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 Chapter
1
Text 9
janma karma ca me divyam
evam yo vetti tattvatah
tyaktva deham punar janma
naiti mam eti so 'rjuna
Translation
One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and
activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again
in this material world, but attains My
eternal abode, O Arjuna.
Lecture
Everyone wants harmony and calmness, but that does not mean that
a person who has these things doesn't do anything, lies on the
couch and eats junk food. A calm and
harmonious person affectively solves his problems and takes
responsibility for everything that comes into his life. Being
calm and peaceful means that we
understand that everyone will get everything he deserves.
Therefore, such a person is calm; he doesn't criticize anyone
and doesn't blame anyone for his
problems. He knows that everything is fair; there are no errors
in God's world.
Calmness is a form of wealth and prosperity without greediness.
Wealth with greediness is the same as poverty, only worse. A
person is not truly poor when he has no
money; he is truly poor when he is not satisfied with what he
already has. The famous Russian author Leo Tolstoy said:
"Happiness is not when we do what we want
to do all the time, but when we always want to do what we have
to do". If a person is not satisfied, he is truly unhappy and
poor.
When a person always wants something more, thinks he doesn't
have enough, this causes him to feel inferior - worse than
everyone else. This feeling is
selfishness and pride. A boasting person simply doesn't know how
to get rid of his sins and problems. He tries to convince
himself and others that everything is ok
and there is nothing to worry about. However, inside of him
there is only fear and emptiness. Boastfulness is a cry for help
coming from the soul. The soul calls out
in hope that someone will help it come out of the dark hole of
loneliness and depression. But no one hears this cry of the
soul.
The happiness of people is in actions. There is true love inside
a person only if he is ready to do something for others.
Therefore, satisfaction can be happy and
unhappy. As soon as we stop living for others, our satisfaction
becomes sinful and we start using others. Love is when we find
out happiness in the happiness of another
person. Such a person doesn't stop for one minute; he tries to
make everyone happy. He doesn't want even one person around him
to be unhappy.
Sometimes humility starts looking like bad self-esteem. However,
this is not so. True humility means that a person understands
that he's not whole without God, love for
God, and love for the children of God. However, when a person
develops in spiritual life, he becomes connected to God and
therefore he becomes satisfied in
himself. As soon as a person understands what his true flaw is
he is saved. If spiritual life enters the heart, it will never
leave it, even if we intended to practice spiritual life
for five minutes.
We can try to make spiritual life leave our heart with all our
strength, we can be angry at God and hate all the saint people
and everything connected to them. But
spiritual life will never leave our heart completely, it can
slam the door, but it will hide under the bead in the farthest
end of our heart, so that we will think
we made it run away.
Therefore, if a person tried to become good, even if he got into
horrible life conditions, got very bad friends, did very bad
things, still, in his heart he still has
the desire to purify himself and become a saint. As they say; a
great person is great, even if he makes mistakes, but a low
person is low even when he is right.
In the Eastern tradition, it was forbidden to punish those, who
lead the lives of saint people at one time or another. Such a
person could be asked to leave, but he
could not be punished. Everyone understood that in his heart he
still had the desire to continue on his way. It's just that he
was not able to do this right now.
Therefore, the first thing that is needed for calmness and
harmony is to make our senses calm. We should soften our senses,
not conquer them. This means that our
feelings have to become our friends and not do the things that
bring us pain. We should try to give them what they want,
but in safe and controlled amounts and form. A controlled
fire is good, but an uncontrolled fire is dangerous and brings
damage. Culture means that we should
control a camp fire, so that it will not become a forest fire.
Political power is powerless
So, we are at a battlefield and before us there are two huge
armies. The army of the Pandavas was stronger, because the
people in it were united by one goal.
However, the army of Duryodhana consisted of people, who decided
to fight on his side because of political motives. He was a
master in making people owe him something
because that is the art of politics - to make people owe you.
Remember: if you feel you owe someone this might be someone's
political game. Therefore, everyone who
fought on his side, fought only because they felt they owed him.
