Bhagavad-gita As It Is - Macmillan 1972 Edition -- Prabhupada Books (75 page)

Here the Lord indirectly says that if anyone wants to know the Absolute Truth, "Here I am present as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. I am the Supreme." One should know this. Although one cannot understand the inconceivable Lord who is personally present, He nonetheless exists. We can actually understand Kṛṣṇa, who is eternal, full of bliss and knowledge, simply by studying His words in
Bhagavad-gītā
and
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
The impersonal Brahman can be conceived by persons who are already in the inferior energy of the Lord, but the Personality of Godhead cannot be conceived unless one is in the transcendental position.

Because most men cannot understand Kṛṣṇa in His actual situation, out of His causeless mercy He descends to show favor to such speculators. Yet despite the Supreme Lord's uncommon activities, these speculators, due to contamination in the material energy, still think that the impersonal Brahman is the Supreme. Only the devotees who are fully surrendered unto the Supreme Lord can understand, by the grace of the Supreme Personality, that He is Kṛṣṇa. The devotees of the Lord do not bother about the impersonal Brahman conception of God; their faith and devotion bring them to surrender immediately unto the Supreme Lord, and out of the causeless mercy of Kṛṣṇa, they can understand Kṛṣṇa. No one else can understand Him. So even great sages agree: What is
ātmā
, what is the Supreme? It is He whom we have to worship.

Bg 10.3

TEXT 3

TEXT

yo mām ajam anādiṁ ca

vetti loka-maheśvaram

asammūḍhaḥ sa martyeṣu

sarva-pāpaiḥ pramucyate

SYNONYMS

yaḥ-
anyone;
mām
-unto Me;
ajam
-unborn;
anādim
-without beginning;
ca
-also;
vetti
-knows;
loka-
the planets;
maheśvaram
-supreme master;
asaṁmūḍhaḥ-
without doubt;
saḥ-
he;
martyeṣu
-among those subject to death;
sarva-pāpaiḥ
-from all sinful reactions;
pramucyate
-is delivered.

TRANSLATION

He who knows Me as the unborn, as the beginningless, as the Supreme Lord of all the worlds-he, undeluded among men, is freed from all sins.

PURPORT

As stated in the Seventh Chapter, those who are trying to elevate themselves to the platform of spiritual realization are not ordinary men. They are superior to millions and millions of ordinary men who have no knowledge of spiritual realization, but out of those actually trying to understand their spiritual situation, one who can come to the understanding that Kṛṣṇa
is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the proprietor of everything, the unborn, is the most successful spiritually realized person. In that stage only, when one has fully understood Kṛṣṇa's supreme position, can one be free completely from all sinful reactions.

Here the word
ajam,
meaning unborn, should not be confused with the living entities, who are described in the Second Chapter as
ajam.
The Lord is different from the living entities who are taking birth and dying due to material attachment. The conditional souls are changing their bodies, but His body is not changeable. Even when He comes to this material world, He comes as the same unborn; therefore in the Fourth Chapter it is said that the Lord, by His internal potency, is not under the inferior material energy, but is always in the superior energy.

He was existing before the creation, and He is different from His creation. All the demigods were created within this material world, but as far as Kṛṣṇa is concerned, it is said that He is not created; therefore Kṛṣṇa is different even from the great demigods like Brahmā and Śiva. And because He is the creator of Brahmā, Śiva and all the other demigods, He is the Supreme Person of all planets.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa is therefore different from everything that is created, and anyone who knows Him as such immediately becomes liberated from all sinful reaction. One must be liberated from all sinful activities to be in the knowledge of the Supreme Lord. Only by devotional service can He be known and not by any other means, as stated in
Bhagavad-gītā.

One should not try to understand Kṛṣṇa as a human being. As stated previously, only a foolish person thinks Him to be a human being. This is again expressed here in a different way. A man who is not foolish, who is intelligent enough to understand the constitutional position of the Godhead, is always free from all sinful reactions.

If Kṛṣṇa is known as the son of Devakī, then how can He be unborn? That is also explained in
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam:
When He appeared before Devakī and Vasudeva, He was not born as an ordinary child; He appeared in His original form, and then He transformed Himself into an ordinary child.

