Bhagavad Gita Ch18 part 34 on 10 April 2022

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

Om Jananem Sharadam Devem Ramakrishnam Jagadgurum Pada Padmetayo Shritva Pranamami Muhur Muhu Om Vasudevasutam Devam Kamsa Chanuram Ardhanam Devaki Paramanandam Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum Sarvopanishadho Gavo Dogdha Gopalanandanaha Partho Vatsah Sudhir Bhokta Dogdham Geetha Amritam Mahat Mookam Karoti Vachalam Pankum Langayate Girin Yath Kripatamaham Vande Paramanandamadham We have been dealing with the concept, let a spiritual aspirant practice any of the methods that are approved by the scripture and as taught by one's own guru according to the nature of one's own habits, past samskaras, etc. But at the end, anything good can happen, any action can take place only by the grace of God, so surrender yourself, surrender oneself to God. Surrender is another word for becoming completely united with the Divine Lord. Remove the individuality, let alone universality remain. For that we need not make any effort except in removing ourselves. How? By identifying ourselves with the Divine Lord. Now, what does happen? Whether we will or not, it is the Divine Lord that is doing everything. There is a very commonly known Bengali song, so beloved of Sri Ram Krishna, how many hundreds of times he must have sung, we do not know. But he wants us to learn the lesson that nothing happens excepting by the will of God. In various Indian languages, this idea is expressed so beautifully, even an ant does not move excepting by the will of Ishwara, even a leaf does not move in the wind excepting by the will of the Ishwara. What does the will of the Ishwara do? It makes the wind blow and the leaf which is hanging will be moved according to the strength of the wind. Everything happens by the sweet will, O Mother Divine. But people because of egotism think that they are desiring, they are doing, they are enjoying, everything is attributed to themselves. Appropriated, that is the word. Appropriation means what does not belong to one is taken by force, as it were, claiming that I am the owner of this one. This is the burden of the last few verses that we have been discussing. In our last class, we have been discussing the 59th verse. O Arjuna, let us remember what is the meaning of it. If taking your stand on egotism, O Arjuna, if you happen to think, I will not fight, when is this resolve of yours for your very nature will drive you to the act? Remember, in the 9th verse of the 2nd chapter, having outlined all the plausible reasons why war is very wrong, bad, evil, so I am a dharmic person, I am not going to follow this and then he sat down there, I am not going to fight. He came to fight, meanwhile he lost his reason and then he said, I have a free will, I can do whatever I like. Yes, few minutes back, I came with the desire to fight, to destroy the entire Kaurava army. Did your senses take leave of you at that time, O Arjuna? Did you not think, who are your enemies? Was it only Duryodhana, Dushyasana, Karna and Shakuni? Is not your grandfather, grand teacher, Drona, Bhishma, all are included in it? Were you completely unaware of the fact? So how come, why are you behaving like this now? You think you have a free will either to do or to refrain from doing? No, there is somebody who is doing it. That is the burden of this 59th verse. Taking resort to egotism, thinking that I can do whatever I like. I am not going to fight or it also means, I am going to fight or I am not going to fight, whether I want to do or refrain from doing. I have that freedom. If you think so, this desire, this determination, this resolution of yours, that I will do what I like to do. Mithya, it is complete falsity. Why? Because you don't have any freedom. Then is someone making me do it? Yes, of course. So who is that somebody? Prakruti, tvam niyokshati, tava prakruti, your nature, you are born with your body, with your mind, particular angle of thinking, particular bundle of habits, particular way of looking at the world, everything you have inherited through your past samskaras. So that prakruti means each person's nature. We have seen earlier, whether it is sattva dominated, rajas dominated or tamas dominated, all the beings, all the human beings, not only beings, I mentioned earlier, everything in this world, both living and non-living, are divided according to the nature of these three qualities. Something extremely pleasing, beautiful, pleasant, more sattva guna is there. And how do we know? If something has got more sattva guna, it exerts its influence upon us. It brings about a change on our mind. So as soon as we see something very pleasing, we become pleased. Our mind becomes calm and quiet. We get a tremendous amount of happiness, pleasure, joy. And that is how we determine whether something has got more sattva guna or etc. If something makes us very restless, that has got prajna guna. For example, simple but very beautiful example, if you encounter a ferocious hungry tiger or if a tiger encounters you, doesn't matter, you come into contact, your mind becomes extremely restless. What about the tiger's mind? That also becomes very restless. It wants to chase you and eat you up. And