20091130 Evening Bhagavad-gītā Class

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on 30^th November at Hong Kong, China. The class begins with a reading from the Bhagavad-gītā Chapter 3, verse 40.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ
paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande
śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam 
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ
śrī caitanya iśvaram 
Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Hare Kṛṣṇa!

indriyāṇi mano buddhir
asyādhiṣṭhānam ucyate 
etair vimohayaty eṣa 
jñānam āvṛtya dehinām

Translation: The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places of this lust. Through them lust covers the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him.

Purport (By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda): Jaya! The enemy has captured different strategic positions in the body of the conditioned soul, and therefore Lord Kṛṣṇa is giving hints of those places, so that one who wants to conquer the enemy may know where he can be found. Mind is the center of all the activities of the senses, and thus when we hear about sense objects the mind generally becomes a reservoir of all ideas of sense gratification; and, as a result, the mind and the senses become the repositories of lust. Next, the intelligence department becomes the capital of such lustful propensities. Intelligence is the immediate next-door neighbor of the spirit soul. Lusty intelligence influences the spirit soul to acquire the false ego and identify itself with matter, and thus with the mind and senses. The spirit soul becomes addicted to enjoying the material senses and mistakes this as true happiness. This false identification of the spirit soul is very nicely explained in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.84.13): “A human being who identifies this body made of three elements with his self, who considers the by-products of the body to be his kinsmen, who considers the land of birth worshipable, and who goes to the place of pilgrimage simply to take a bath rather than meet men of transcendental knowledge there is to be considered like an ass or a cow.”

Kṛṣṇa Kṣetra Prabhu: His Holiness Jayapatākā Swāmi has requested me to speak a few words about this. 

So, this is a little embarrassing because everyone is here to hear Maharaj, not to hear me. Anyway, I will try to speak something.

Yesterday evening we celebrated the appearance of Bhagavad-gītā, the speaking of the Bhagavad-gītā, by Lord Kṛṣṇa to Arjuna. And we all know that Arjuna was in a very bewildered state of mind. Therefore, he asked Kṛṣṇa to help him, and He is speaking to help Arjuna… He is speaking to me. And Arjuna is asking Him questions to clarify. And Kṛṣṇa speaks in different tones in different parts of the Gītā. Sometimes Kṛṣṇa speaks in a very emotional tone, “Arjuna, just surrender.” But other times he speaks in a very “cool” sort of analytical way. At the end of the Gītā we hear that by studying, by hearing the Gītā, one is worshipping Kṛṣṇa with one’s intelligence. And so, sometimes it is analytical tone of Kṛṣṇa is there in order to help our intelligence. So, in these verses, in the end of the third chapter, Kṛṣṇa is talking about knowledge, and He is also talking about kāma or desire, and He is helping us to understand what Prabhupāda calls here our enemy. Why would you want to understand your enemy? Don’t you just want to… if you have an enemy, don’t you just want to go out and just destroy the enemy? Well, you may or may not be successful. A good general of an army studies very carefully the nature of his enemy before he goes to attack. He analyses… he or she analyses just where his enemy or her enemy is located. Well, in the case of lust it is big surprise, or it is not such a big surprise. It is located right within our own bodies. The enemy…. We usually think of an enemy as external to us. But this enemy is very clever. It has entered behind lines; now it is now inside the gate. So, what you do when the enemy is behind, is inside your own territory? Then you must be extremely careful. The danger is very close. So, that’s what Kṛṣṇa is explaining in these verses. He is trying to awaken Arjuna, and also Awaken us to the reality of the danger that we are in, and so he wants to prepare us, he wants to make us fully equipped to deal with this situation, and to do that we have to hear Kṛṣṇa’s instruction and reflect on them, and how they apply to our own lives. And as we reflect on these teachings, then they become manifest in our hearts, they become… we own these teachings, they become part of us. Otherwise, it is, as Mahārāja was saying yesterday evening, people claim, “Oh, I know Bhagavad-gītā.” Which for most people means, “I know there is a book called Bhagavad-gītā.” That’s very nice, but it is not enough. So, this is Kṛṣṇa’s constant invitation to us, to hear from Him. To hear from Him, and to hear from His representatives, which is my way of ending what I have to say to pass it on to a wonderful representative of Kṛṣṇa. We are also fortunate to have His Holiness Jayapatākā Swāmi with us again. It was not so many months ago that we were all holding our breaths as Mahārāja’s life seemed to be in the scales. So, Mahārāja’s incredible love for the devotees, and determination to go on preaching to Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s mission is a wonderful inspiration for the whole world. This is the meaning of Ācārya. Mahārāja is a living example of carrying the mission of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. So, what do you think? Are we fortunate to have him here with us? No?

Everybody: Yes!

Haribol! Śrīla Prabhupāda kī...

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: Mahārāja kī....