Anything done under the direction of Kṛṣṇa is transcendental. It cannot be contaminated by the material reactions, which may be auspicious or inauspicious. The conception that there are things auspicious and inauspicious in the material world is more or less a mental concoction because there is nothing auspicious in the material world. Everything is inauspicious because the very material mask is inauspicious. We simply imagine it to be auspicious. Real auspiciousness depends on activities in Kṛṣṇa consciousness in full devotion and service. Therefore if we at all want our activities to he auspicious, then we should work under the directions of the Supreme Lord. Such directions are given in authoritative scriptures such as
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
and
Bhagavad-gītā,
or from a bona fide spiritual master. Because the spiritual master is the representative of the Supreme Lord, his direction is directly the direction of the Supreme Lord. The spiritual master, saintly persons and scriptures direct in the same way. There is no contradiction in these three sources. All actions done under such direction are free from the reactions of pious or impious activities of this material world. The transcendental attitude of the devotee in the performance of activities is actually that of renunciation, and this is called
sannyāsa.
Anyone acting under the direction of the Supreme Lord is actually a
sannyāsī
and a
yogī
, and not the man who has simply taken the dress of the
sannyāsī,
or a pseudo-
yogī
.

Bg 10.4, Bg 10.5, Bg 10.4-5

TEXTS 4-5

TEXT

buddhir jñānam asammohaḥ

kṣamā satyaṁ damaḥ śamaḥ

sukhaṁ duḥkhaṁ bhavo 'bhāvo

bhayaṁ cābhayam eva ca

tapo dānaṁ yaśo 'yaśaḥ

bhavanti bhāvā bhūtānāṁ

matta eva pṛthag-vidhāḥ

SYNONYMS

buddhiḥ-
intelligence;
jñānam-
knowledge;
asam-mohaḥ-
freedom from doubt;
kṣamā-
forgiveness;
satyam-
truthfulness;
damaḥ-
control of the senses;
śamaḥ
-control of the mind;
sukham-
happiness;
duḥkham
-distress;
bhavaḥ-
birth;
abhāvaḥ-
death;
bhayam-
fear;
ca-
also;
abhayam-without
fear;
eva-
also;
ca-
and;
ahiṁsā-
nonviolence;
samatā-
equilibrium;
tuṣṭiḥ-
satisfaction;
tapaḥ-
penance;
dānam-
charity;
yaśaḥ-
fame;
ayaśaḥ-
infamy;
bhavanti-
become;
bhāvāḥ-
natures;
bhūtānām-
of living entities;
mattaḥ-
from Me;
eva-
certainly;
pṛthak-vidhāḥ-
differently arranged.

TRANSLATION

Intelligence, knowledge, freedom from doubt and delusion, forgiveness, truthfulness, self-control and calmness, pleasure and pain, birth, death, fear, fearlessness, nonviolence, equanimity, satisfaction, austerity, charity, fame and infamy are created by Me alone.

PURPORT

The different qualities of living entities, be they good or bad, are all created by Kṛṣṇa, and they are described here.

Intelligence refers to the power of analyzing things in proper perspective, and knowledge refers to understanding what is spirit and what is matter. Ordinary knowledge obtained by a university education pertains only to matter, and it is not accepted here as knowledge. Knowledge means knowing the distinction between spirit and matter. In modern education there is no knowledge about the spirit; they are simply taking care of the material elements and bodily needs. Therefore academic knowledge is not complete.

Asaṁmohaḥ,
freedom from doubt and delusion, can be achieved when one is not hesitant and when he understands the transcendental philosophy. Slowly but surely he becomes free from bewilderment. Nothing should be accepted blindly; everything should be accepted with care and with caution.
Kṣamā,
forgiveness, should be practiced, and one should excuse the minor offenses of others.
Satyam,
truthfulness, means that facts should be presented as they are for the benefit of others. Facts should not be misrepresented. According to social conventions, it is said that one can speak the truth only when it is palatable to others. But that is not truthfulness. The truth should be spoken in a straight and forward way, so that others will understand actually what the facts are. If a man is a thief and if people are warned that he is a thief, that is truth. Although sometimes the truth is unpalatable, one should not refrain from speaking it. Truthfulness demands that the facts be presented as they are for the benefit of others. That is the definition of truth.

