20080513 Bhagavad-gītā 15.15

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on May 14, 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The lecture begins with the reading from the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, chapter fifteen, text fifteen.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī caitanya iśvaram
hariḥ oṁ tat sat

Bhagavad-gītā As It Is 15.15

sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo
mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca
vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyo
vedānta-kṛd veda-vid eva cāham

Translation: I am seated in everyone’s heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas, I am to be known. Indeed, I am the compiler of Vedānta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.

Purport: The Supreme Lord is situated as Paramātmā in everyone’s heart, and it is from Him that all activities are initiated. The living entity forgets everything of his past life, but he has to act according to the direction of the Supreme Lord, who is witness to all his work. Therefore, he begins his work according to his past deeds. Required knowledge is supplied to him, and remembrance is given to him, and he forgets, also, about his past life. Thus, the Lord is not only all-pervading; He is also localized in every individual heart. He awards the different fruitive results. He is worshipable not only as the impersonal Brahman, the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the localized Paramātmā, but as the form of the incarnation of the Vedas as well. The Vedas give the right direction to people so that they can properly mold their lives and come back to Godhead, back to home. The Vedas offer knowledge of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa in His incarnation as Vyāsadeva is the compiler of the Vedānta-sūtra. The commentation on the Vedānta-sūtra by Vyāsadeva in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam gives the real understanding of Vedānta-sūtra. The Supreme Lord is so full that for the deliverance of the conditioned soul He is the supplier and digester of foodstuff, the witness of his activity, and the giver of knowledge in the form of the Vedas and as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the teacher of the Bhagavad-gītā. He is worshipable by the conditioned soul. Thus God is all-good; God is all-merciful.

Antaḥ-praviṣṭaḥ śāstā janānām. The living entity forgets as soon as he quits his present body, but he begins his work again, initiated by the Supreme Lord. Although he forgets, the Lord gives him the intelligence to renew his work where he ended his last life. So not only does a living entity enjoy or suffer in this world according to the dictation from the Supreme Lord situated locally in the heart, but he receives the opportunity to understand the Vedas from Him. If one is serious about understanding the Vedic knowledge, then Kṛṣṇa gives the required intelligence. Why does He present the Vedic knowledge for understanding? Because a living entity individually needs to understand Kṛṣṇa. Vedic literature confirms this: yo ‘sau sarvair vedair gīyate. In all Vedic literature, beginning from the four Vedas, Vedānta-sūtra and the Upaniṣads and Purāṇas, the glories of the Supreme Lord are celebrated. By performance of Vedic rituals, discussion of the Vedic philosophy and worship of the Lord in devotional service, He is attained. Therefore the purpose of the Vedas is to understand Kṛṣṇa. The Vedas give us direction by which to understand Kṛṣṇa and the process of realizing Him. The ultimate goal is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Vedānta-sūtra (1.1.4) confirms this in the following words: tat tu samanvayāt. One can attain perfection in three stages. By understanding Vedic literature one can understand his relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, by performing the different processes one can approach Him, and at the end one can attain the supreme goal, who is no other than the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In this verse the purpose of the Vedas, the understanding of the Vedas, and the goal of the Vedas are clearly defined.

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Jayapatākā Swami: [Aside: We need someone to translate into French or something for someone who does not know English. Who is the translator? Everybody knows well in case you do not.] Vedānta-sūtra (1.1.4) confirms who maintains them and gives them all the facility of enjoyment according to different work. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is situated in everyone’s heart as Paramātmā. A wise man who can understand Him is eligible to attain perfect peace, not others.

