Bhagavad-gītā 2.18

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja in Durban, South Africa. The class begins with the reading from the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is Chapter 2, Text 18.

oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā
cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ

nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

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

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-gurun dina tāriṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram

Bhagavad-gītā 2.18

antavanta ime dehā
nityasyoktāḥ śarīriṇaḥ
anāśino 'prameyasya
tasmād yudhyasva bhārata

Translation: The material body of the indestructible, immeasurable and eternal living entity is sure to come to an end; therefore, fight, O descendant of Bharata.

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda: The material body is perishable by nature. It may perish immediately, or it may do so after a hundred years. It is a question of time only. There is no chance of maintaining it indefinitely. But the spirit soul is so minute that it cannot even be seen by an enemy, to say nothing of being killed. As mentioned in the previous verse, it is so small that no one can have any idea how to measure its dimension. So from both viewpoints there is no cause of lamentation, because the living entity as he is cannot be killed nor can the material body be saved for any length of time or permanently protected. The minute particle of the whole spirit acquires this material body according to his work, and therefore observance of religious principles should be utilized. In the Vedānta-sūtras the living entity is qualified as light because he is part and parcel of the supreme light. As sunlight maintains the entire universe, so the light of the soul maintains this material body. As soon as the spirit soul is out of this material body, the body begins to decompose; therefore it is the spirit soul which maintains this body. The body itself is unimportant. Arjuna was advised to fight and not sacrifice the cause of religion for material, bodily considerations.

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation, purport to text 18, chapter two.

Oṁ tat sat

Jayapatākā Swami: So in this verse, we are discussing about the material body and the spirit soul. The material body is bound to be destroyed, but the spirit soul is eternal. When there is a car accident, what is the first thing that you see? You see there is a car accident. You want to see? What’s the first thing you see? Whether the car is injured or whether the passenger is injured. Why don’t you check about the car first? Car is not car is replaceable, right? But the person is not replaceable. So just like in relation to the car, the passenger is important. Nobody is worrying first about the car. They want to see if the passenger survives. Even sometimes, the military jets fall down, which are worth millions of dollars. But they say, “Well, the passengers survived! The pilot survived.” It’s important. So in the same way, this body is also a vehicle. According to Bhagavad-gītā (18.61), yantrārūḍhāni māyayā, it’s a vehicle made of the material in nature. And what is really important is the soul. Of course, the soul can never be destroyed. But what happens is that according to the desires that we develop, according to the activities we do, we prepare for ourselves a new body. If you want, you can prepare in the next life to have an insect body or an animal body, or a human body or a demigod body, (a deva body). All kinds of bodies are possible. Those who are very good people, who do lots of good karma, they can go to devaloka and be born on the planet of the devas. Those who are in a more passionate just the temporary profit and loss as their concern, they may be born again in a human birth. But those who are very much in the mode of ignorance, who are addicted to all kinds of intoxication and anger and violence and things, they can even go down either to the hellish planet or to the animal kingdom.

One time, Prabhupāda found a cockroach in his room, and he picked it up and he just showed to the devotees that, “look it, can you imagine, what kind of desires this living entity had to get this body?” We don’t know what kind of desires, it takes to get an insect body. But somehow, they had that type of desire which that body was suitable to satisfy their desire, the Prabhupāda opened up the window and he told the cockroach, “Now I’m giving you the whole world to enjoy.” And threw it out. Every living entity thinks the whole world is for me to enjoy. Not only the human beings, the cockroaches, the flies. When the fly lands on a house, it’s thinking, this is my house. It’s not thinking, this is Mr. Sharma’s house or Mr. Murugan’s house. This is my house. That is what the fly is thinking. So like that, we also think that this is my body. But we are only here for a short time, then we leave. So why are we saying all these things? Because what’s really important is what we do with the body to return to our spiritual consciousness. Of course, we have to maintain the body while we are in it, we clean it, we educate it, we use it for different practical works. But then we have to simultaneously, through the use of this body; we can actually realize the eternal self, realize our relationship with Kṛṣṇa, Param Bhagavān. Then life has actually become a complete success. Then if we are Kṛṣṇa conscious when we leave this body, Kṛṣṇa says that nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gatāḥ (Bg. 8.15) – you don’t come back to the material world. You go back to His abode and never to come back here again. Not only does one go back, but the whole family also goes back.

