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Chapter 1 Text 24
V.O. Ruzov's Lecture
In this chapter, it is especially interesting
that Arjuna is called "Gudakesha". "Gudaka" means "sleep", and "gudakesha"
means "he, who conquered sleep". Modern people don't even know
that sleep is a problem. We like to sleep and we think that
sleep is a gift of nature, which helps us to rest. But this is
not possible; sleep stupefies, covers our consciousness, and
turns it off. This is a mandatory function of our body, for us
not to go crazy from the reality we see around us. Actually,
sleep in this world is just an unconscious state. We become
unconscious because we are in this world, where everything is
covered with self-interest: love, friendship, charity, and even
faith...
Sleep is a special psycho-physical state, and it
is also the ignorance of this world. Because Arjuna was
Krishna's friend, he was able to conquer sleep and ignorance. We
don't want to remember the Absolute Truth, that's why we sleep a
lot and our outlook is wrong. Sleep is a sign that there is no
place for God in our hearts yet. We cannot eat all the time;
this means that our stomach is limited, we cannot inhale all the
time; this means our lungs our limited, we cannot stand up all
the time; this means our skeleton is limited, and if we cannot
stay awake, this means our love is limited. Even if a person has
simple worldly love, he often looses sleep.
What was Arjuna's method? He always remembered
the Absolute Truth. This state is called "samadhi" - the highest
level of yoga or "Krishna consciousness". Everyone, who
practices yoga should know about this method, otherwise they are
at risk of wasting their time...
Our own ignorance
Let's talk about ignorance. It begins with our
desire to turn away from God. The sun exists, but if a person
wants to close the shades, no one can stop him. We feel bad
because we want to feel bad. A person walks around his dark
apartment and yells at everything: the walls, the floor, the
ceiling, his neighbors, his relatives and friends, his
coworkers, and the government, although he closed the shades
with his own hands... Remember: every person, who is yelling at
someone is just yelling at himself and at his own foolishness.
His is yelling at himself because he doesn't want to become a
saint.
This state is called "krishna-bahirmukha", which
means that we are turning away from God, we want to forget about
God, and we don't want to think about Him. In the spiritual
world, this is simply impossible, so God had to create a special
material world for us. Yes, this world appeared as a result of
our not wanting to see God. Having arrived in this world, which
is created especially for those, who don't want to see God, each
person still says, "If you show me God, I will believe in
Him"...
How we turned away from God in three stages
1. The soul starts thinking that it is not
dependent on God. We can see this in the behavior of a child
during the teenager crisis. He wants to be independent,
sometimes leaves his home, and argues with his parents just to
prove his independence from them. This is the problem of
independence.
2. We start having thoughts like: "Who is he,
this God? Why do I owe anything to him?" This is the problem of
jealousy. Once, the owners of a dog, which took part in a
contest but didn't win any prize, decided to give her a gift so
she wouldn't be sad. They gave her a sparkling collar with toy
medals, but the dog thought that this was a real prize. From
that day on, she was always very proud and happy. Similarly, we
receive this body thinking that it is a great prize; we wear it
very proudly, comb its hair, and dress it. However, we forget
that it is just a toy prize, given to us so that we wouldn't be
sad. We haven't yet earned a real (spiritual) body yet.
A spiritual body is made of eternity, knowledge,
and bliss. It never grows old, never gets sick, and never dies.
It is beautiful and, like the body of God, it has the smell of
lotuses, which fills the air in a radius of thousands of miles.
But we are satisfied with this material body. We look into the
mirror after shaving, cutting our nails, and putting on lots of
perfume, and we think, "that's not bad!" But actually, our body
is nothing, it's nothing good at all...
The spiritual body consists of love, but the
material body consists of sexual desires. Our body is actually
sexual desires. Because of this, it is very hard for us to get
rid of these desires...
I remember an old joke about this:
An old lady was sitting on the street. In front
of her there was a sign that said: "Will cure everything!".
A philosopher passing by, looked at her for a
long time and finally said: "No granny, we can't fly away from
everything..."
*In Russian, one word means both "cure" and
"fly".
3. Finally, the soul thinks: "Why am I worse than
God?" This is the problem of power. Such a person wants to prove
to everyone that he is not worse than God, and that everyone has
to love him, worship him, and he is capable of controlling other
people's fate. This is especially seen in the modern tendency
towards democracy. In spiritual progress there is no democracy:
there is always someone, who guides us and someone, who is
guided and follows this path. We cannot just have elections and
choose another person to be god after four years of God's ruling
over the earth are over...
Therefore, politicians are right: this world was
created for democracy. The less spirituality is in this world,
the more democracy there is in it. Remember: if people want to
create democracy in a country, they want to kill spirituality in
it. Why? Because, democracy is based on simple and low jealousy.
"Who can be higher than me? Who can be smarter than me? Who had
the courage to think that he is better than me in some way?"
Actually, democracy is just a system that allows people to fall
to degradation. When you tell me you are my teacher, and when I
tell you I am your teacher, this means that in the world of
democracy there are no students, everyone is a teacher. Only
equal people are respected, and we should just conquer everyone
who is not equal to us and make them respect us.
Arjuna's Worries
Arjuna drives to the battlefield and suddenly
becomes nervous and worried. It is impossible to fight in this
state. Similarly, we are in this world and are nervous and
anxious because of its opportunities. However, in this state it
is impossible to follow the path of development. What does
Bhagavad-Gita advise us? It advises us to stop worrying. Of
course, this is not easy in our crazy world. If a 15-story
building is falling on us, it is very hard not to worry.
However, a whole world is falling on us, not just a building.
So, everyone is worried and runs around from one corner to
another.
There is another anecdote:
England. The master of a house calls home. His
servant picks up the phone:
"How can I help you?"
"Hi! Go to my room and see who is lying there."
The servant went to his master’s room, came back
to the phone and said:
"You, sir, are lying there with your wife."
"Take a gun and kill me and my wife."
The master hears three gun shots. The servant
picks up the phone again, and the master asks:
"Why were there three gun shots?"
"I shot your wife and I shot you. But I didn't
kill you. You ran to the balcony and I shot you again and killed
you."
"But we don't have a balcony!"
"Who are you calling?..."
In this material world, we cannot find anything
that will calm us down. However, Bhagavad-Gita gives us good
advice: we have to concentrate our consciousness on that, which
is outside of the world of worries, outside of the gunas of
material nature. An anchor cannot be hooked onto water; it has
to be hooked onto earth; only than it can stop a whole ship.
The spiritual world is an anti-material world. It
has special qualities. Take, for example, consciousness. Any
material element has o have a weight. But, what weight does
consciousness have? Until we know what mass and weight
consciousness has, we cannot say that it is a material element.
This simply is not scientific...
It is time to throw the anchor, and our first
hook will be Bhagavad-Gita and the discussion that makes the
hair of even experienced philosophers and wise men rise on end
till this day... |
