How freedom can be achieved from doubt and confusion | BG 10.4-5 | 8 Sep 1998 | Gopāl Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī

In two verses of the 10th chapter, Kṛṣṇa is describing certain qualities that we as human beings should endeavor to cultivate. Actually, everything comes from the Lord, whether it be good qualities or bad qualities, in the sense that the Lord gives everyone the free choice. Krishna says, sarvasya ca ham hindi sanyveshto matahasmiti jnanam apalanam ca. I am the source of remembrance and forgetfulness. So those who want to remember the Lord, they get the necessary intelligence from the Lord. Those who want to forget the Lord also get suitable intelligence. And the quality being mentioned in this verse, in these two verses, are the positive qualities that we should all endeavor to cultivate. Positive qualities help us advance spiritually, and negative qualities help us in the opposite direction. The audience assembled here is primarily interested in positive qualities. That's why they are present on this occasion. The first quality that Krishna mentioned here is buddhi. Buddhi means intelligence. So spiritual intelligence means having the ability to see things in the right perspective. In other words, see things from a spiritual perspective and understand the difference between matter and spirit. Material intelligence is used for destructive purposes. Spiritual intelligence is used to see things in the right perspective in relationship to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. For example, one who has spiritual intelligence sees and understands that the Lord is the source of all success. Krishna says in the Gītā, 'I am the ability in man.' So if somebody has some ability, one understands, 'Yes, this is due to the causeless mercy of the Lord.' And if there is some success, that's also due to the causeless mercy of the Lord. And hence we use everything in the service of the Lord. One who has spiritual intelligence does not lament either for the living or the dead. He understands that the spirit soul never dies. It's only the perishable body that with the passage of time deteriorates and vanishes. Therefore, one who has spiritual intelligence is not affected by the dualities of material nature. Material world is always full of duality. One who has spiritual intelligence is able to rise above the duality on the basis of spiritual awareness. Actually, each of these qualities could take on a very detailed explanation, but since we have limited time, I'm just going to touch on them briefly. Then another quality that Krishna mentions here is jnāna, which means knowledge.

Krishna says in the Gītā, rājavidyā rāja-gūyam, this knowledge is the king of education.

So obviously when we talk about knowledge, we talk about knowledge from a spiritual perspective. On shastra-jakshus, seeing through the eyes of the scriptures.

Shastra means words of God. It's just like I'm using glasses to see.

A person with spiritual vision uses the scriptures to see. If you see the scriptures to see, then you will not get bewildered in all situations. You'll be rightly situated. So spiritual knowledge should be cultivated from the age of 5 onwards. There may be many universities and colleges giving a variety of academic courses, but unless you understand this knowledge, everything else is shaman, aewali kevalam, simply a waste of time. You may have 1 zero, 2 zeros, 100 zeros, they mean The same. But the moment you add the figure 1, the zeros become meaningful. So similarly, the moment we connect everything to Kṛṣṇa, our endeavours can be a success.

With Kṛṣṇa, hell is heaven, and without Kṛṣṇa, heaven is hell.

In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, there is a story of a king called Śrītaketu. He had millions of wives, but he didn't have any children from any of them. So the king was always very sad. Morose. So one day a sage came to his palace and said, "King, why do you always look sad?

You are handsome, rich, you have all the facilities.

Why are you always sad?" He said, "I don't have a child, a son to succeed me." That was the cause of his unhappiness. Yeh taboo kuchh nahi ho. It's just— The sage blessed him and said, You'll have a son, but that son will be the cause of your happiness and distress. At that point in time, the king could not understand how the son that he was longing for could ever be the cause of unhappiness. Then later, a son was born from one of his wives, and the king started giving all his attention and love to that child and his mother. And he started ignoring his other co-wives. With the result that the other co-wives became very envious of the king's wife and her son.

So on the first anniversary of the child, the co-wives poisoned the child.

