If you love Krishna, why avoid/distort the Gita? || Acharya Prashant, with DU (2023)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...  ~~~~~  Video Information: 24.01.23, DU-Law College, Greater Noida  Context: ~ How to be Krishna Lover? ~ What is the Bhakti Marg? ~ What is the ultimate purpose of life? ~ How to achieve ultimate happiness?  ~ How to be like Meera Bai?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Sir, I was listening to your podcast and in that you said that Upanishad says neti neti

00:11to personify the God, the God in the personified way because it is like disrespecting the God,

00:19that ultimate Brahm. But in Bhakti Marg it is said that one first to assume that God

00:25and with the help of Naam, Bhoop and Leela, we should try to reach that ultimate Brahm

00:30or that ultimate God. So, both are somewhere conflicting. So, I am following you also and

00:38I am following Bhakti Marg also. So, I am like in dilemma what to follow and whether

00:43to personify that God in that being or not. See, Brahm is not God. It's a popular misconception.

00:57Brahm is not God. So, in your question you said that there is a way to reach Brahm or

01:10God using this, this, this, this. First of all, Brahm is not God. The objective of all

01:17spirituality is truth realization, not God attainment. These are two very different goals.

01:34To believe in God, you have to believe in yourself, which is ego. So, God attainment

01:46can come only when there is a belief in the egoistic self. Who else will attain? Whereas

01:56truth realization involves dissolution of the ego, which means you are seeing yourself

02:08as fictitious, unnecessary, invalid. These are two very different things. Now, proceed

02:20from here. How do you know? How do you know? By reading the Vedantas, by doing meditation,

02:49by devoting ourselves to God. Bhagavatam is not Vedanta. So, what have you read? What

02:57do you know? Actually, in that, I read that the only purpose of life is not like to eating

03:06and like to sell, like how come or marjao. It's not like the whole purpose of your life.

03:12There is a bigger other purpose is there, that there is some bigger happiness is there

03:18to help others and ultimately there is something that God to achieve. Like Krishna, you can

03:25achieve Krishna by taking his name, by meditating, by Leela. So, there we have to assume.

03:33Why should you achieve Krishna? Very objectively, I am just inquiring.

03:40So, Krishna is ultimate. So, you must achieve him, right? Okay, right. And all this has

03:49been told to you by Krishna? No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

03:59If Krishna is ultimate, should I listen to Krishna or someone else? But there is no way

04:05to listen to Krishna directly, right? There is the Bhagavad Gita, there is the Bhagavad

04:10Gita. Instead of that, you are reading the Puran, which is not from Krishna. If Krishna

04:17is indeed ultimate, should I listen to Krishna or should I listen to anybody else, even if

04:22it's a high sage? But in Kaliyug, it is said that, that Srimad Bhagavatam. Who said that?

04:29Again, who said that? Krishna said that or somebody else? Somebody else, of course, somebody

04:33else. So, why should you not listen to Krishna directly? So, in Srimad Bhagavad Gita also,

04:40there is a concept of Bhakti Maag also. They talked about Bhakti Maag, where you had to

04:46personify that God. You don't have to personify. Bhakti is not at all about personification.

04:57Who has put these concepts to you? Sikhism, for example, is entirely a religion of devotion

05:08and tell a Sikh that God is a person and he'll not spare you.

05:16Not in a person, I'm not saying against a person, not a person in that sense, but someone

05:22whom we can love, whom we can devote, whom we can imagine, because in, like in, I'm again

05:29saying, I'm again saying, Bhakti is not about imagining something. All imagination arises

05:37from the ego and therefore all imagination is just ego fodder. This is a very unfortunate

05:46kind of cult that has developed over the last 50-100 years in India, not 100 years, 50-70 years.

05:59The cult of imagination, romantic kind of imagination. By romantic, I do not necessarily

06:05mean man-woman. Romantic means pleasing kind of imagination. Think of a pleasing God, a

06:12pleasing God, beautiful to look at. How do you know what Mirabai did? Have you really

06:21gone into her literature? How many of, how many of, how many of them have you read? How

06:32do you know you really understood what she was saying? And in all of this, and in all

06:40of this, why are you not talking of the Bhagavad Gita? Since I have not listened Bhagavad

06:50Gita to that extent, I had read myself once. But then all this discussion is with Krishna

06:55at the center, right? Yes, exactly. And the word of Krishna is Gita. And if Krishna is

07:04at the center, then Gita should be at the center. So why is Gita not at the center?