Thus, ends the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation and purport to text…

[Aside: what happened? I read the wrong purport. I turned over. I read uttamaḥ puruṣas tv anyaḥ paramātmety udāhṛtaḥ, yo loka-trayam āviśya bibharty avyaya īśvaraḥ [Bg. 15.17] Yes, 15. But somehow I flipped over. I got into 17, here it is, 15]

What is the purpose of the Vedas? To know Kṛṣṇa and what is the understanding of the Vedas? He is the compiler. And what is the goal of the Vedas, everything comes around the same thing. It is all Kṛṣṇa. So, this fifteenth chapter it is the Yoga of the Supreme Person, very special. In this fifteenth chapter, how many people are speaking? Like there is Sañjaya, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa speaking in the Bhagavad-gītā. So how many of them are speaking in the fifteenth chapter? Or the paṇḍitas can say – only Kṛṣṇa. This chapter is only spoken by Kṛṣṇa, no other verse. It is considered one of the very powerful verses of, I mean chapters of the Bhagavad-gītā talking about Supreme Person. So here through the Vedas, everything is revealed by Kṛṣṇa. What is interesting here is how it explains that we forget our previous life, and we get a new body.

And then we start up trying to enjoy where we left off. So, we forget but Kṛṣṇa remembers we wanted to be our prime minister last life. So we get directed to politics again. Whatever we wanted to be when we were scientists, we forget. But we get a new chance to achieve what we did not achieve in the previous life. Ultimately the real purpose though is to get back to Kṛṣṇa. How many here would like to get back to Kṛṣṇa? Why you do not want to go back to Kṛṣṇa? I met one businessman in Hong Kong. He told me, “I do not want to go back to Kṛṣṇa. What will I do there? Chant japa all day. I want to enjoy life”, because not everybody wants to get back. But Kṛṣṇa says intelligent people, they want to get back, but they do not know what is.

But his wife told me, “I want to go back. I want to go back to Kṛṣṇa.” His wife was ‘better half’ than him. We should want to serve Kṛṣṇa, know Kṛṣṇa, get back to Kṛṣṇa. This is our special purpose of life. This chapter is so powerful that if one regularly reads it, they can get faith in a Supreme Person. How He is guiding us. He can give us forgetfulness, He can give us remembrance. So we are fortunate. One time Prabhupāda was asked by someone that, “Should not we? Would it not be good to know our previous life?” And he said, “You have so many things, garbage in this life. If you remember your previous life, more things to disturb you, more things to forget.” Say in your previous life, you were cheated by your loved one, you were robbed.

So you may get so much emotional issues coming up from the previous life. We already have enough issues in this life. Why do we want to have more issues coming up? Then I had at one point in ISKCON, people were getting regression by hypnotism where you can be taken back to your previous life. So, one Mahārāja told me that he was regressed and in his one previous life he was suddenly on a battle in Rajasthan, India. The Rājputas riding on a horse fighting with their enemies. But it was not like watching a movie or something, not even like a dream. He was there. He could see the people fighting, trying to kill him. He is fighting back with his sword. He could smell the blood, he could smell the sweat. He could hear the screaming and everything, it was four dimensions, not three dimensions.

He was there then he was telling, “You know, not so good to have to remember all these things fighting and all battles and people dying and getting cut.” So we are fortunate we do not have to remember all of our previous lives. We can pray to Kṛṣṇa to give us remembrance of Him. And we can always remember Him, never forget Him. Like the famous saying Prabhupāda said, “Always remember Kṛṣṇa, never forget Kṛṣṇa.” That is where Kṛṣṇa can help us.

In the Padma Purāṇa tells the glories of the Fifteen chapter that once there was a great king and his goal was to unite the whole world under one empire. So he did many pūjās and yajñas. Then he had a very powerful general who was his general-in-chief over the armies, and they fought the battle and united the world.

But he was not uniting the world like a tyrant or something. He was doing it that everything will be peaceful now. We have so many different countries in the world, and we have so many wars going on. Although officially there is no World War, but there are militias and revolutions and different kind of wars going off and on. In Africa, we have read in the paper, Somalia, different places. Couple years ago, there was in. What is the name of that place, there was some other wars in Africa, the Tutsis and Rwanda. Yes, I just met a devotee in South Africa from Rwanda. He said, “Now, it is peaceful, they killed everybody.” But there is also like in Iraq, India, in Assam we have the ULFA, United Liberation, they keep bombing people in the northeast.

