Category
đź“š
LearningTranscript
00:00The questioner has quoted five verses, five consecutive verses, Shloka 40 to 44 of Chapter
00:216 of Srimad Bhagavad Gita.
00:25The Blessed Lord said, O Parth, there is certainly no ruin for him here or hereafter.
00:35For no one engaged in good meets with a deplorable end, my son.
00:43Attaining the worlds of the righteous and residing there for eternal years, the man
00:48fallen from Yog is born in the house of the pious and the prosperous, or he is born in
00:56the family of wise Yogis.
00:59Such a birth as is of this kind is surely more difficult to get in the world.
01:07There he becomes endowed with wisdom acquired in the previous body and he strives more than
01:13before for perfection, O Skayana of the Kuru dynasty, for by that very past practice he
01:22is carried forward even in spite of himself.
01:25Even of seeker of Yog transcends the result of the performance of Vedic rituals.
01:36In this sequence, the two verses prior to the first verse here, two should have been
01:45quoted.
01:46I'll give you the complete context.
01:53Arjun is asking, please tell me, O Krishan, what happens to those who have devotion towards
02:07the truth but are not unflappable.
02:15In Arjun's words, they have Shraddha but no Sanyam.
02:20So they are devoted but their devotion is not stable, their devotion keeps fluctuating.
02:31Sometimes they are devoted and sometimes they are not devoted and Shri Krishna is saying,
02:38you know, you require a lot of Abhyas, practice and practice means investment of time, a continuous
02:51period in which you are regularly, without fail, offering your devotion to your improvement,
03:00that is practice.
03:03Arjun is asking from his own point of view, he's saying all these things told by Shri
03:13Krishna look fabulous, but what if one wavers in between, he's thinking of himself, you
03:22know, yes, he's saying what if there is devotion, but devotion comes and goes and there are
03:35intermittent periods of destruction.
03:41So Shri Krishna says such a fellow is called Yogabhrast, Arjun would probably be buckling
03:51up to hear from Krishna that a Yogabhrast is bound to be barbecued in hell, but Krishna
04:01says no, even a Yogabhrast is far better than the normal mortal, it's just that the
04:17Yogabhrast guy will take a far longer route to come to me.
04:29Arjun says the faith that he has posed in me will not go waste, the devotion that he
04:41offered to me will bear its fruit, but it seems that the concerned person himself is
04:50not very interested in tasting the fruit immediately, so the fruit will remain in abeyance,
05:03you do not want the fruit right now, so your investment will mature later on as per your
05:14wishes, so he will take a long winding route.
05:19What kind of long winding route?
05:20He says this fellow will be reborn, but will be reborn at a conducive place, he will reborn
05:30in a family of pious people who are spiritually inclined and he will be some kind of a prodigious
05:40kid because all that he has learned in his previous birth will sort of stay with him,
05:54so therefore he will be able to understand the scriptures without much effort and then
06:06now in the current birth, if he has a little more sense and makes better decisions compared
06:15to his previous births, then he will attain liberation, because he has already put in
06:21a lot of effort that is there in store, he can capitalize on it whenever he wants to, getting it?
06:37The blessed one said, O Parth, there is certainly no ruin for him, who is this him?
06:44He has been referred to in the previous verses, him is the fellow who has Shraddha, but not
06:51Saiyam, who has devotion, but not stillness, firmness, he is not unflinching, he is not
07:03deeply rooted, sometimes he is in, sometimes he is out, that kind of a fellow.
07:11So Krishna is saying, Arjun, there is certainly no ruin for this person here or hereafter,
07:17for no one engaged in good meets with a deplorable end.
07:23Attaining the worlds of the righteous and residing there for eternal years, the man
07:28fallen from Yog, Yogabhrast, is born in the house of the pious and the prosperous or he
07:36is born in the family of wise Yogis, such a birth as is of this kind is surely more
07:42difficult to get, there in that house he becomes endowed with that wisdom acquired in the previous
07:50body and he strives more than before for perfection, O Arjun, for by that past practice
08:01he is carried forward even in spite of himself, even a seeker of Yoga transcends the result
08:07of the performance of Vedic rituals.
08:10So that's the thing, now the question, Shri Krishna explains to Arjun that how nothing
08:17bad can happen to the one, no, no, that's not the case, anyway, Shri Krishna explains
08:23to Arjun that nothing bad can happen to the one who moves towards the supreme self, even
08:30if he deflects from the righteous path, while doing so he speaks of reincarnations and carrying
08:36forward of virtues from one birth to another, please help me understand what is really meant
08:40by that, time, time, nothing else, and it's not that Shri Krishna is saying that nothing
08:46bad can happen to him, what worse than to delay the inevitable, you are delaying your
08:57destiny, is that not bad, obviously that is not bad if you compare it with those who are
09:08not even looking at their destiny, compared to them, it is wonderful, but if you look
09:17at it from the point of view of attainment versus potential, then it is a bad situation,
09:29you had the possibility to attain something utterly quickly and you have brought time
09:37in between, you have unnecessarily postponed it, very bad, then the question arises, then
09:46why does Krishna say that anybody who invests faith in me does never meet a deplorable end
09:57and is never ruined, you must understand the person Krishna is speaking to, Arjun is already
10:05nervous, do you understand the question?
