19810620 Bhagavad-gītā 10.20

(Disclaimer: The following is a machine-generated transcript and may contain errors or inaccuracies. It will be reviewed and verified against the original audio soon.)

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on June 20, 1981 – in Malaysia. The lecture begins with a reading from Bhagavad-gītā 10.20.

No. Well, how? Anyway, it was possible. Everyone that was in the room that heard the example, most of the people could appreciate that example from practical experience. But since you’re on a different level, then for you I may give a different examples are not the same for everyone. But that example most of the people could appreciate. Because in our practical day to day life, we forget where we put things. And we think, where did I put it? Where did it, where was it? And we remember, the only thing is, you see, that when we came in this material world was so many millions and millions of births.

A goal that if we knew why we came, then to know that we would have to be in that position, in that memory, in that mentality, again, to appreciate the actual reason and to be in that mentality means that we had to, at that time, were not in this material world. That means we have to again be liberated to appreciate that circumstance. So that is my point. I know the exact individual reason means that one has to become liberated then only you can see. Because from this, once you’re in the well, unless you can think of the time when you’re out of the well and remember that position when you’re out of the well and how you fell in, then only you can know how you fell in.

But if you can’t even remember what it was like to be outside of the well, what it was like to stand above the well, if that memory has gone from your mind, then how you can understand, even if someone tells you how is it to fall in if you don’t know what is the existence except for what is in the well, you don’t even know that outside there’s trees and there’s other many things you forgot. Now someone can try to explain well, this is how you fell in. You know, it’s. You see, maybe it’s very. It’s very complex. You just take my word for it. Unless you’re liberated, you will never know the exact reason. Because it is not possible for someone in an ignorant state of life to know these things. But in general, I gave the answer.

We fall down because we want to be independent. So Kṛṣṇa allows us that independence. Could you understand that the first qualification to understand such a subtle thing is to be a vegetarian and eat Kṛṣṇa prasadam and chant hare Kṛṣṇa? Actually, we don’t expect people to understand these things unless they become purified in their consciousness. If one does not purify the consciousness, there’s no way he can understand these subtle things. It’s like tuning in your radio. If you have a tendency, dollar radio. You’re not going to tune into the station going across from the other part of the world. You only get, you know, Am Fm. But if you want to get a nice short wave with so many band, high Sony or some other very good, then you can get fine tuning.

So we have to clean the garbage from our brain and get fine tuning to understand these things. We want everything to be immediately understood. But at the same time, we’re not getting finding in our brain. We are not chanting, we’re not doing meditation, and we’re not being vegetarian and taking only kaprim and acting in a pure way. We’re absorbing our mind in material activity. And then we want to understand the subtle things which require very dark intelligence. So the two things don’t mix. When a person is driving, if he’s drunk, and they give a test, he can’t walk in a straight line. When we’re in the material world, we’re overwhelmed by this energy. It’s not any individual I am talking to. In general, in this material world, we are intoxicated with this body, with this mind.

Therefore, we are not able to understand things as they are. We should understand that this body is intoxicating. Right now it’s hot. We’re thinking it’s uncomfortable when someone turns the fan on. We think, now it’s very nice. If the fan goes off now, we will think, it’s so hot. That means unhappiness, being affected by this simple body. If we have a fan, we feel nice. If it’s just heat and we get hot and sweaty, we think, oh, this is very bad. That means how we are intoxicated by this body. Our happiness is being dependent just by the presence of a fanon. That’s how much this body can affect us. So therefore, we have to transcend the body. And that means we have to transcend the body and transcend the mind also, because the mind is what is appreciating all these distinctions.

So that is done by purifying the kanji, the intelligence. So our intelligence cant remember how we fell in this material world. We cant even remember our previous life, in most cases. What to speak of, that ancient thing. So you are a very intelligent person. Youre coming here and trying to understand all these things. So you should appreciate that this is the most difficult thing to understand, that even you hear it, you may not be able to immediately understand everything. But if you meditate on what is being said, then you can appreciate, we come here. Why we come here you have to take Kṛṣṇa’s word because we have forgotten the time when we came here. We have been here so long that we no longer remember when we first began being here. So Kṛṣṇa said, the reason we have come here is it was our own choice.