a tiger knows better than anybody. It is much easier to kill a human being than even the smallest animal. Even a bird can fly it away. If anybody thinks that he has the capacity to determine, either I want to know or I don't want to know. I desire, I don't desire. I will do, I will not do. I will enjoy, I will not enjoy. If anybody has got this kind of idea, the Divine Lord Krishna in this verse is destroying that wrong notion of ours, that no, nobody has any freedom to do anything. He is, all of us are under the control of our own nature. Our nature is created by us through the actions and reactions what we have done in many, many of our previous lives. And therefore, I do not have, you do not have, nobody has got. Everybody's nature is making us think. If anybody thinks, I have the freedom, I am a free person, I have the free will, I can do whatever I like. Such an understanding, such a determination is completely wrong, false. He is a deluded person. Then who is it that decides? It is Prakruti. I will give a few examples to understand this marvellous idea and its implications. In our day-to-day present situation, if I have a body, it is the body which determines that I have to eat, because the body will get hungry, and if anybody thinks that I am hungry, so I desire to eat, and this is first-class food, I like it, etc., it is a complete wrong notion. How is it a wrong notion? Because I am not hungry, the body is hungry, and the body doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the five elements. It has been given to me, but it doesn't belong to me. I can use it, but I cannot claim that I am the body or I have the body. It belongs to me. That is a completely wrong notion. This is all part of Karma Yoga. Similarly, you look at the present situation. A terrible war is going on. It is unimaginable with the type of most powerful weapons that science, with the aid of science, technology has created, and politicians are using it, and so many people are dying in a most horrendous way, and we think we are likely to blame that here is a person and a single person is responsible for it. Remember, when Swami Vivekananda visited Ksherabhavani, he had a tremendous spiritual experience. He saw, he felt the destructed, the destroyed, dilapidated condition of the temple of Divine Mother Ksherabhavani in Kashmir. He felt, had I been there at the time the Muslim hordes had destroyed this, I would have given my life's blood to protect this temple. Immediately, a thunderous voice had come, echoing exactly the 59th verse in this 18th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Are you to protect me or am I to protect you? What is the implication? The Divine Mother is telling that these Muslim hordes, they have come here, guided by whom? Willed by whom? By me. And they destroyed this temple, willed by whom? By me. If I wanted, do you think I am so helpless, I cannot protect my own temple? No, I will do. What is the reason? We will not go into it, because only the Divine Mother knows. But one thing we have to keep in mind, whether an event is good or evil, whatever happens, because every event affects people, not exactly in the same way, but in diametrically opposite way. What is good for some people is very evil for some other people, etc. So whatever happens, is this so-called evil that happens to some people, is it good or is it evil? From a very limited, mistaken, deluded viewpoint, it is extremely bad, I am innocent, I do not deserve it, this thing is happening to me, and some people are responsible for it, that is a completely wrong view. This goes directly against the theory of Karma, Karma Siddhanta. If I deserve something, I get it. If I don't deserve, I am not going to get it. We have to understand this and accept it, whether it seems to be irrational, unacceptable, etc. So it is all the Prakruti. Here Prakruti means our own deservation. We deserve whatever happens to us, good or bad, happiness or unhappiness, because of all the accumulated results of what we did in many, many past lives. This is what Hindus, Buddhists, etc. completely believe in it, without understanding the implications of it. Okay, so Bhagavan Krishna is telling, Oh Arjuna, you think that you have the free will either to fight or not to fight. So when you came to the battlefield, did you come with the determination not to fight or with to fight? And after seeing the army, then did you determine not to fight or to fight? No. Even after seeing, you became enthused and said, Oh Krishna, let me formulate, let me arrange my army. So take me in between. I can have a wonderful idea what the enemy is trying to do, so I can counter it. But only when Arjuna saw his grandfather, etc., and immediately the delusion has set in. And he is applying it to the whole field, not recognizing the grandfather and teacher. Both are ready to kill me, but why am I thinking I should not kill them? Anyway, this is all because of Maya and Arjuna is only an instrument. Again, recollecting back in the 11th chapter, the universal vision of the Lord to Arjuna, he says that it is I who have already conducted this and from the viewpoint of time, every event is past, there is nothing called future event from the