This happens not only of the battlefield. If we create a family
for some other reason other that for a common goal, as soon as
the first problems arise, we won't have
enough strength to stay together. A goal makes a person strong.
No matter what we are planning, we first need to figure out what
our goal is. First we need to know "why",
and only after that we can think of "how" and "with whom". Thus,
the army of Duryodhana fought only because of outer
goals, which means that these people just got a well-paid
job. However, the army of Pandavas fought because of inner
ideas, and that's why this army was
stronger and won the war. However, the war was not easy and
pleasant. Many times it could have ended very sadly.
Similarly, in this life we act without knowing for which goal we
are ready to give our youth, time, and energy. A person tries to
make money work for him; however no one
knows the scariest secret of economics: money doesn't serve
anyone, but everyone serves money. We just run on a spinning
wheel like hamsters; we don't move
forward in our development even an inch. If our wheel becomes
rusty, we ask God to fix it so it would spin normally. However,
the problem will not be truly solved
until we figure out what our goals are.
What is the secret of a good arrow warrior? First, he finds a
goal, and only then he fires his arrow. But we fire first, and
only after that we seek our goal. Wisdom
is a qualification of a sniper.
What is our goal? We tried to do everything: we tried to satisfy
the desires of our mind, reason, body,
senses, and even our heart. As a result, our mind became
distressed, our reason gave up, our body
became sick, our senses became weak and tired, and our heart was
broken to pieces. There is one more opportunity - we can start
doing what the Absolute Truth is telling
us. This means that we have no other way; we tried everything
and became disappointed.
Once, a reported asked a saint:
"How do you know what God's name is?"
The saint answered:
"And how do you know what your name is? Your mother probably
told you."
Then she asked:
"But, God can probably be called any name."
And the saint answered:
"If God can be called any name, then I can also give you any
name and call you by that name. Will you
accept the name I give you?"
"No, I won't," answered the reporter. "But, maybe my mother gave
me a wrong name. How can I be sure?"
"Whether it's wrong or right, the only way for you to find out
your name is to ask your mother."
Knowledge only comes from above
Krishna stood on the chariot, and his teachings were heard by
two people: Arjuna and Hanuman. Arjuna
understood the Bhagavad-Gita, but Hanuman didn't. Why? Because
Arjuna sat near the feet of Krishna, he sat lower than Krishna,
but Hanuman was on the flag (he was
painted on all the flags of the Pandavas),
which means he was positioned higher than Krishna.
Similarly, there is only one opportunity for us to find out
about the Absolute Truth. The holy
tractates are our mother, and God is our father. We can learn
everything about ourselves and about God
only by studying and practicing this knowledge. There is no
other way. This is our ring-buoy and we
have to grab it with all of our arms and legs.
However, to do this we need strength. This is what we need to
learn more about. We'll talk about this
more in the next lecture.
And now I will end this lecture with a story about the Pandavas
This happened five thousand years ago, when the king Yudhistira
and his brothers realized that their
time on Earth was coming to an end. Then, Yudhistira called the
grandson of Arjuna - Pariksita, and gave
him the crown and the whole kingdom. Yudhistira, his brothers,
and the
Queen Draupadi went North, to the Himalayas, to start their last
journey. The loyal dog of king Yudhistira
came with them. They were headed to the tallest mountains of the
world, so that they could rise from
those mountains to the heavenly planets. The way was hard. The
first person who could go no longer was the Queen Draupadi. She
was the first one to leave her body.
"Oh king," Bhima asked his elder brother, "Why did Queen
Draupadi leave us before we reached our goal? She never commited
any sins. Why was she the first one to leave?"
"Queen Draupadi was a wife to all of us, so she was supposed to
love us equally. But she loved Arjuna
most of all," answered king Yudhistira.
And they continued on their way.
All of a sudden Sahadeva felt that his knees were growing week,
and he fell to the ground dead.
"Oh king!" cried Bhima, "our brother was loyal and truthful, he
served you well all of his life. Why did
he meet death before the end of our journey? What is his sin?"