So when the king and his wife found out that the young son whom they cherished and loved so much had died, they naturally became very, very sad. And Then the sage Angira Rishi, along with Radha Muni, again happened to be passing by, and they came to the palace of the king.

When they came, they saw the king was very sad, unhappy, crying.

So they asked the king what was the cause. And then by the power of the sages, the dead son was brought back to life. The son was called Harsha Shoka when he was alive. Harsha shoka in Sanskrit means happiness and distress.

So in material life, actually we are all harsha shokas.

One minute you are the source of pleasure, the other moment you become the source of pain. So we can call our names are in some respect harsha shokas. In the Bhagavatam, there is a story of a king called King Prajnan. Prajnan in Sanskrit means the enjoyer of the body. So actually we are all enjoyers of this body. Kings of the body. Kings of the body in the sense we have the freedom to decide how to use this gift, how to use this body. When Harashishoka was brought back to life, the sages advised him that he should go back to his parents.

Harashishoka said, "Which parents you want me to go back to? I had so many. This family I had only for 1 year, but I've had so many parents.

Which ones you want me to go go back to?" back to. And then by his preaching, King Chittaketra and his wife came to the realization how this body is temporary and the real eternal nature is the nature of the soul.

So knowledge means understanding the distinction between matter and spirit. Modern knowledge, or knowledge as it is conceived of by society, Only talks about matter with no reference to the spark that moves the matter. Matter moves when touched by the spirit. So it's very important that in any, any educational system we understand the nature of the spiritual spark.

Therefore, in the Krishna Consciousness movement, we give people real knowledge. Hence we have 2 classes a day in all our temples, morning and evening.

We should not take the ISKCON as just a religious organization. We are actually an educational institution giving people the highest education they can possibly obtain. How many institutes in your country are teaching people the art of living, the art of dying, the real understanding of our future.

With regards to the art of living, Vedic scriptures teach us the importance of living for the pleasure of the Lord according to the direction of the scriptures. And if you learn the art of living, you'll also learn the art of dying. The art of dying is ante narayansmiti, at the moment of death to be able to remember the Supreme God. Then it says 'Amoha'— 'asamoha.' 'Asamoha' means freedom from doubt. Freedom from doubt and delusion, actually.

So freedom from doubt and delusion is a result of intelligence and knowledge.

You can only be free from doubt and delusion once you have proper intelligence and proper knowledge. Then 'shama.' 'Shama' means forgiveness.

Now the nature of a devotee is to be very forgiving.

A devotee doesn't believe in the principle of zubazu, eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. If you read the lives of great characters, you see nothing but a display of forgiveness. There's so many examples. The most classic example of King Bhrishnu. Conspired to kill him, but he was just protected due to the causeless mercy of the Lord. On the battle of Kurukshetra, Dhritarashtra had lost all his children and grandchildren. If Yudhishthira wanted, he could easily have had him arrested and punished.

But instead of that, he sympathized with his uncle and said, I'm sorry that you've lost your children and grandchildren. Here is this wonderful palace.

Please come and live in this. Prahlāda Mahārāja forgave his father even though his father tried his best to harm him. His father virtually tried every trick under the sun to annihilate, to kill Prahlāda Mahārāja. What was his major offence? He was not a devotee of Raghunātha Kāśyapa. He was a devotee of Krishna. His father wanted him to be Krishna's devotee. After the Lord finally killed Hiranyakashipu, Balaram went to the Lord and prayed as follows: Even though he was demonic, even though he tried to harm me, you may please give him liberation.

The Lord replied: You don't have to pray for that.

Because he was your father, it was automatically your prayer. So when he becomes a devotee of the Lord, he benefits all his family members by the power of his devotion. Prabhupada makes this clear in the purport to this section of the Bhāgavad-gītā. Prabhupada makes it clear in his purport to Pralāda's prayer that his father may be liberated. Hāidāśhāgo was innocent, just engaged in chanting the Holy Name 300,000 times a day. Few days ago we celebrated his disappearance day. I'm sure you must have heard the reading from the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. We're passing away in Kṛṣṇa's platform.