viewpoint of time. This is a marvellous idea. We have to impress upon our mind again and again. From our viewpoint, time is something that is changing. But from the viewpoint of time, which is called timelessness, there is no past, there is no future. Everything is now, right now, here. And therefore, these people, including you, including me, Krishna, we are all born in course of time. And we grow up in course of time. And when we are born, we don't know what was our past. That's why the Lord says in the 4th chapter very clearly, तान्यहं वेद सर्वाणि नत्वं वेथ परंतप I know all your past births. I know all about my past births. But you have absolutely forgotten, you have no knowledge of it. How many times both of us came? How many times both of us are going to come in the future? You see, the same Nara, Narayana have come in the form of Sairam, Krishna and Swami Vivekananda. And in future, He is going to come again. Already He has foretold. That is a different issue. I will not go into it. But from the viewpoint of timelessness, time is a homogeneous whole. It is not divided. It cannot be divided into past, present and future. Therein, in this 11th chapter, He says, I am the timelessness. And in me, everything comes out, everything lives for a short time and everything disappears. So who created Duryodhana and others? Me. Who created Arjuna? Me. Who created the Urukshetra? Me. And who killed all the armies? Remember that all these people have already been killed. We have discussed it. All the people means what? Only the army belonging to the Kauravas? No. Everybody, including Pandavas armies, excepting 7 or 8 people, the whole lot was killed, including the children of all the Pancha Pandavas. Ashwathama came at night, cut off the heads of each of the small children that were lying in the... So sometimes I wonder, what are these children doing in that battlefield? They should have been very safe in their homes at Hastinapura. I don't know what is happening. But anyway, everybody was killed, excepting, I think, Krithavarma was there, Ashwathama was there. And a few people survived, everybody perished. Pancha Pandava survived, Draupadi survived, one or two people survived, everybody was dead. All these people have been killed by time. Mayai vaite niyataha purvameva. Long before. When? That is impossible for us because from the timeless point of view, it is not last year, it is not one billion years back. It is before time began. What a stupendous thought, idea, concept that we have to digest by thinking. Everything in this universe, even that is going to come after a trillion, trillion years, has already happened from the viewpoint of timelessness. Like the nearest analogy I can give you, that here is a very famous cine director, he has created a beautiful film. And when the audience sits, it doesn't know how it is going to end. But the script writer knows, the director knows, the actors and actresses know. From the beginning, they have been given the whole script. This is how it ends. So at every appropriate scene, you have to act in this particular way. So this is how we have to view. So the point in this 59th verse is that there is somebody called Ishwara and I decide. How do I decide? Even it is impossible to say that I decide according to the results of your past karma. You did so many, every individual did so many things in the past lives and I am keeping a tab. I have every file, I have recorded everything of what they did and I determine what they deserve, where they deserve, how they deserve, how much they deserve and in what form they deserve. Everything I will do. Let me tell you, this is also a completely ignorant point of view that is going to come in the future. So the 59th verse says, give up your egotism and what I am telling for your good, accept it with complete faith and follow it. If we can understand this, we understand everything that we have just discussed. We enter into the next verse which is the 60th verse. Svabhāva jena kaunteya nibaddha svena karmana kartum necchasi enmoha karishyasi avasya api tatt That action too which you are not willing to undertake due to ignorance, you will perforce perform bound by your own duty, borne of your own nature. The earlier idea is repeated in different words but it is not much different from the earlier idea. What is it telling? O Arjuna, everybody, every jiva, svena karmana nibaddha, he is allotted certain duties. Now we have to understand what is a duty. A duty is something that must be done, that cannot be evaded, avoided, done indifferently, then the dire will be the consequences. Yes, there are certain actions. Whether I can put my left leg on my right leg, perhaps I say there is a little freedom. Whether I want to drink one sip at a time or one cup at a time, that also perhaps we can determine. But with regard to the most important duties of life, we have no choice at all. Now nibaddha means completely bound. There is no freedom at all. Then if you are bound, by what? What is that which binds? You have to do this. Let me give you one or two examples. Here is a person, he studied, he applied for the job of a teacher and he gets the job. What would be his duty now? He cannot say, I have accepted the