"Yes Bhima, our brother served me well and was loyal to me, but
deep in his heart he considered himself
to be the wisest of all of us. He is punished for that."
As soon as Yudhistira said this, another brother, the handsome
Nakula also left his body because he could not tolerate the
difficulties of the journey.
"Oh king," said Bhima with tears in his eyes, "our brother
Nakula did not know the meaning of the word "sin". How did it
happen that he left us before reaching the end of the journey?"
Tears came to the king's eyes. Without turning to Bhima, he
answered:
"Nakula was a true prince of the Bharat dynasty. His only
weakness was his beauty. He thought that
because he was so handsome, he was better than all the other
people. So, he paid for this."
The three brothers that were left continued on their way
accompanied by the dog. They were headed toward the shining
snowy peak of the highest mountain in the
world. All of a sudden, the great warrior
Arjuna fell to the ground and tumbled off the mountain.
"Oh king!" cried Bhima in grief, "our favorite and beloved
brother, who was the greatest in shooting
arrows, died without reaching the end of our journey. Tell me,
why? What sin did this brave and kind
person commit?"
For a few minutes, the king was silent. Then he said:
"Arjuna promised me that he will destroy Duryodhana and his army
in a minute. However, as you know, the
war was bloody and lasted a long time. Sometimes, our brother
liked to boast. He was punished for
this."
In complete silence the two brothers and the dog continued to
climb to the shining peak of the
mountain. But fate did not allow Bhima to climb to the top. In
complete exhaustion, he fell to his
knees.
"Oh king," he whispered, "I am dying. Tell me, oh most truthful
of all people, why couldn't I reach the
end of our journey?"
Tears flowed out of Yudhistira's eyes - he loved Bhima more than
all his other brothers. He bent
toward his dying brother and said in a trembling voice:
"You had great power, my Bhima, but your pride was stronger than
your power because of this. Pride is a
great sin, my brother! This is all I can say to you."
Yudhistira continued on the way, accompanied only by his loyal
dog. Finally, he reached his desired goal. After climbing to the
top of the snowy mountain peak, he saw a heavenly chariot in
front of him. In this chariot was the king of heaven - Indra. He
had one thousand eyes and was shining.
"Oh great king!" he said to Yudhistira, "Get into my heavenly
airplane, I will fly with you to the
heavenly kingdom."
But Yudhistira answered: "Oh mighty Indra,
my brothers and the Queen Draupadi died before reaching their
goal. How can I enter your kingdom
without them?"
"Don't worry, oh king, your brothers and your queen have already
achieved the heavenly kingdom before you."
Yudhistira was very happy to hear this. But, then he remembered
his dog and said:
"Thank you, oh great ruler of the heavenly planets, but I can
not enter your kingdom if I have to leave
my loyal dog here."
Indra answered: "You know as well as I do
that a dog can not enter the gate of heaven."
"Then I also can not enter the heavenly planets. Think about
this yourself, how can I leave the one
who was a loyal and devoted friend to me all of these years?"
"It's not wise of you to speak like this," Indra pleaded, "why
don't you want to leave this dog for the pleasures of heaven?
You should think about this very carefully."
Then, Yudhistira said:
"I have never lied to anyone in my life, I have always helped
those who asked for my protection, those who asked for alms, and
those who were too weak to protect themselves. How can I betray
the trust of this dog, which had always been
loyal to me? Forgive me, oh great king
of the heavens, maybe this is not wise and ridiculous, but I
will not leave this dog for any heavenly
pleasures! This is my last word!"
All of a sudden, something extraordinary happened. It was a true
miracle! As soon as Yudhistira said these
words, his loyal dog changed. He got rid of his earthly dog body
and appeared as a sparkling and beautiful half god.
Only then did Yudhistira enter the golden chariot of Indra and
flew to the heavens. The people of this planet joyfully greeted
the person, who was ready to give up heavenly pleasures
in order to save a helpless and loyal animal.
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