That means it’s our fault. And he’s saying that you also have the choice to get out. So what is good if we fall in the ocean? Should we be asking, how did I fall in the ocean? How did I come here? If someone comes in the lifeboat and throws us the rope, before I grab on the rope, tell me, how did I fall in to? Would that be the proper mentality? Or should we first grab on the rope and hold on and get pulled out of the water? And then we will see that, oh, and that. Then we can remember everything. How we fell in, what happened, we can discuss at leisure. So now we’re riding birth, death, old age, disease. We’re suffering it every moment. And when the spiritual master throws the rope, grab, you see, we don’t grab on the rope.

We want to discuss so many things. So we don’t dogmatic followers, people that simply blindly accept. We want good questions. Here’s very good questions that all of you are asking. But we should understand that the real thing is we have to grab onto the rope. When we get pulled out, then we can actually understand. So if we appreciate that we are in this material world is a place of suffering, that should be enough for us to now try to get out, then we should try to understand whether this process is effective to get us out. And the other questions related, how did we get here and all these things. Actually, to understand and appreciate this is not possible for a newcomer, and it is not essential.

I would advise the essential thing is to understand what is this material world, how we are suffering in this material world, and how to get out of that suffering. Whether this process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is suitable for that. Someone gets a disease, he asks the doctor, how did I get it? The doctor is not supposed to say, how you got your disease. He can also give some advice you may or may not accept. It’s like that. You’re asking, how did we fall? I have already given three, four answers. Four or five people are asking the same question. They don’t have to accept my answer. So my second rebuttal is that whether you accept my answer or not, the real thing you should accept is the cure. You should know your disease, that you are diseased in this material world. Birth, death, old age, disease.

If you don’t accept Kṛṣṇa’s advice, that you chose to be in this material world due to ignorance, due to mistake, what more can I say? But you should understand, just like the doctor, when he tells the patient you have got diabetes. Now you have to know, don’t eat any sugar. Even if one can’t follow all the principles, as I mentioned before, of eating Kṛṣṇa Prasadam and so on, at least you should start to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, which is the recommended medicine for this age. Yuga dharma haryanama haryana harina maiva keevalam kaluva nastiva nasthe, nastiva gauti. On what other choice has been given in the kala yuga, this is the only recommended process, guaranteed success. So when we realize we have a disease, we go to the doctor to be cured.

And if we don’t take the cure, then we can’t blame the doctor if we don’t get cured. So we want everyone to be conscious of what are the problems of life. If we can identify the problem, then we can also identify the cure. Once the problem is solved, then there’s no then you won’t even care about how I came, that you already know. When the problem is over, then those questions don’t even come up. But if you want to know at that time, you can know detailed exactly how you came. Just like even today, you can go india. Those people who are having the Bhigu Sanghita, they will look up and tell your previous life, how you came to this life. What is your life, this life. And what was your life, the previous life? Similarly, what was your existence before that I can instruct.

But to understand, one has to have some basic philosophical foundation, which may take a few some time to build up. And the exact individual reason everyone will know. But what we should be concerned with now is how to get out of this predicament. Why do you want to go on suffering birth after birth? Nepal, at the Vishwa, Hindu, Samilina, the Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Sanātana, dharmas, Hindus, everyone was present. So they all accepted their reincarnation. Everyone, even the Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, they all accepted reincarnation. So how to get out of the chain of reincarnation? That should be our first concern. And what is the actual goal of life? That should be our concerns don’t accept now they have to accept. In America, they have already proven it by hypnosis and by kiran photography.

They photographed the subtle body leaving the body in Russia, also in Rome, at the Vatican, they had a big scientific conference and every scientist from all the countries of the west, they all had so many proofs of reincarnation. Just two days ago, two days before I left at 08:00 tv prime time, Audrey Rose. There’s one famous movie. Whole movie is on reincarnation. So they played right on 08:00 Sunday night Primetime tv. I was told the Christian Bible was at 400 years after Lord Jesus left. It was completely edited. No one knows what the original Bible contained. You’re going on abridged version. Lord Jesus himself india, they have his footprints. In Bombay, they say his body is left in Kashmir. Many Christians accept that. All the Christians of India accept that.

So even Christianity, the roots are originally coming from India, but now it’s all distorted what the original teachings were. Lord Jesus never ate cow. He never opened a slaughterhouse, did he? We don’t find anywhere that he ate. He said, let the bread be thy flesh. We’re not trying to discourage the Christians. We want those people who are intelligent, who want a postgraduate course. We are offering the postgraduate course. Nonsectarian. We don’t care if someone is christian or any religion. He’s a postgraduate course. He’s dealing with more higher principles. It transcends all these barriers. Rabbis and priests, they come and they take lessons from us and then they go and give sermons based on our teachings. These are universal points. Is there any prashada it someone else can cut.