The Divine Bliss, which is the source of all happiness, is related to its knowledge that was revealed in its original form by the Supreme Divine power, Krishna, during His miraculous appearance in this world. That was the Gita. The origin of all the spiritual “isms” and the knowledge of all the knowledges, which has now been further simplified by His Divinity Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, the foremost disciple of Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj, who is the Supreme Divine descension of this age.
The Gita is not only a philosophy. It is a promise of God.
मन्मना भव मद्भक्तो मद्याजी मां नमस्कुरु |
मामेवैष्यसि सत्यं ते प्रतिजाने प्रियोऽसि मे ||
Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājīmāṁnamaskuru.
Māmevaiṣhyasisatyaṁtepratijānepriyo ‘si me.
It tells to merge all the spiritual formalities into the exclusiveness of loving devotion to the Supreme form of God, and you will receive His vision.
The Divine souls!
In this series we are going to listen about Gita. The Gita said by Krishna is very popular. Everyone has heard about Gita and read something about Gita. But what is Gita? Very few understand and those who understand, the Gita says they could find God in this lifetime. Gita is a song of life if you understand, otherwise sorrow of life as you live. This was said by Krishna 5,000 years ago. You see when Krishna descended on this Earth planet, after sometime He revealed the Gita. And when He left this Earth planet, say about 5,000 years ago, after that Ved Vyas his Bhagwatam was said by Shukdeo, say about 30 years after Krishna’s ascension. Thirty years and 6 months the Bhagwatam was first said by Shukdeo to Parikshit. Ved Vyas is the personality who has revealed all the scriptures.
There are two kinds of scriptures – the one directly said by God, the others indirectly said by God, means, said by God through some Saint, some Saints. Again that’s also saying by God. Gita is the scripture of scriptures. A very famous verse, “Sarvopanishdogāvodogdhāgopālanandanah.” Gita is the essence of all the Vedas, all the scriptures, all the “-isms”.
Briefly I could say there are four Vedas: Rig, Yaju, Sama and Atharva. Four Upaved as. Upavedasmeans science of economics, science of defense science of health, medicine and art. Then there are six Vedanga. And all these four Vedas have 1,130 branches and same amount of Brahman Bhag and same amount of Aranyak; they are two more, same amount .This is just the Vedas. Aranyak we have Upanishads, they are around 200 Upanishads. Brahman Bhag is a great description of Vedic rituals (yagya).Then we have two history books -Valmiki Ramayanamand Mahabharat. Then we have 18 Puranas and 18 sub-Puranas – Upapurana. Then we have 6schools of philosophy: Nyay, Vaisheshik, Sankhya, Yog, Purva Mimansa, Uttar Mimansa. They are big, big books. Then there are more books on the explanation and description of Vedasand Puranas -Nibandhand Agam; books like NaradPancharatra. These are the main, main scriptures revealed by God directly or through a particular Saint – main scriptures.
Then all those great Divine personalities who came on this Earth planet followed the same tradition of Vedasand Puranasand Smriti granth. There are also 42 Smriti granthas.Out of those Manu Smritiand Parashara Smriti are important. Sofollowing those lines they also wrote something- how many are they?Thousands.They are also scriptures. Then on the top of that Veda Vyaswrote one book called Vedant Sutra or Brahma Sutra. On that Brahma Sutra four Jagadgurus gave their big, big explanation calledbhāshya.
SoI mean you can fill a small room with all these books! One life is not enough to finish all the books! They are all main scriptures. What is Gita?It is the essense of all of that. Imagine! The essense of all of the scriptures is Gita. How many verses?Only 700!You see, one book, Mahabharat, has 100,000 verses, Bhagwatam 18,000 verses, and so many other books with millions of verses, millions and millions. Gita only has 700 verses; it reconciles all the philosophies, all the ‘-isms’. It is the essence of all the scriptures.
So it is very simple to understand and very difficult to understand. Why simple? Why difficult? See,we have one more tradition. Every scripture has some quality, some qualification.It means in a scripture what doesit reveal? Who has said that scripture? Who is qualified to study that scripture, and what is the consequence of that study?These four are main, meaning who is qualified to study that scripture – one thing. What does that scripture say, meaning the subject matter and the consequence. So what is the subject matter of the Gita? The subject matter is knowledge, that’s it…
श्रदावान लभते ज्ञानं
shraddhāvanlabhategyānam…
“to get knowledge.” That’s it.
So are we all ignorant? Yes. There are two kinds of ignorance – literal ignorance and devotional ignorance. We are not literally ignorant but devotionally we are ignorant, so that gives knowledge. Okay. Knowledge of what? Knowledge of God?No. Knowledge of how to find God and knowledge of how to remove the effects of all of your karmas, the consequence. There are two consequences meaning removing the consequence of all the effect of all the karmas– meaningliberation and finding God; this is the consequence. Soit deals with all these matters. Who is qualified? Is it very obvious?No.The one who desires God is qualified – very simple. The one who desires God is qualified. The one who does not desire God the Gita is simply a novel for him. The one who desires God for him Gita is a spiritual novelty not just a novel. It is a spiritual novelty for the one who desires God. So desiring God is the only thing to make you qualified to study the Gita. So the book Gitay ou can buy anywhere for a few dollars, but for a few dollars or a few rupees you get the paper and something printed on that. That’s it. You get the paper and book and print but not the Gita. Just like you write ‘perfume’(or have) a perfume brochure in your hand, you see the writing but there’s no perfume in there. You have to buy the perfume. Sothe word ‘perfume’ and the actual perfume two different things.