Now reading Bhagavad-gītā is a very, very powerful thing. In Padma Purāṇa, every chapter of Bhagavad-gītā has got its own separate Māhātmyā. Just by reading one of the chapters of Bhagavad-gītā, one can achieve all kinds of spiritual benefits. For instance, in reading the fourth chapter of Bhagavad-gītā is mentioned that once there was one Satya Tapas, a great yogī. He was such a great yogī, he was doing all kinds of meditation and tapasya. He became very powerful. And even Lord Brahmā would sometimes visit him. He was such a great yogī. So Lord Indra became worried that this yogī is getting so much puṇya, so much pious activity that if he wants, he can replace me also. So he has some of his dancing Apsarā girls. He has two of them. “I want you to go down and I want you to make this yogī fall-down from his tapasya. Because he is trying to take over my position.” Actually, the yogī didn’t want Indra’s position. It was paranoia on behalf of Indra. But he talked to his Apsarās like that. So they thought we have to save our master. We have to go down and we have to do this. Although it’s not very nice, but what to do? We have to do it for Indradeva. So they went down and the yogīs meditating and the two apsaras, they had some musicians and they started to dance and they putting on a beautiful dance. The yogī is trying to meditate and hear their, “ding, ding, ding!” ankle bells and music. And you know, I guess you have seen the Hindi movie and stuff. I think that Apsarā is a much better dancer. So we cannot even imagine how their dancing is. But they tried their level best to be very attractive. That yogī finally opened his eyes. “What is going on? What’s all the noise?” He sees the girls dancing, smiling. Even, they try to like, expose a little bit of their feminine beauty to that yogī to get him attracted. Finally, he just got so fed up. So I kind of meditate. What is the whole song and dance? But he just cursed them. He said, “I cursed both of you become trees”. They just realized that whatever we thought, we had the yogī all enamored, he is looking, opened his eyes. We thought we conquered him, and now we just got cursed to be trees. They stopped the music. They fell at his feet, they said, “Please, actually, we create a great offense on you. You are a great yogī. You have total control of your senses. But Indra sent us, our only fault was, we were just following orders.” “He says, he is afraid that you are going to take over his position. We didn’t know.” “So what do I want position of Indra? It’s all nonsense.” “So please have mercy on us, take away this curse.” “Well, I can’t take away a curse. You are already cursed. But what I can do, is because you are innocent girls. Okay, I will give you a blessing. You can be delivered, when someone reads the fourth chapter of Bhagavad-gītā under you. One devotee will come and read under your tree. You will be delivered.”

So there, by the side of the Ganges, two trees. There they were... Svarga opulence, Indra’s court... You can imagine, how much happiness, they could have there. Next thing, they are standing on the side of the Ganges, two trees cursed. You know what people do on the side of the river. I mean, I am sure making nets and all dogs and so many people probably breaking their twigs out and brushing their teeth. And here they are standing and thinking, “Why don’t… they didn’t lose their memory, they can remember the whole thing. Seeing all this, they said, we really blew it. We are carrying out (the order of) Indra. But Indra couldn’t protect us from curse of the brāhmaṇa.”

So there was one devotee used to go and read the Bhagavad-gītā every day, fourth chapter; memorized the Bhagavad-gītā fourth chapter. He just read the fourth chapter. One day, after reading the fourth chapter, he was a little tired just lately laid down, put his head on the one tree and his foot on the other tree. Soon as he touched both the trees, while he was holding the trees changed form and became the two girls again. And he looked, what happened? And they paid obeisances and they said, “We were cursed. And because you read the Bhagavad-gītā so nicely. You are great devotion to the Lord, by your reading of Bhagavad-gītā, we got freed from the curse.” So then they went to some… either they took birth again or they went to some place and they were in a family of devotees and they just started to do devotional service, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. Doing devotional service, and then at the end of their life they went back to spiritual world. So they also continued to read the Bhagavad-gītā. So they were actually blessed this way. The fourth chapter, Bhagavad-gītā, we get a ticket back to Kṛṣṇaloka, back to Vaikuṇṭha. So we take this Bhagavad-gītā many times for granted. But if we actually, study every chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā has immense potency. This pastime, because just the person memorized one chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, because of that they get delivered. What to speaking of the whole Bhagavad-gītā? Any of you want to memorize the chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā? It’s a good thing for kids because they have got good memories. Pick out chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā and memorize. Any difficulty…