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: Hare Kṛṣṇa! Firstly, I would like to thank His Grace Kṛṣṇa Kṣetra Prabhu for selecting this verse and also for speaking. You see, we practice the system called bhakti-yoga. All yoga… yoga means to link with the supreme. So, there are different types of yoga: jñāna-yoga, aṣṭāṅga-yoga and bhakti-yoga. Part of a bhakti-yoga is karma-yoga. Now Bhakti-yoga… what I can practice as a… whether you are a gṛhastha or whether you are in the renounced order… gṛhe thāko vane thāko sadā hari bole ḍāko. Lord Caitanya used to teach that whether one is a gṛhastha or whether one is… you can say in the brahmacāri, vānaprastha or sannyāsa āśrama. They should all chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. So, the idea is, as a human being we are getting a rare chance to advance spiritually, and it means that we should enjoy a higher happiness… a happiness of spiritual bliss. You see, that’s called brahma-saukhyam-anantam… unlimited happiness of the spiritual nature. You see, the ordinary happiness… the birds, the beasts, they are also enjoying. They have no intelligence to understand the higher nature. So, we need to conquer lust in order to achieve spiritual perfection. That means we need to engage the way we do in bhakti-yoga, is we engage ourselves in Kṛṣṇa’s service. Kṛṣṇa is very kind. He lets us do quite a wide range of activities in his service. We can … the idea is: we can have a family, we can raise children to be spiritually awakened, we can do also business, but if we do a business, something we should give to Kṛṣṇa. Then every day we should try to chant the mantras of Kṛṣṇa.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

The process of bhakti-yoga is not very complex, but it means that we need to be responsible all the time. So, that’s why our Kṛṣṇa is telling, “Ok, lust is the enemy.” Like one of our… in Chennai, in South India, there was a lady, she was very interested in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and she would regularly host once a month the Bhakti-vṛkṣa group, the Nāmahaṭṭa, satsaṅga group… like this in her house. Other weeks she will go to her other friend’s houses, and they would have this weekly satsaṅga. The husband was encouraging, he didn’t obstruct, but he thought this is not for me. “I am a businessman. I go to Hongkong, I go to Tokyo, I have to drink, I have to eat meat.” I don’t know… maybe he was a vegetarian, I am not sure, but drinking for sure. “But it’s ok… my wife she likes this, it’s good, there is no harm, let her do it. So, he would help his wife when it was her turn to do the Bhakti-vṛkṣa group in her house. The Bhakti-vṛkṣa group is a much smaller group that this, and so there is some discussion. So, in that the discussion, the husband… he participated, he said ok. And then he realized that if he didn’t control himself, he was headed for a lower birth. That we take one birth after another birth after another birth, and what birth we get, depends how we act in this life. So, if we do something which is a little…some part of our life is dedicated to the spiritual, that helps a lot, our future life will be… if we do something spiritual in our life, that will help us to take a higher birth. If we are fully Kṛṣṇa conscious, we can go back to Kṛṣṇa, and end this cycle of birth of death. So, like that… then he asked a question, “Well, is it alright to take coffee and tea?” We said, “Well, if you take herbal tea, that’s better. If you take regular tea of coffee, that has a caffeine.” He thought, “I dare not ask about whisky, let me just something light about coffee and tea.” So, the preacher… after talking to him… then he started to reflect, “What am I doing with my life? I don’t have to drink, I don’t have to do these things. I have a very nice wife. She is a spiritually awakened wife. Why don’t I also engage in some spiritual life? I can do my business, I can do my social activities, but I just should do some spiritual activity every day.” So, he came to see me some years ago. He told me that he was a businessman, he was taking whisky and other things before, but this thing happened to him and he decided to change his life. That he was chanting eight rounds of Hare Kṛṣṇa every day, and his goal was to chant sixteen rounds and take initiation in the future.

Haribol. Haribol. Haribol. So, like this I have many practical experiences. However, Kṛṣṇa consciousness has improved the quality of life. You see, there was a couple there, the husband had a very big job, he was making like a six thousand Dirhams, so much it is like… there is a three Dirhams in a dollar. So, that’s about two thousand dollars. For Indian that is quite a bit. . That’s like twelve lakhs a year maybe…. Twelve, twenty-four lacks of rupees a year. No tax. He was working overseas. Free apartment, free car. There was a man, he had a good job, that’s a chartered accountant or something. He was making like two thousand dollars a month, plus flat, car, everything free. That’s like a sixteen thousand Hong Kong dollars. Maybe he was taking more, I don’t know But they wanted to see to me at the end of the program. Maybe he was making more, I don’t know exactly…. He wanted to speak with me along with his wife at the end of the program. And when everyone left, he spoke to me, “We looked like a happy couple, but we are having regular disagreements. We don’t have a good communication between the husband and the wife, but in your presence, we feel something different… in your presence we feel better. So, we want your advice what can we do. so, I asked them to host a regular meeting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa satsang, and the husband and wife, they found, they could work together for Kṛṣṇa. Later he became the leader of the satsaṅga’s in one of the middle-east countries, and the relation between the husband and wife also improved. So, the bhakti-yoga is a very practical. We can practice it while we are doing our normal activities, but we just need to do things in such a way that Kṛṣṇa will be pleased. So, that is the… another word for bhakti-yoga… is buddhi-yoga, the yoga for the intelligence. That we use our intelligence how to engage in Kṛṣṇa's service. So, we should do things which are pleasing to Kṛṣṇa, and we think what will be pleasing to Krishna, what will be right way of doing this. See, that’s where the… lust means that we just think, “Forget Kṛṣṇa, forget God, I want to enjoy.” and then as a result we get entangled in the karma’s. If we are doing our activity for the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa, there is no karma. If we eat kṛṣṇa-prasādam, it is a karma free diet. How many of you like Kṛṣṇa prasāda? [many people in the audience raise their hands] Wow! So, would you like to take kṛṣṇa-prasāda every day?