10:12All this comes towards the fag end of chapter 6, Krishna has already told Arjun that there
10:25is no way but to engage in selfless action, it is very difficult for Arjun to understand
10:40let alone follow, so Arjun is saying I'm kind of getting you, but I clearly see that I will
10:49not be able to stand firm in what you are saying, because his understanding is not complete,
10:57when your understanding is not complete, then how can you be unflappable, you will keep
11:03a vacillating, so the reply has been customized to not to discourage Arjun, now Arjun is asking
11:18sir, your words are beautiful, but please tell me what happens to those who follow your
11:26words only partially, that's the question in effect, practically that's what Arjun is
11:31asking and suppose if Krishna says Arjun, they will burn in the fires of hell, those
11:39who follow me only partially, then Arjun knows very well now what lies in store for him,
11:46he was anyway so nervous and the moment Krishna tells him that if you follow me only partially,
11:52then you will burn in hell or a sad end and total ruin awaits you, then Arjun will be
11:59thoroughly discouraged, correct?
12:03So Krishna advises him according to his situation, he says don't worry, even if you follow me
12:09only partially, yet there are great benefits, what Krishna is saying him, dude follow me
12:14at least partially, he is not encouraging him to follow only partially, Krishna is saying
12:23follow me at least partially because Krishna can practically see that Arjun will not be
12:30able to follow him totally and absolutely, so in a very practical way, Shri Krishna is
12:36going for the next best option, he is saying you cannot follow me absolutely, follow me
12:40at least partially, so to encourage Arjun, he is saying you know Arjun, even if you follow
12:46me only partially, yet great things will happen to you, maybe in this birth you won't be liberated,
12:53but in the next birth you will be born in a pious and prosperous families or maybe you
12:58will be born in a family of yogis and you will be born with supreme talents because
13:04you will remember all that you have read and known in your previous birth, so you will
13:10quickly attain liberation in one of your coming births, so now Arjun is feeling alright, fine,
13:16so that means if I listen to Krishna, at least some gain will be there, that much is guaranteed,
13:24that kind of thing.
13:25Now Krishna would not have said the same thing to a more earnest seeker, had a more earnest
13:33seeker asked the same question, Shri Krishna would have said, why are you unnecessarily
13:38delaying the inevitable, why are you waiting for 200 years to get liberated, when liberation
13:46is possible right now, then why are you saying that you will have Shraddha but not Sayyam,
13:53if you say that you have Shraddha, then honesty demands that you have Sayyam also, Sayyam
13:59means remaining stable in your Shraddha, Sayyam means being honest about your Shraddha, that
14:09is devotion, what kind of devotion is it that cannot absorb you completely, lack of Sayyam
14:20means you are not fully absorbed, you are half in and half out.
14:30So the yoga brushed person is better off than the one who has no love, no feeling for yoga,
14:48but that does not mean that the yoga brushed root is a good root at all, it's just that
14:58even if you are yoga brushed, you do get some benefits.
15:02Now we come to the concern regarding rebirth, the questioner seems to be asking, what is
15:11this thing about being born in a better family in the next birth and carrying the, that has
15:18to be understood merely as the introduction of time, being born again at a better place
15:29merely means that your worldly conditions will anyway be better off, if you have some
15:38spiritual inclination right now, if your spiritual investment was total, then you would have
15:47been liberated from the world, please understand, had your Shraddha been absolute, that would
15:52have resulted in absolute liberation from the world, but your devotion, your Shraddha
15:59is not absolute, it is partial, so it will not give you liberation from the world, but
16:05still it will give you better situations in the world, are you getting it, total devotion
16:12in the truth will liberate you from the world, partial devotion in the truth will lead to
16:18an improvement in your situation in the world, that is what Shri Krishna is referring to
16:23as being reborn in a better family, it merely means your situation in the world will improve
16:29and that obviously will, if you are wise, then even your worldly situation is going
16:35to improve and when your worldly situation will improve, that will incentivize you all
16:42the more to dive deeper into wisdom, because you do have some devotion, you do have some
16:50wisdom even if partial, so when you start seeing the result of that devotion coming
16:57to you, then you feel energized, incentivized to be devoted even more and when you are devoted
17:06even more, you come to a point when there is complete liberation from the world, that's
17:12the practical essence of Shri Krishna's words on the Yoga Bhrashtra, getting it.
17:28So, Shri Krishna is saying that at least follow me partially, so it is under the assumption
17:38that it may start with the partial and may convert to the total, but in the beginning
17:49when we were talking about that it's a choice, man is born with a choice that whether he
17:57wants to go all the way or not, then isn't this a very big gamble that you are pushing
18:07somebody for even for the partial, when it is, when it cannot be said that it will go
18:16for the total, as in this half-fed knowledge, wouldn't it be more harmful, that's the best
18:24case possible, because that's how this person is choosing for himself, nothing better if
18:34this fellow could have chosen absolute liberation, but he is very unwilling to go for perfection,
18:47he is in some kind of a trial mode, and Shri Krishna is saying fine, if that is your decision,
19:00at least try out the stuff, obviously had your devotion, your investment been deeper,
19:13had you made bigger commitments, then you would have received greater benefits, but
19:24I cannot force you to commit yourself in a deeper way, I can only encourage you, this
19:36is his way of encouraging Arjuna.