So, Hāidāsa, as you know, was whipped in 22 different marketplaces. Whipped, not by one person, by 10, 12 people. Why were they whipping him?

Isāśvārma sthikara yuvuḥ kṛṣṇaḥ. "Please stop chanting." Stop chanting the name of Kṛṣṇa.

Haridas Thakura was thinking, "These servants of Rājendra Kāṇḥ have been trying to whip me for such a long time, and now my Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu is mercifully alive." 'If I don't die, then they will be attacked, criticized, beaten by the king.' He took pity upon those people who were trying to kill him. So he pretended as if he had died.

And then they were very happy. And they threw the dead body, thinking it's a dead body, threw it in the sacred river. Then Haridas swam across to the other side and again started chanting 'Hare Krishna.' So that's the nature of our Vaiṣṇavas, forgiving nature. So we should be forgiving. Of course, if someone is trying to put impediments in the path of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we naturally have to use intelligence to conquer it. But the nature of a devotee is to be forgiving. The Bhāgavatam predicts that in Kali-yuga, with the passage of time, all auspicious qualities are on the decline.

Then satya.

Satya means truthfulness. So truthfulness is, as you know, one of the four essential ingredients of Vedic devotional life. Devotee should be truthful. Spiritual life runs on the principle of truthfulness. The beginning of truthfulness is being truthful to the instruction of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Why did Prabhupāda call it karkana? Yes. Prasad Raaval. Because he wanted to present the truthful teachings of the Lord without any distortion. So we should be truthful in understanding as it is, the teachings of the Lord. Truthful to our spiritual vows. Truthful in our dealings with each other. And if you are truthful, then Krishna is on your side. The other day I was giving you the story of Vaman Dev and Bali Maharaja. I believe this will all be Bhagavan's appearance there. So Bali Manohar was being advised by Śukrācārya to go back on the promise that he had given to Bhagavan. Bali Manohar said, "Just like a husband may joke with his wife, friend with a friend, you just say you were joking and do not honor your commitment." What did Bali say in exchange? The full word, he said, "The earth can tolerate the weight of the mountains, oceans, rippers of all the living beings, shishu, shishuris, plants, but it cannot tolerate the weight of a lie.

So I can't tell a lie.

So our philosophy is to speak the truth, but speak the truth in a palatable manner.

The truth has to be spoken, but it should be spoken intelligently. If you present the fact intelligently, then the truth will be accepted.

Just like it is said, the truth should be spoken but in satyam. Satyam must be spoken but in a palatable manner, not unpalatable. Just like Bhagavad Gita says, men who are like dogs, hogs, camel, asses, adhiti glorifying others who are also similar in nature.

So we speak the truth but in a palatable way.

If you just go on the street and tell people, "Sabbath, cook enough chicken," I don't think people will listen to you. If you told them in a nice way that the activities of gross materialists are similar to the activities of animals and explain to them, then they would listen to you. So, satya must be there but presented palatably.

Sometimes in Vaishnava behavior, You may see some weakness being exhibited by another devotee.

So how should we correct?

Naturally in a palatable way.

If present, try to correct in an unpalatable way, it may not have the desire to grow.

So we stick to the path of truthfulness.

And Vaishnava behavior, or Vaishnava is forgiving, as we just said. Urvāsāmuni tried to burn Amarish Manas with the Sudarshan Chakra. So, devotee is forgiving and truthful, and truthfulness should be a guiding spirit. Unfortunately, in Kali Yuga, people do not want to take shelter of truthfulness. They want to do everything by legal agreements now. And even with written legal agreements, It has the opposite effect. No one honors it, and they end up in the courts, which is good for no one but the lawyers and the judges. So if Kali is the advocate and the judges, they will feel good. Then dama. Dama means control of the senses.

Now dama is also the result of buddhi and jnana.