job, I will accept the salary but I will not teach. Similarly, here is a doctor, I have accepted the job, I am going to draw the salary but I will not treat the patient. Or I will treat different patients differently depending upon how much private money they are going to give. That's not duty, that is sin. And the person will not understand that the government may not know, nobody else may know. But you know it, your conscience knows it and it is recording it. And all the recordings are collated together and in course of time that determines what type of body you will have, what type of experience you will have, how much pleasure, where, when, etc. will be determined. So above all, if somebody is going on developing certain habits, those habits take over. That is why this word habit is the most important word. There is a beautiful book and it is one of the most marvellous books. Though it doesn't talk about Vedanta, but every spiritual devotee must study that book. It is called The Power of Habit. We are all creatures of habit. Creatures are trained through habits. Habits are created, reinforced through what you call carrot and stick, reward and punishment. The B.K. Skinner's methodology of training, whether it is sharks or dolphins or dogs or anything. And our mind, by the way, is no different. It can be also trained by the rewards and punishment. And that is what he wants to say. If you think you have some habits which you need to urgently overcome so that they are no longer a hindrance to your further desires, fulfilment of desires, further progress, further ambitions, then you will have to create further habits which go counter. And this idea has been borrowed as if directly from Patanjali Rishi who says, Pratipaksha Bhavana, a thought has possessed you, you are obsessed with that thought and it is not good, you recognise it, you want to change it. What is the way? And especially with regard to worldly tendencies which are standing as obstacles for further our future spiritual progress. What is the remedy? Pratipaksha Bhavana. For example, if you are miserly and you realise and you have deep desire to get rid of, get over it, then think of the opposite. What is the opposite of greediness? Generosity. What is the opposite of quick anger, temper? Always remain, meditate upon Buddha, meditate upon Swami Vivekananda's meditation pose, meditate upon Lord Shiva and keep your mind. Think of tranquility, think of peace, think of equanimity, so on and so forth. If you have got negative thoughts, what is the Pratipaksha Bhavana? Think of positive thought. That is why a great Christian preacher, the power of positive thinking, I think some Peale, Norman Vincent Peale, that book sold in millions of things. So if anybody thinks, I am free, that thinking is wrong thinking, that wrong thinking is also the result of his habitual thinking that I am free while not complete, not at all free. So everybody, every creature, a tiger is bound by its nature, a deer is bound by its nature, a squirrel is bound by its nature, a mosquito is bound by its nature. So swabhava jena, by one's nature, every creature is completely bound, not only living, non-living, a stone is bound by its stone nature, a piece of wood is bound by its wooden nature, anything is bound by its own nature, water is bound by its own nature. That is why it is so free-flowing, it is so subtle, it can flow anywhere, it can accommodate anything, that is its nature. But a rock cannot do it, a piece of stone cannot do it, fire is bound by its own nature, no use blaming it and say, oh fire, you have burnt me. No, you allowed yourself to be burnt because of your foolishness, ignorance. So kaunteya, every creature is bound by its own nature. And of course, what about me? Yes, you are also bound by your own nature and even if you wanted to go against that nature, you are not going to do that. What is Arjuna's condition here? I am not going to fight. But fighting is your nature because how long can you keep away from your own nature? Like a person who lost his balance and until he regains his balance, he cannot be at peace. So also, until a person follows his own nature, even temporarily if he thinks he is an out of balance person, you apply it to health, you apply it to your nature, it is applicable to every situation. So mohath, because of delusion, you are thinking I can go against my nature, that is pure delusion because you will do what you are born to do, avashah apitath, inexorably, helplessly. Like a stick is flowing in a strong current of a river and it is helpless wherever the river carries and that stick, that person, that animal, it is helplessly being carried away. And if you extend your imagination, you know what happened in Japan, in Indonesia, when that big tsunami came, huge ships weighing thousands of tons, 19,000, 25,000, simply they are played like matchboxes and tossed hither and thither, crashed together, cars, trucks, trains, everything has been carried away. It is only a small tsunami and if it happens like Noah's tsunami, then everything will be carried away. So Arjuna, that means all of us, that you, whatever situation you are born in, with whatever body you are born in, with whatever social circumstances