So you can buy Gita word for a small amount of money but to receive Gita, the knowledge, you have to be qualified for that and qualification is only desire to find God. Again, how big is the desire how small is the desire? Gita says, “It doesn’t matter – any amount of desire from 1% to 99%.”Any amount of desire, but that desire must be exclusive desire. You see there are again two things -desiring God only and desiring something from God; two separate things. If you are desiring something from God you are not desiring God .I’m saying desiring God only .The desire could be mild, feeble, or weak. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is must be pure. It means pure desire not impure desire. So pure desire of any limit. Impure desire of a great limit? No, it’s useless.
You see somebody in distress! He’s crying in tears, “Oh God, please help me! ”Like great devote is crying in tears. He is in distress. He’s longing, but his longing, his tears, everything is not for God or God’s vision or God’s knowledge. It is for his own personal convenience. He wants something worldly, and he makes God a medium. So even a great desire, if it is impure, cannot equal to a very feeble desire if it is pure. So I’m talking about pure desire, not impure, not adulterated desire – pure desire, “OH God, I want you! That’s it! “How much you want Him? It’s your own outlook, but you have even a small desire to find God, a pure desire then you are qualified to go to Gita, and you will learn both through the Gita. That’s the qualification.
Okay, so what you will receive? The same thing you desired. You desired God, and you desired God because you wanted to be free from this world. Why did you desire God? Because this world was not enough for you. You say enough. Enough means you have suffered enough in the world. You don’t want any suffering. You want to be away from suffering; you want some peace, happiness, love, great happiness. You want that thing, so you wanted God for that thing, for liberation from all these sorrows and pains and sufferings and you wanted God. So you could receive both -liberation from worldly pains and miseries, and receiving God, the Divine. That’s the consequence. So in this way Gita explains both -liberation and God’s abode. Gita says, “They come to me.” Take the last verse, “Ahaṁtvāṁsarva-pāpebhyomokṣhayiṣhyāmi…
What is pāp?Pāpam. There three kinds of pāp. Pāp means anything happening under the control of mayais all called worldly activities or worldly actions. So they are binding you, your present actions, your past actions, your past uncountable actions stored in your unconscious mind. All those actions are unfructified. They are waiting to fructify, so they are the bondage. Yeah. And then your mind. What is the kind of mind you have? It’s a material mind which is also a bondage because you have emotions – joy, happiness, desire, sorrow, pain, jealousy, anger, greed, enviousness. All of these mental emotions are also a bondage; you cannot get rid of them. Your actions are binding. Your emotions are binding you. You have to live for some time in this world and then die, then again rebirth; death and life again in bondage. The cycle of life and death and the ultimate bondage which is causing all these is your initial mind. It is called maya. Chit jada granthi is the main veil of maya which is causing all these. So briefly describing, they are all bondages of karmas.
There are three kinds: past karmas, present karmas or emotions that causes to do karmas and the origin that causes the emotions that cause karmas.
SoKrishna said,“Sarva-pāpebhyo…”
“Okay,I will eliminate all of that. ”Fine.
Again He says,
“Mokshayishyāmimāshuchah.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll give you something more, not only elimination of the bond, not only elimination of the karmas, not only elimination of sorrows and pains, plus something more.”
What is the plus?
“Māshuchah…”
Don’t worry! I’ll give you something more.”Moksh.
That word, moksh-Krishna indicates everything with one word. I can’t go into detail today. So in moksh.. salokya, sarupya, samipya, sayujya, sarshti – there are five kinds of liberations. So He said one word, moksh. All kinds of liberations, all kinds, He will give. So He already gives liberation from the bondage of karmas. Yes. Then those liberations are plus, ‘liberation-plus’. He indicated,
Tad dhāmaparamaṁ mama, yad gatvānanivartante…”
“you reach there andyoudon’t come back-…tad dhām.”
I have my abode, not only pure liberation but pure liberation plus the Bliss of My abode. I give you both the Bliss of My abode and liberation. Who is saying? Krishna. Krishna revealed this.
So I explained who is qualified to study the Gita – the one who desires God, what Gita says to eliminate your sorrows and pain means plus to receive the Bliss of God and God’s name. And who said this Gita? Krishna. Now the main question is who is Krishna or who was Krishna? You would have heard Krishna incarnated…did Krishna incarnate? I would say, “No and never!” Krishna can never incarnate. He never incarnated, but we are hearing this word from hundreds of years. What is the secret behind this I’ll explain tomorrow.
Now we will do some chanting. With the same feeling of closeness of Krishna with you sing a few minutes.