Because people do not have buddhi and jnana, They laugh at us when you tell them about the importance of sense control. We discuss these two together. Dharma is control of the senses and sama is control of the mind. So control of the mind and the senses can only be possible if you have proper intelligence and proper knowledge. Because as we discussed, buddhi and jnana means seeing things in a proper perspective. Now when you see things in the proper perspective, you will come to the conclusion that the mind and the senses can never be satisfied. The mind will never be peaceful without meditating in the lotus feet of the Lord, and the senses will never be satisfied unless engaged positively. Through so many examples in the Bhāgavatam, the scriptures, we get the understanding that the senses can never be satisfied. We read the story of King Yajnavalkya. So what is the nature of the senses? They can never be satisfied. Just like when you have an itching sensation, by scratching, itching sensation doesn't go away. Rather, you get some temporary relief, but then the disease becomes worse. Materialistic propaganda is sense gratification should never be given up.

So when they hear about the regulative principles that we advocate, when they think of, when they hear about the importance of avoiding, of exercising sense control, they think that we Hare Krishnas are simply mad. They think we are messing with joys of life.

We are not messing anything. We are learning the higher art of sense pleasure. As Maharaj Rishabh Dev says, when you perform austerities for the pleasure of the Lord, in exchange you experience unending happiness.

Talk to any materialist and ask him, has he been able to satisfy his senses? Is he content?

The answer will be, if he's honest, no. They always want more, more, more. They would love to act as if they are just in their teens. So, when we talk about sense control, When we talk about mind control, it doesn't mean that we don't satisfy the senses, but we satisfy them in a positive way. Control of the senses just means removing the poison from the senses. Control of the mind just means educating the mind positively. If you take the poison out of the teeth of the snake, then even if the snake bites you, there is no risk.

Poison refers to Engaging the senses in simple activities.

And if we analyze the traditional sources of sense pleasure, we can easily see that the traditional sources of sense pleasure are destructive, materially and spiritually. All over the Russia and CIS, every corner you see billboards of different cigarette brands. You see more reclams of foreign brands than Russian brands. People seem to think If I smoke this American cigarettes, maybe I won't get cancer. So, you know, that is one form of sense pleasure. Everyone knows how smoking, drinking are disasters for your health. And of course, they are harmful spiritually also. Against the laws of God.

But people today are so intoxicated, they can see in front of them, they can read statistics how people are dying of cancer and all caused by smoking, drinking, meat eating, but it's so addictive, they have no sense control, that they become a victim.

Sense pleasure, either in the form of eating without discrimination, mating without discrimination, etc., is just the cause of bondage. The rules and regulations are there for human society so that we live by these rules and regulations We can make spiritual advancement. And control of the mind. Control of the mind means thinking of Kṛṣṇa, bowing down to Kṛṣṇa, offering homage unto Kṛṣṇa. Some other aspects of controlling the mind are being satisfied with whatever is provided by the Lord. Generally in society, no one is satisfied. He wants more, more, more.

Gravity, grave.

And purify your existence by chanting the Holy Name. We fortunately have one tongue and two ears. Is that what you have? Rupa Gosvāmī says, "My dear Lord, even if I had a thousand tongues and thousand ears, that would not be enough to fully glorify You." You survive by using one tongue and two ears in glorification mudra board, and that will enable one to control the senses and the mind. Then it says sukham and dukham, happiness and distress. So in the material world, there is happiness and there is distress.

Generally, we tend to be happy when we get what we want. We tend to be unhappy when you don't get what you want. Ramana Maharshi asked Chaitanya Mahāprabhu—

I'm sorry, Chaitanya Mahāprabhu asked Ramana Maharshi, "What is the greatest distress?" On the banks of the Godāvī, Chaitanya Mahāprabhu had a very wonderful dialogue with Ramana Maharshi that is produced in the Chaitanya-carṇāmṛta. So Chaitanya Mahāprabhu, in order to glorify his devotee, asked him a series of questions Just like Lord Krishna told Viveshnamaharaj to ask the dying Bismadev questions on the goal of life. So one question Caitanya Mahāprabhu asked, "What is the greatest distress?" To which the reply was, "The greatest distress is staying away from the association of the world." So happiness and distress It's not perceived in terms of what am I getting from the senses and what I'm not getting.