you are born in, you have a specified duty and the only way for you to come out of that situation, that means you want more freedom, you want more unlimitedness, the only way is to discharge your duty properly, then the Lord will remove you from that small limitedness, will grant you much more unlimitedness and that is how slowly progress has to be made. And I mentioned earlier, we have to apply it to our present day situation. Look at what is happening in Ukraine and who is it? Everybody says Russia is bad. How stupid, how much more stupid we can be in giving such judgments? How many people are there in Russia and is everybody for the war? Do everybody feel that we have to grab this country, we have to kill the people of this country and we have to enslave them? We cannot allow them their freedom. How many people are thinking? Hardly a small percentage. Then what is this person we are blaming? I will not name, it could be X, Y, Z, it could be Chinese leader, it could be Russian leader, it could be Indian leader, it could be American leader. Who is right? Everybody is wrong. Everybody is adharmic. Everybody is looking for their own interests. Everybody is behaving completely covered by their own nature which is pure selfishness. And if you do not agree with me, I don't want to say that you are wrong, you are deluded. So it is the Divine play, Divine Mother is playing a big chess with us. So who is responsible? Time is responsible. The Divine Lord is responsible. Divine Mother is responsible. That was the lesson Swami Vivekananda learned. Is it you who will protect me or is it I who is going to protect you? Swami Vivekananda learned his lesson and then he came back and said, शकली तोमारी इच्छा इच्छा मौई तारा तुमी O Mother, everything is done by Thy will and this is the final truth, this is the absolute truth. But it may take time for us to understand but let us at least intellectually, tentatively, hypothetically accept it and think over it and you will see you are born helplessly. You have grown up. Did you decide I am going to be born in this family? Did you decide these are going to be my parents? Did you decide? Yes of course you decided, not by what you think you decide but by the actual actions that we performed in our past lives. Every one of us is born under a particular constraining circumstance and let us see how to get out of it and the only way is by doing. And this is what Shri Ramakrishna had marvelously illustrated. A farmer tied his cow to a tree with a certain length of rope. Now the question is has the cow got freedom, free will? Yes, it can do whatever it likes to the amount of the length of the rope the master allowed it. Is it really its freedom? No, the master has given it the freedom. But Shri Ramakrishna says if the cow properly utilizes that freedom and grazes there and doesn't make it dirty and then the farmer will be pleased. This cow is intelligent cow. It has done what I wished it to do. Now he can lend them. He will lend them and if the cow learns its lesson, it becomes a wise cow and in course of time the master says I will give it complete freedom. So this is the situation. We are all free within the limitations. That limitations are imposed by our own nature and our nature is what we assiduously acquired and we earned it through our past lives. At this moment, this is our only opening and if we play our game properly, means discharge our duties properly, then we are going to get more freedom by the will of the God. But, oh Arjuna, If you think because of this wrong understanding that I have free will, I can do whatever I like. This is completely false view. So your very nature will make you do it. So there is a beautiful incident in why is the Lord addressing Arjuna as Kaunteya. Kunti was the mother of Arjuna. That's why he is called Kaunteya, means Kunti's son. Kunti was a very brave lady and she was at Hastinapura and she sent a message through Shri Krishna just before the war started that she urged all her sons that now this all the other diplomacy and sweet talking and bribing, everything has failed. There is only one upaya that is called Danda Upaya. Sama, Bheda, Dana, Danda. So Sama means diplomacy. Bheda, create divisions. Dana, tempt them with temptable objects. All the three have failed. Krishna himself went as a diplomat and as an ambassador of peace and he failed and they wanted to harm him. Marvellous story, this Mahabharata. Even if you want a story, you will not get a story which is equivalent to this with so many twists. So many stories within stories. Marvellous each story with a deep inner symbolism. Then Kunti saw no way out and she urged. So Arjuna, Pandavas, they heard this. So that is why addressing Arjuna, Shri Krishna is trying to impress him that being the son of such a brave mother and a heroic mother. So the son who is born of a heroic mother cannot behave like a coward. Be a heroic soul and you will not be able to keep yourself aloof. And who was Arjuna? He was a Kshatriya. What is the natural duty of a Kshatriya? To fight the war. So under any circumstances, you are not going to stop this war. Why? Because the Lord says in the 11th chapter, I have already determined, I have already waged this war