There is one person, who was… some demon tried to enter into his body, some very sinful, subtle creature. Immediately he started remembering the 9^th chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, and simply he had 9^th chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, they left his body, and they ran couldn’t enter him. He was protected by the Viṣṇudūtas. Every chapter of the Gītā has got its potency, different kinds of potencies. What to speak of you study the whole Bhagavad-gītā. But we don’t realize how powerful the Bhagavad-gītā is. So that’s why Vyāsadeva wrote down the māhātmyās for each chapter, so that people can realize how great the words of Lord Kṛṣṇa are, even on to deliver us. I didn’t read all the… I haven’t. I just happened to come across that part of the Padma Purāṇa. I didn’t read every chapter, glorious... I don’t know the glory to the second chapter, but it’s there. Second chapter, third chapter, each one has got a glorious, māhātmyā.

We know how Lord Caitanya, He said, the real point of reading Bhagavad-gītā is to understand, how merciful Kṛṣṇa is. Is that blind paṇḍita, you know the story of the blind paṇḍita of the Bhagavad-gītā? Know or don’t know? Everybody knows? Lord Caitanya, He was traveling in South India and there he saw there was a paṇḍita and actually wasn’t blind, he was illiterate. I’m sorry, I said the wrong thing. He was there reading the Bhagavad-gītā. But all the people were standing, laughing at him, throwing stones at him and things and then making fun. And Lord Caitanya saw he was crying. He said, “What is this mocking at this person? He is crying.” He said, “What is wrong? What is happening?” And he said, “I’m reading Bhagavad-gītā.” He said, “Why, you are crying? Why are these people harassing you?” He said, “Well, I don’t know how actually I’m reading Bhagavad-gītā. My guru ordered me to read the Bhagavad-gītā every day. But actually, I don’t know reading and writing. So I’m just hearing out the guru’s order and I’m moving the pages. But then I’m remembering how merciful Kṛṣṇa is, how He became the chariot driver for His devotee, Arjuna. And when I think how the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He was so merciful to accept the role of being a humble servant for His own devotee out of love. I become so moved that I cannot restrain myself and the tears are just coming from my eyes.” So then Lord Caitanya said that, he wasn’t at all crying because of all the harassment of the people. But he was actually crying out of deep appreciation for Kṛṣṇa’s mercy. So He picked up that brāhmaṇa and embraced him and said, “You are the real paṇḍita of the Bhagavad-gītā. So the really important aspect of Bhagavad-gītā is to appreciate how merciful Kṛṣṇa is. He spoke the Bhagavad-gītā for our upliftment.

Prabhupāda was firstly, reading the Bhagavad-gītā… Even in Māyāpur we saw him reading. Sometimes we just think, well, it’s a beginning book, we should get on. But we can read Bhagavad-gītā many, many times. And of course, we have to also read the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and other literatures as well that Prabhupāda had written. The Bhagavad-gītā is very important. And for preaching, it’s the most important because all the basic preaching points are there in the Bhagavad-gītā.

Now in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Lord Caitanya, He ordered that everybody in the world should take up the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement and distribute it to others. So this is what we have been discussing is how actually all of you have got the special mercy of Lord Caitanya to take up Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But it’s not only that we should take it up, but we should try to give it to others. People are in this material world. They are suffering birth, death, old age, disease, suffering different problems. Just by a little advancement of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they can be free from so many kinds of suffering, they can actually get complete happiness, and in the next life, they can go back to Godhead. Prabhupāda said, our purpose is that all people should be happy in general. They should get purified from the contamination of this material world and thus become eligible to return back to the spiritual kingdom. At the end of this life. Our program is, everyone should be happy. We know that Kṛṣṇa says, duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (Bg. 8.15), that this material world is a place of suffering and it’s a temporary place. (incomplete recording).