07:10If Krishna is at the center, you know what that means, the obvious conclusion? In all

07:14this that you are saying, not even Krishna is at the center. It is the ego that is at

07:19the center and it is the ego that looks for an imaginary personal kind of God. When Krishna

07:26is at the center, you do not go after imaginations. That's the difference between a real Krishna

07:33lover and a lover of imaginations. What is the correct way? Why should I tell you? Let

07:46Krishna tell you, so go to the Gita. It's not easy to decode it. I am talking to a Krishna

07:53lover, I suppose, right? Yeah, you are talking to a Krishna lover. And if I am talking to

07:58a Krishna lover, the Krishna lover should be the Gita lover. And how is Gita not easy

08:05to decode? The Bhagavad Purana is in Sanskrit, the Gita is in Sanskrit. If you can read the

08:10Bhagavad Purana, why can't you read the Gita? I read it, but you didn't comprehend it in

08:18the first attempt, right? Yeah, exactly. If you really love someone, how many times do

08:25you woo him? Till I don't get attained him. So if you really love Krishna, how many times

08:32would you attempt the Gita? Till I don't get that ultimate thing from that. But you have

08:39not attempted, what does that mean? Sir, it is like, I was going to, from that Srimad

08:46Bhagavatam path itself. Srimad Bhagavatam, we are talking of Krishna here. We are not

08:53talking of stories about Krishna. We are talking of Krishna directly. Not something

09:01about him, right? Something that emerged right from him, which is the Gita. Nothing comes

09:10close to the Gita. Right, we agree, it's an obvious thing. So if I really love Krishna,

09:18obviously I will be going through the Gita 2000 times. And in the light of Gita, I will

09:27then read Bhagavad Purana, Harivansh Purana, many other Puranas and then I will be able

09:35to understand the stories in the Puranic way. Without understanding the Gita, how will you

09:45understand the Purana? They also restricted, before reading Srimad Bhagavatam, try to learn

09:53Srimad Bhagavad Gita first. No, not try. Try is a very safe kind of excuse. I tried and

10:01I failed. You have to have Gita before you even touch any of the Puranic stories. Otherwise

10:09the stories will not make sense to you. You will just misinterpret all the stories. It's

10:15not good to personify Krishna through his stories, through his Baalilas. It is not right.

10:24Person is a technical term. Anything that you say is a technical term. You have to understand

10:33what person means. Vyakti, person is a term and the exact meaning of that term can be

10:42known only via Gita which is Vedanta. So, if I do not know what the person means, how

10:51will I know the implications of personification? Means my definition of person is wrong. Exactly.

11:03Our definition of person comes from the layman, from the social grapevine. So we say,

11:13oh he is moving, he is a person. There are two persons standing there. That's the way we define

11:18a person. Now that's not the way Gita defines a person. When you will understand how Gita and

11:26Vedanta define a person, you will be very very cautious of personifying Krishna. Do you know

11:38what Gita says about persons? So here comes a shocker. A person is a myth. A person is a

11:55myth. So if you have personified Krishna, you have turned Krishna to a myth. Now is that respect

12:06or love? See. But again to imagine on that great extent like you say. Imagination, now we will

12:20come to that word. That again is a technical word. Imagination. So what is imagination?

12:26To imagine Krishna. No, no, no. What is imagination? To bring something on our mind

12:38level. To imagine it. And Krishna is way higher than your mind. Imagination is activity of the

12:49ego. Subtle activity of the ego. The ego is the doer. Gross activity is seen in external action.