and I have already killed all these people in time. My name is Eternity and I have killed all these people. But what is happening from your viewpoint of view, it is the present time. From my viewpoint, it is an eternal time. From your viewpoint, the war is yet to take place. So you think out of your delusion, you have a power either to do or not to do. No, I have already determined to wage the war. I have already killed these people. Not only that, I have even made them be born again. Until all of them will reach me through different pathways, of course, we will reach. Everybody will reach. Every single Jeeva, a none but the Divine Lord and He is going to come to me. This idea is, we are all like helpless men being carried by the powerful current of our own nature, which is nothing but what we have accumulated in the past through our own action. And therefore, if we take to Karma Yoga, offer everything to the Divine Lord, then that will be our salvation. It will give us more and more freedom and our limitations will become better and better, more and more, larger and larger. And a time will come when we break all the bonds. As Swami Vivekananda sings in his song of the Sannyasin, Break all the bonds, O Sannyasin, be free, bold, Sannyasin, bold, say Om Tat Sat Om. Now, in this idea, what is the essence of what we are discussing? The Lord says, the only way for you for further progress is through proper discharge of your duty. And your duty is determined by your very nature. And your nature is determined, acquired and earned by your own past actions. And there is no way out excepting to come out of the hole created by yourself, come out of the well dug by your own hands. But there is something very wonderful in the next verse we are going to discuss. Verse 61. But keep those ideas. All of us are duty bound. Our duty is not determined by a devil, by a deluding power, but by the chances given by the Lord from life after life. For that, we have to accept many past lives and if necessary, many future lives also. Everything is our own doing. So we deserve, we get what we deserve. This is the simple idea. Now, this idea has to be understood in a new way. This is called a discussion about free will versus determinism. And that is being spoken out in the 61st verse. In the foregoing verses, man has been declared as dependent on his nature in the matter of his performing, discharging his duties. Naturally, a very natural question. It doesn't occur to everybody. It only occurs to thinking people. That Prakruti, nature means Prakruti. Prakruti or nature is Jada according to Vedanta, Jada according to Sankhyas, Jada according to every school of Indian philosophy. How can such an inert nature be influencing us and bringing about anyone under its sway? Very simple idea. A stone is not going to open its mouth and say to you, look, if you do not do what I am asking you to do, I am going to fall on your head and crush it into a thousand pieces. No inert thing is going. You might take up that stone and crush your own head or someone else can do it for you if you wish. That is a different issue. But the stone or nature is inert. It is not going to do it. Now the whole question is balanced here, is hanging here. You say that my duty is determined by nature. Nature is by its nature inert, Jada. If it is Jada, then how can it even determine? It cannot think. It doesn't know who I am. It doesn't even know what it is. So this question naturally comes, that who is it that is really determining? Because nature being inert, it cannot determine. And all these verses, previous verses, it is your nature which determines. You cannot get out of it. The only way is to fulfil it. All these teachings we have seen. If somebody is thoughtful, this is what it comes. And the Divine Lord is giving. This is the most important verse in the whole world. And that is what Shri Ram Krishna is teaching through that verse, through that beautiful Bengali song, Shokali Tumari Ichcha. Ichcha Mai Tara Tumi. Tumar Karma Tumi Kuru Maa. Loke Bole Ami Kori. Sixty-first verse. Ishwara Sarvabhutanaam Hridyeshe Arjuna Tishtati Brahmayan Sarvabhutani Yantrarudhani Mayaya. The Lord dwelling in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna, and by His maya causes everything to revolve as though mounted on a machine. Let us analyse. O Arjuna, Ishwara. Ishwara means what? The creator. He who does the creation, He who maintains, who again recycles, and everything is done by Him. But very important point we have to understand here. To have clarity of understanding, the creation of Ishwara is not like a potter creating a pot, like a mother giving birth to a baby, like a seed coming, like a tree coming out of a seed. What is it? The seed itself has become manifesting. It is coming out in the form of the tree. So the clay itself is becoming the pot. The gold is itself becoming the ornament. The wood itself is becoming the furniture. This is the idea we have to understand. Like again, I have given in my past classes, like on a cinema screen, you see a man, you see a mountain, you see a bird, you see an animal. It is all nothing but shades of light. You switch off the light, everything disappears. Put on the light, there