But happiness is when you have the opportunity to advance spiritually, and distress is when you engage in something that is unfavorable for spiritual advancement. Just like describing the process of śrī-nāgati to Sanatana Gosvāmī, ceta-nam hāprabhu-geva, Six guidelines. He said, "Accept everything favorable for spiritual advancement and reject everything unfavorable." So when you accept something favorable, you have cause to be happy.

So anything favorable for spiritual consciousness should be accepted and become the cause of happiness. Just like, we chanted rounds nicely, we became the opportunity to start this center. If you have the opportunity to hear discourses, if you have the opportunity to do nice service, naturally you are happy and you are entitled to this spiritual happiness. And you become unhappy when you engage in activities detrimental for spiritual advancement. So that is how we determine happiness and distress.

Not if I don't get the honor I think I deserve, I become unhappy.

One within knowledge, he accepts everything, as we said, from a spiritual perspective. Then bhava, birth, or bhava, death. So one within knowledge, as we said earlier, doesn't get affected by the living or the dead. As far as the soul is concerned, there is no birth or death. Bhava refers to the birth of the body. Birth and death applies with reference to the body and not the spirit soul. Then there is bhaya, fear, and chavya. Bhaya means fear and chavya means, abhyaya means fearlessness. Basically everyone is full of fear. This is nicely reflected in the prayer, bhaja vrahe manah shree nandanandana abhaya charyanarodhinda devi. Gauranga Das says, "Everyone is living a life of 'I am fear.'" Fear is there because we are worried about the future. The Prabhupada says, "One who is Kṛṣṇa conscious has no fear." His future is very bright. Why is his future bright? Because Kṛṣṇa guarantees that one who follows Me will come back to Me. Don't think Krishna is guaranteed lightly. Like these days, everybody likes to, wants to buy US dollars. They give people a choice, 'Do you want a rupee or a dollar?' They all say, 'I want a dollar.' Why? They think, 'Oh, this has more value.' So anytime it can be honored.

So if you're gonna have some material confidence just by having a currency in your hand and feel secure, Why should he not have confidence in Krishna says, "Surrender to me and I will protect you." So fear is caused due to our absorption in the illusory energy. Illusory energy means false energy. But those who are free from the influence of the illusory energy, those who understand that the nātha is bhārī, they are the eternal servitors of the world, they have no fear.

Fear. They are fearless. So the way to become fearless is not by increasing your bank balance or having a heavy security. You may do that, but the real process of becoming fearless is surrender to the teachings of the Lord.

A spiritualist is fearless.

That doesn't mean he doesn't use his intelligence or doesn't take precautions, but he knows ultimately everything is under the control of the Lord. So Krishna says become fearless.

Surrender to me and I will protect you. But unfortunately we say, how can I surrender to you, Krishna?

Let me surrender to the illusory energy for some more time. Tomorrow I'll surrender to you. But when tomorrow comes, it's after again. There was once a man who was bringing water to the Jagannath Puri Temple. Every day he would come, leave the bucket of water at the gate and say, I'll come in tomorrow for darshan.

Should I let the others have darshan? I live here.

We would like to take darshan anytime. We are postponing taking darshan every day. One day we are going to have darshan. So we postpone our surrender. I know everything. I can surrender to Kṛṣṇa whenever I want. I am closely connected to Vaiṣṇava. I have all the books at home. I am initiated. We should not postpone this surrender. But surrendering to Kṛṣṇa is beautiful and rewarding. Kṛṣṇa reciprocates in proportion to our surrender. So these are some of the qualities that Kṛṣṇa mentions in this verse of the 10th chapter. There's another one verse with more qualities. I'm sorry I have to stop now. I have to go and meet some of my Godbrothers who are waiting for me. I'm already half an hour late. Sahaṇe Kṛṣṇa.