12:57For example, this action. When the action is within the mind, you call that as thought or

13:05imagination or conceptualization or whatever. So all that is just ego-centered, mental. Now

13:13Krishna by definition is to be much higher than the mind, right? But if I imagine about Krishna,

13:21what have I done? I have dragged him down to my own level and that is stubbornness of an evil

13:26order. I am saying I will not rise to the level of Krishna. Instead, I will drag him down to my

13:32level. I think of myself as a person. I will not stop thinking of myself as a person. Instead,

13:39I will turn Krishna into a person so that he comes down to my level. The fact is even I am

13:45not a person, how can Krishna be a person? Even you are not a person. It is a faulty assumption

13:58that you have. It is a fundamental illusion that you hold that you are a person. Even you are not

14:04a person. How can Krishna be a person? But it's a point to start like in maths also we assume it.

14:13And your assumption is always subject to verification, right? And you never assume an

14:22answer. But you here have assumed something that is very fundamental as a solution to a

14:34mathematics problem. Do you ever write? Let's assume the answer is 20, right? So, the assumption

14:45has to be a very superficial thing and always available to verification. But as soon as you

14:55say, let's assume Krishna is a person, that's no more an assumption. That becomes a fundamental

15:03thing you are starting from. You cannot do that. Please see how the mind works. The ego wants

15:15security and continuity. The ego says I want to remain as I am and I want to continue being as I

15:24am. So, what will I do? I will not change. But I have been told that something called Krishna is

15:31great to have. So, what will I do? I will think of Krishna as somebody like me, a person. Whereas

15:42the entire purpose of the Gita is to tell you that you are not a person. If you are not a person,

15:49how can Krishna be a person? Now see, look at the whole tragedy in this. Krishna is telling you,

15:57you are not a person and you are telling Krishna, you are a person. I don't know whether to call it

16:06tragic or comic. Krishna is telling you, dear daughter, you are not a person. Well, you are

16:16not even a daughter because if you are not a person, you can't have a gender. You are not a

16:23person. That's what Krishna is telling you and what do we come up with? We come up with a rebuttal

16:32and that says, no sir, I am obviously a person and to make it worse for you, even you are a person.

16:42So-called Krishna lovers have done this to Krishna and this entire orgy of imagination

16:59and picturization and narrative building and storytelling and this and that and

17:10Krishna is the one about whom not even a word can be said. Instead,

17:19we take perverse pleasure in narrating endless stories about Krishna.

17:27Then it's impossible to attain Krishna per se if I think in that sense that,

17:38remaining a person, obviously, you cannot attain Krishna. If you continue to believe

17:44in your personhood, Krishna will remain elusive. And it's difficult to forget my personhood.

17:55That's the entire objective of all spirituality and the Gita, to help you emerge from

18:08this illusory narrative of your personhood. That's the very objective, to help you realize

18:16that you are not a person. As long as you are a person, you will keep suffering. Spirituality

18:21exists to alleviate suffering. If you are a person, you are suffering. But you want to remain

18:34a person and you are so adamant that you turn Krishna too into a person just so that you can

18:39continue to suffer. That's the wisdom of ego for you. The one thing that I cannot give up is my

18:53suffering. Suffering because if I don't suffer, I feel I don't exist. So there have to be some

19:03problems, some torture, a lot of pain here and there. Only then I feel I exist.

19:13So what's the correct way, if I talk in one or two lines?

19:16Why should I tell you the way? Who is the ultimate?

19:20The ultimate is Krishna.

19:23So the way told by Krishna is called?

19:26Bhagavad Gita.

19:28So why should I tell you anything? Go to the Gita.

19:30But in Gita again, I am saying that there are various marks.

19:36So let's start with chapter one, right? Chapter one.

19:46Don't have, don't have.

19:48Should we, should not take that name or naam, like I am taking.

19:52Why should I tell you? Let Krishna tell that to you.

19:57Chapter one, Arjun speaks so much.

20:01In chapter two, Krishna will tell you where all the names come from.

20:05And then you will be in a position to decide whether all this naam, leela, roop, akaar,

20:12they are any good.

20:15You don't even have to go too far. Chapter two itself will settle the debate.

20:22So how in a, how you, you don't want to attend Krishna?

20:33I have the Gita.

20:41Is it sufficient?

20:43If Krishna is ultimate, Gita is sufficient.

20:46If Krishna is not ultimate, then you need four or five other things.

20:53Okay, let me read Gita first, then I'll come to you again.

20:58You may not need to.

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