In Manipur you have got these revolutionary Manipuris and Nagas. All around the world there are different kinds of big and small wars. In Colombia you have these Colombian revolutionaries who kept a French citizen who was a candidate for President. They kept her for a long time. Something like this recently in Tibet. So many disturbances going on around in the world. So he by making one world government. And he was very strong, but he was very fair. No more wars. So, after that he gave a big palace and some recognition, some royal like Lord title to his army chief. But the army chief thought, “I won the battles, I should be the king, I should be the emperor.” He called his generals together and they made a plot to assassinate the king and take over.

But the day before they were going to strike, the general died of cholera.

He was… his ātmā and subtle body were taken to Yamarāja. Then Yamarāja said, “You want to be the emperor? He was your master, he treated you fairly. You do not have the good karma to be the emperor of the world. Not just by endeavor, you become the emperor. You need a lot of good karma.” Somehow this UK Brown, he became prime minister. But now his popularity is waning. Let us see what happens. Whether he has enough good karma to stay as the prime minister or not. Time will tell. But they think just by some political manoeuvring they are going to be. But somehow, from their previous life, they have karmas. So Yamarāja said, “You have the karma. You want to be the greatest. You can be the greatest horse in the entire world.”

So, he took birth as a horse, the greatest horse. Not what he expected. Law of karma does not give us what we expect, it gives us what we deserve. So then one businessman, he was travelling and he saw this horse, said, “This is the greatest horse in the entire world. This should go for the emperor.” So he bought it for two million rupees. And with great difficulty he took the very spunky, powerful horse. He took him back to the capital of the empire and he took to that royal court. And he wants to bring the horse in the royal court with guards. You cannot bring a horse in the royal court. “No, this is the best horse in the world.” And like there being a big argument, the king hearing all this shouting going on, “What is going on here?”

He said, someone said, “He says that he has the best horse in the world, he wants to present to you.” So, he sent his veterinarian and his cavalry head, “Go check out the horse.” So they checked, they came back, said, “Best horse definitely. We have never seen a horse like this.” So then the king went to see them. He was also impressed. “Very good horse.”

So that businessman, he said, “You see this horse? I saw it. It is the best horse. It belongs to, should be yours.”

“So, how much you want?”

“No, no, for you. I do not make any profit. You are my emperor. You are beloved to us. I only paid 4 million rupees. You just give me the cost price.”

Right? Did he not pay 4 million? Two? Oh! “For you, know I make no profit.” [laughter] So, then the king got the horse, and he wanted to find out how good he was. So, after a few days they decided to go out on a hunt. So, he with the princes and nobles and everyone, they mounted their horses and went into the forest. They saw a big stag, big antlers. They went running after him. They went deep into the forest. And the king followed. One difficulty in having the fastest and the best horse, is nobody else could keep up with him. He went deeper and deeper in the forest. Finally, he got very thirsty. He found a stream. [Rādhā Golokānananda kī jaya!] He let the horse drink water. Then he drank. And he saw a śloka on a palm leaf by the water. He read out the śloka.

And right before his eye, when we read the śloka, the horse died and the ātmā came out from the horse. He saw his previous general in a subtle form. So, “What are you doing here?” Then he saw the Viṣṇudūtas come and take him back to Godhead. He was very curious, “Oh! My general came out from the horse. How he went back to Godhead. What is this?” So he walked. There was a waterfall. He walked to the top. There was an āśrama. He asked there were some ṛṣis there with their families. He asked, “What is this śloka?” So, “Oh, it blew up this morning. It is a missing verse from our 15^th chapter, Bhagavad-gītā.”

He [The King] told what happened. “How come my horse died?” He [the ṛṣi] said, “See your general. He died. He wanted to overthrow you. Therefore, he was... he wanted to be the greatest. So, Yamarāja had him become the greatest horse. When he heard the Bhagavad-gītā spoken, he became purified from all his sins. Therefore, he left the body and went back to Godhead.” He said, “How come I did not go back to Godhead?” “Maybe you were not listening well enough. You did not pay attention. Like he was really paying attention.” So like that. Then the king started reading Bhagavad-gītā, fifteen chapter everyday. And eventually he went back to Godhead. This is a very powerful chapter. Even if you read this chapter, you get a good understanding. Jaya Bhagavad-gītā, fifteen chapter kī Jaya!