Some of the devotee, they take every day. In this house they have the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, Gaura-Nitāi Deities. They offer their food to their Deities. So, like that every gṛhastha can offer, can establish a Deity in their house, and offer the food to Kṛṣṇa. If it is not possible to have the Deity, you can have pictures of your favorite Deities, and you can offer the food to your… to the picture. Actually, sometime Kṛṣṇa Kṣetra prabhu was a minister for Deity worship. So, he knows all the secret practices for how to do Deity worship. It seems that he kept it a secret here. You would be surprised the things that he knows. So, he said you are here to hear me, but if I was here, I would also like to also hear him. It’s very rare that I get to hear my Godbrothers. Anyway, so, we want to see… learn from the guru, how to engage ourselves in Kṛṣṇa’s service. Now as a gṛhastha there is one set of rules, as a brahmacāri there is another set. So, according to our āśrama there will be āśrama, there will be āśramas specific our rules. Because we want that maybe… for us you see, the gṛhastha-āśrama is a very important āśrama. In the free society, there is a chance to go outside of the marriage and have other connections. We want that in gṛhastha-āśrama, in the married life, that one should stay faithful to his wife or to her husband, and they should practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness together. During the day they may have different activities, one may do business, one may do household… housewife or maybe a teacher or whatever, but sometimes together with the family they can chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, they can do some kṛṣṇa-bhakti together. And this actually satisfies the heart, but we need to you see… in the beginning, the mind is very turbulent. As it was read for this verse, the enemy is situated in our mind. So, the mind can sometimes think horrible things. So, we want to purify the mind so that the mind thinks to do Kṛṣṇa conscious authorized things. It is just the question of giving up the bad habits and engaging ourselves in Krishna’s service. So, Arjuna he was a warrior. So, Kṛṣṇa was talking him to fight the battle. My one disciple, he is a businessman. He said like Arjuna was a kṣatriya, he wanted to do war for Kṛṣṇa, I want to do business for Kṛṣṇa. I hope that in the future I will build a temple for Kṛṣṇa from the profit of my business. So, whatever one’s activity is, they can do that for Kṛṣṇa, but we need to know who are enemies are… the lust to do things which are against Kṛṣṇa, against the śāstra. So, later on in the Bhagavad-gītā it tells us that there is happiness in ignorance, and in passion and goodness. So, ignorance is madness and craziness… like drinking and driving, it is crazy. In the end of it they crash. It is happiness in the mode of passion. You get some immediate happiness, later on we suffer. Later there is happiness in the mode of goodness. Immediately it is difficult, but in the end we feel happy. So, in the spiritual happiness, it is called pure goodness. In the beginning we control the senses, in the end we get unlimited spiritual bliss. So, Lord Kṛṣṇa tells us, we have the choice, we can choose what we want to do. But a lot depends on the association we keep. If we associate with criminals, probably we will do crime. If we associate with good people, probably good. So, anyway, I said I will give time for question and answer. First, I want to ask all of you… that today is the wedding anniversary of Mukesh and Puna. Let’s give them all blessings. Haribol… Haribol… Haribol… Haribol… And this family is very active here as well in Nepal. The husband of the father has seen her a… he is initiated, as is his wife who is Prema Rāṇī Devidasi. The others are all aspiring initiation, but they are very busy. So, today I have been here for one year. Today I saw the newspaper. Last year when I was here, I gave a class at the 15/4. So, this year, that place is now their office. Remember last year we had a class there in that office building. So, now that room is their office, and various floors they have of their different business activities. They have a very good view of the… I know you call it the river… harbor view. They have a good harbor view which in Hongkong is… so anyway there is not any problem for this. We want to encourage everyone accepting to add Kṛṣṇa to their life.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

So, someone can chant two rounds, and then I can get the questions and then I will get the questions when everybody has the questions.