:22]And so when we pray to God, when we meditate, when we do japa, in the beginning of course when we sit for our prayer, sit for our meditation, we have the awareness or you're sitting before an altar that yes, there is the divine.

[00:52:38]I'm now praying to the divine. I am meditating on divine. In the beginning, that kind of a distinction is understandable. But once I begin to meditate on God in whichever way I tend to do it at some point at if every moment that I'm doing japa if my mind is like I'm doing japa I'm doing japa then then that's then I'm not really doing and I'm doing japa on me doing japa I become my own then because if I'm focused on on the dity then at some point I'm doing it that idea itself has to go away.

[00:53:18]In other words, what is the characteristic of a focused mind? What is a focus? When the entire light is on whatever it is focused on, everything else recedes into the background.

[00:53:35]And so what Krishna is saying is to this spiritual seeker who is completely steadfast, who's completely focused on me, whose sense of eye is completely gone away, then what remains in the devotees heart is just the divine.

[00:53:56]There is nothing else. And that's what you meant by saying I regard the wise person as my own self because nothing else remains. What dis what separates us from God is the ego.

[00:54:12]What separates us from God is the material layers of our personality.

[00:54:17]When those disappear into the background, what remains is God alone.

[00:54:21]And that's why Krishna says that such a person is my own self.

[00:54:30]And similarly for a baa when this the only way the separation from the divine can go because there are all these different kinds of relationships we can have with the divine and sometimes in the vishnava scripture they speak about these five kind of classical forms of relationship. Shantaa dasa uh being the looking upon oneself as a servant of the divine, as a friend of God, as a child of God, as a as a God as the child, the God as the beloved, there are different ways we can relate to the divine. But whichever way, whichever of these ways we relate, there's still a difference.

[00:55:13]A servant and a master. A master may love the servant and a servant may love the master, but they are still two people.

[00:55:19]No matter how close we are as friends, we're still two people. All of these human ways of expressing relationships, we there may be very close intimacy, but we are still two different people.

[00:55:35]So the the the highest stage of that love is these two disappear and what remains is the one and this I completely goes away. And that is why such a person then becomes to such a person there is no difference between God and the self.

[00:55:58]And for Krishna, Krishna says from a divine standpoint there is no difference between the bhakta and the bhagwa.

[00:56:08]So we will stop here today.

[00:56:11]Uh if you have any thoughts, ideas, comments.

[00:56:17]Yes. Vicram.

[00:56:38]Are you on Swami G? Swami G here when Krishna specifically says that the wise is the superior is he also showing a part that of the various yogas he considers ghana yoga the highest? No, no, no. There's nothing. The word used is nyani. But the nyani simply means a person who has known who has the wisdom to know that God is not simply a means. God is the goal itself.

[00:57:12]And so it's not nothing to do with Ghana yoga. No.

[00:57:18]You see one thing we have to keep in mind that somehow for right or wrong reasons the idea of oneness or the idea of adita has somehow gotten associated with nyan yoga which is not really the case.

[00:57:42]The idea of oneness can be expressed in philosophical terms. The idea of oneness can also be expressed through the language of love. And so knowledge is not to be confused with nana yoga because that knowledge of one's true nature can come through bacti can come through the practice of karm yoga can come through any of these ways and nyan yoga is one of the ways but nana yoga and nana are two different things.

[00:58:14]Yeah.

[00:58:31]Um, so in Sloka 17 and 18 like is is this like a adic way of interpreting the SOA or is it are there like other interpretations where it isn't like that the like that kind of a devotey is seen as like um like Krishna's own self.

[00:58:52]>> What what would be the other other way of understanding it >> like that? That's what I like I'm asking is is there any other >> No, this is the way that comes. I'm sure I'm sure not everyone is going to explain the verse the way I did but everyone is going to explain it the way they see it the way it makes sense to them. So I'm sure that there would be other ways of seeing it but when I read these words this is the meaning that comes. Yeah. So good question. Yeah.

[00:59:27]Yeah. I mean it's like this. When we read the scriptures, the scriptures speak to us in a language and an idiom that makes sense to us. And because all of us have our own minds, our own ways of orienting ourselves to the reality, it's not necessary that the scripture would necessarily speak to you in exactly the same way as it does to somebody else. And that's why Whenever we have this thing, I don't simply invite questions. I say thoughts, comments, questions because it's possible that reading these words maybe some other way of understanding comes to your mind and you should feel free to share that and that's why there are so many different commentaries on the Gita.

[01:00:15]There is otherwise just one commentary would have been enough.

[01:00:20]Yeah.

[01:00:43]So I just had a question that was some confusion about the seeker of knowledge versus the wise. So the seeker of knowledge you know if I understand is not like seeking God necessarily but just seeking some kind of knowledge.

[01:00:56]>> Seeking answers.

[01:00:57]>> Seeking answers.

[01:00:58]>> Yeah.

[01:01:12]Namaskar Swami G. Um Swami G I'm wondering if you can shed light on the maybe the translation of wicked and how to understand like it's a little difficult for me and I believe Krishna 100% but I'm finding it a little difficult to um accept that just because someone doesn't turn to God it makes them wicked because I I have so many people around me who may not necessarily turn to God in a very explicit way maybe they do I don't know but I can't classify them as wicked. And so I'm wondering if you can >> No, don't worry. I mean that's that's just the way it sounds. Every word has kind of a baggage of its own. And so what Krishna is saying is these are the kinds of people who may not turn to God.

[01:02:02]There's no necessity to immediately brand them wicked. You can just say well they don't turn to God. That's fine.

[01:02:09]Yeah. Because I mean the question is simply this. If there is um if we what we want what everyone seeks if there is a way to get it then one would think well there is a way why don't everybody do that and for one reason or other some people either don't believe that that is the way or don't feel that there are other ways to get what they want or it could be any number of reasons why do people don't get feel that necessity to turn to God that doesn't necessarily mean they are bad they just that they are not turning to this resource that is available and in the eyes of some people they might say they are assuras but we don't have to necessarily use the same words yeah the I mean the goal is simply that again this is one worldview that If we don't turn to the truth then we will keep on revolving in this delusion of the Maya and then hopefully just like at some point we felt the need to get out of it everyone at some point or other in their evolution will feel the need to get out of it. Everyone may not feel hungry at the same time. Some people are hungry now. Some people may feel, "Oh, I'm hungry tomorrow or day after."

[01:03:44]That's another way to look at it. Yeah.

[01:03:52]And then if we are not hungry then then no matter even some good nice tasty delicious food is available if you're not hungry you won't feel like eating it. Or if you have a suspicious mind like who knows it looks like that maybe maybe some poison and you might not want to go I mean different people react in different ways what can be done yeah any other thought okay so when we meet next week we'll begin with verse number 19 janim saratam Diagatum mo.

[01:04:52][snorts] On Sunday, our subject will be meditation versus reflection. Next Wednesday, we'll continue with the study. On Saturday, we'll have meditation as usual. So, let's do the prayer on page three.

[01:05:37]May the divine being who is the father in heaven of the Christians, holy one of the Jewish faith, Allah of the Muslims, Buddha of the Buddhists, Dao of the Dowists, Aura Masta of the Zorostrians, the great spirit of the Native Americans and Brahman of the Hindus.

[01:05:59]Lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality.

[01:06:07]May we be granted strength, freedom, and clear understanding.

[01:06:12]May we learn to see God in our own hearts and in everyone around us. May God bless us all and fill our hearts with gratitude, grace and love.

[01:06:26]Om shanty shanty shanty.

[01:06:32]Peace, peace, peace be unto God.