is light. But why do we see so many? Because of the light passing through the intervention of a film containing all these shades, which either enhance, block, somewhere it is blocking less, somewhere it is blocking more, and in a particular shape. Therefore, we call it, here is a tree, here is a house, here is a mountain, here is a man, here is a bird, here is a tiger, et cetera, et cetera. Similarly, Ishwara, the pure consciousness, alone has become the body, alone has become the mind, alone has become this entire universe. And I have emphasized this idea many times because I want us to understand that Ishwara is not separate from us, from my body, from my mind, from this world. Sarvam Brahma Mayam Jagat. Sarvam Shiva Mayam Jagat. Sarvam Devi Mayam Jagat. Sarvam Narayana Mayam, Vishnu Mayam Jagat. That is the idea we have to understand. Creation means something manifesting, itself manifesting with a particular name, form, quality. That is called creation. From the Advaita Vedanta point of view, like the rope itself, because of semi-light, appears to have become the snake. You can say the rope created the snake because the snake came out of the rope. But the rope, become means really not become. It is only changing its nama, rupa, name, form, and quality. And because of the semi-light, it is appearing as a snake. You remove the rope, there will be no snake. You remove the light, there will be no snake. There will be, for that matter, no rope also. So, this is the idea, Ishwaraha, the Divine Lord. He is called Ishwara. And this idea of Ishwara is emphasized everywhere. And the whole Isha Vasya starts only this Isha Vasyamidam Jagat, Yathkincha Jagatyaam Jagat, Tenat Ek Tena Bunjitha Maagrithaha Kasyasviddhanam. So, oh Arjuna, this Ishwara is there. Where is he? Sarvabhutanam Hridaye Hrideshe In the heart of everybody. So again, this is a profound verse. Don't mistake that Ishwara has entered into this body. In that body, there is a particular piece of flesh called heart. And in that heart, there is a small space. And Ishwara somehow managed to squeeze Himself into that heart. And He is sitting there, like the driver sitting in front of the wheel of the car or truck or train or plane. He is manipulating this one. That is, for normal understanding, fine. But for real understanding, we have to go deep and say, He is everywhere. Then why is it called He is in the heart? Because heart is the place where understanding takes place. Where understanding takes place, that particular space is termed as heart. So, it is our understanding. What is the understanding? That Ishwara sits in the form of consciousness, in the form of the mind. And then what does He do? Sarvabhutani, like all the beings, in every being He is sitting. And He is like a puppeteer, moving each separate puppet by pulling the strings. Yantra rudhani mayaya. Marvellous verse, as I said. We will have to discuss it in our next class also. Brahmayan, He is making them move. Srishti sthithi laya. Creation, sustenance and recycling or reabsorbing into oneself is nothing but the transformation of energy. Transformation of energy is what we call action. And this action is called Brahmayan. Whirling, like pulling the strings, etc. Making the people behave in a particular way, including you will be born, so one string is pulled, and you will be born assuming this particular body. And you will be born under these social circumstances. And this will be the opportunities for your education, for your profession, for your interaction with society. And with that your duties are determined. This is called the Brahmayan. Whirling round, round and round. Sarvabhutani, every being. Until everybody attains that knowledge, I am Brahman, this world continues. World is nothing but creation, maintenance and sustenance. And these three are nothing but outcomes of action. And every action has got a purpose. The ultimate purpose is to take the Jeeva back to the source. So like a puppeteer that manipulates every puppet, the Lord sitting in the heart of everybody is making it. Do everybody behave? A man, a woman, a tiger, a squirrel, a tree, a piece of rock, a flowing river, everything in this world is manipulated. That idea we have seen in the Kata Upanishad. Because of fear of Brahman, the sun shines, the fire heats up, the wind blows, the earth yields everything. That means even the death runs out of fear and discharges its duties. And death, by the way, is recycling. There are marvellous ideas, but here the essence of it is it is not Swabhava, it is not nature. Nature is inert. Inert nature cannot do anything. But there is somebody who is taking this inert nature as a puppet and making everybody behave in a particular way, whether he is a spiritual person, worldly person, evil person, good person. Everything is done by the Divine Lord. Therefore, realise it. Recognise Him and surrender yourself to Him. By His grace, you are going to come out. That is the essence of it. But the question comes, why is Ishwara doing and is He really doing? These are some of the most interesting questions we will deal in our next Gita class. May Ramakrishna, Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda bless us all with Bhakti. Ramakrishna.