Self-control means that the senses should not be used for unnecessary personal enjoyment. There is no prohibition against meeting the proper needs of the senses, but unnecessary sense enjoyment is detrimental for spiritual advancement. Therefore the senses should be restrained from unnecessary use. Similarly, the mind should not indulge in unnecessary thoughts; that is called
śamaḥ,
or calmness. Nor should one spend one's time pondering over earning money. That is a misuse of the thinking power. The mind should be used to understand the prime necessity of human beings, and that should be presented authoritatively. The power of thought should be developed in association with persons who are authorities in the scriptures, saintly persons and spiritual masters and those whose thinking is highly developed.
Sukham,
pleasure or happiness, should always be in that which is favorable for the cultivation of the spiritual knowledge of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And similarly, that which is painful or which causes distress is that which is unfavorable for the cultivation of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Anything favorable for the development of Kṛṣṇa consciousness should be accepted, and anything unfavorable should be rejected.

Bhava,
birth, should be understood to refer to the body. As far as the soul is concerned, there is neither birth nor death; that we have discussed in the beginning of
Bhagavad-gītā.
Birth and death apply to one's embodiment in the material world. Fear is due to worrying about the future. A person in Kṛṣṇa consciousness has no fear because by his activities he is sure to go back to the spiritual sky, back home, back to Godhead. Therefore his future is very bright. Others, however, do not know what their future holds; they have no knowledge of what the next life holds. So they are therefore in constant anxiety. If we want to get free from anxiety, then the best course is to understand Kṛṣṇa and be situated always in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. In that way we will be free from all fear. In the
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
it is stated that fear is caused by our absorption in the illusory energy, but those who are free from the illusory energy, those who are confident that they are not the material body, that they are spiritual parts of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and are therefore engaged in the transcendental service of the Supreme Godhead, have nothing to fear. Their future is very bright. This fear is a condition of persons who are not in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Bhayam,
fearlessness, is only possible for one in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Ahiṁsā,
nonviolence, means that one should not do anything which will put others into misery or confusion. Material activities that are promised by so many politicians, sociologists, philanthropists, etc., do not produce very good results because the politicians and philanthropists have no transcendental vision; they do not know what is actually beneficial for human society.
Ahiṁsā
means that people should be trained in such a way that the full utilization of the human body can be achieved. The human body is meant for spiritual realization, so any movement or any commissions which do not further that end commit violence on the human body. That which furthers the future spiritual happiness of the people in general is called nonviolence.

Samatā,
equanimity, refers to freedom from attachment and aversion. To be very much attached or to be very much detached is not the best. This material world should be accepted without attachment or aversion. Similarly, that which is favorable for prosecuting Kṛṣṇa consciousness should be accepted; that which is unfavorable should be rejected. That is called
samatā,
equanimity. A person in Kṛṣṇa consciousness has nothing to reject and nothing to accept unless it is useful in the prosecution of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Tuṣṭiḥ,
satisfaction, means that one should not be eager to gather more and more material goods by unnecessary activity. One should be satisfied with whatever is obtained by the grace of the Supreme Lord; that is called satisfaction.
Tapas
means austerity or penance. There are many rules and definitions in the
Vedas
which apply here, like rising early in the morning and taking a bath. Sometimes it is very troublesome to rise early in the morning, but whatever voluntary trouble one may suffer in this way is called penance. Similarly, there are prescriptions for fasting on certain days of the month. One may not be inclined to practice such fasting, but because of his determination to make advancement in the science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he should accept such bodily troubles which are recommended. However, one should not fast unnecessarily or against Vedic injunctions. One should not fast for some political purpose; that is described in
Bhagavad-gītā
as fasting in ignorance, and anything done in ignorance or passion does not lead to spiritual advancement. Everything done in the mode of goodness does advance one, however, and fasting done in terms of the Vedic injunctions enriches one in spiritual knowledge.