Bhagavad-gita 10.15
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · США · 2004
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Introduction of the speaker
I'd like to introduce Bhakti Vigan Swami Bharaj, a GBC leader in the Eastern Black countries that want to say Russia, but it's much more than Russia, isn't it Bharaj? Yeah, it's a little more than Russia.
So here's he's here to talk about the Bami and Chachni and other techniques for avoiding such things in this material world. The fifteenth verse of the tenth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā.
Swayamevatmanatmana Betatvam Purusotama Purus Bhutabhavana Bhutesha Budabhavana Butesha Deva Jagatpateva Deva Jagatpate. Translation.
Indeed, you will all know yourself by your own internal potency, or supreme person, origin of all, Lord of all beings, God of gods, Lord of the universe.
The Supreme Lord Krishna can be known by persons who are in a relationship with Him through the discharge of devotional service, like Arjuna and His followers.
Persons of demonic or atheistic mentality cannot know Krishna. Mental speculation that leads one away from the Supreme Lord is a serious sin.
And one who does not know Krishna should not try to comment on Bhagavad-gītā. Bhagavad-gītā is the statement of Krishna.
And since it is the science of Krishna, it should be understood from Krishna as Arjuna understood it. It should not be received from atheistic persons.
As stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, vadanti tatvavidas tatvam yajana madvayam Brahmeti Paramatmati Bhagavaniti Shabdyate The Supreme Truth is realized in three aspects as an personal Brahman, localized Paramātmā, and at last as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
So at the last stage of understanding the absolute truth, one comes to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
A common man, or even a liberated man, who has realized in personal Brahman or localized Paramatma may not understand God's personality.
Such men therefore may endeavor to understand the Supreme Person from these verses of Bhagavad-gītā which are being spoken by this person, Krishna.
Sometimes the impersonalists accept Krishna as Bhagavan or they accept his authority. Yet many liberated persons cannot understand Krishna as Purushotama, the Supreme Person. Therefore, Arjuna addresses him as Purusotham.
Yet one will still, yet one still may not understand that Krishna is the father of all living entities. Therefore, Arjuna addresses him as Bhuta Bhavana.
And if one comes to know him as the father of all living entities, still one may not know him as the supreme controller. Therefore, he is addressed here as Buddhisha, the Supreme controller of everyone.
And when and even if one knows Krishna as the supreme controller of all living entities, still one may not know that he is the origin of all the demigods.
Therefore, he is addressed here as Deva Deva, the worshipable God of all demigods. And even if one knows him as the worshipable God of all demigods, one may not know that he is the supreme proprietor of everything.
Therefore, he is addressed as Jagatpati.
Difficulty of knowing God personally
Thus, the truth about Krishna is established in this verse by the realization of Arjuna, and we should follow the footsteps of Arjuna to understand Krishna as He is.
Again, this is the prayer of Arjuna, where Arjuna glorifies the Supreme Lord. Svayamevātmanātmānaṃ vettha tvam puruṣōttama bhūta-bhāvana bhūteśa deva-deva jagat-pate.
Indeed you alone know yourself by your own internal potency. O Supreme Person, Origin of all, Lord of all beings, God of gods, Lord of the universe.
I took this verse because in this purport, Prabhupada explains the difficulties of understanding that God is a person.
He explains very beautifully that the highest understanding or the highest conception of God is to understand that ultimately He is the person.
But even though theoretically many people accept it, theoretically many people understand that God must be a person and that He is some kind of person. Still, to understand Him as a person is very difficult.
And here basically Arjuna states that Svayamevātmanātmānaṃ vettha tvam puruṣōttama nobody can understand you. Only you yourself can understand you. And then after stating this, that nobody can understand you,
Only by your own energy somebody can know you or you yourself only know you.
And this is actually the topic of the 10th chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, where Krishna explains to Arjuna that ultimately to Gita, where Krishna explains to Arjuna that ultimately to understand God you have to get mercy of God. Because that's the nature of person.
You cannot know the person by mechanical means. Person by definition is somebody, to understand him, you have to get his permission.
Like, for example, if I want to understand what is in your heart, you know, there is a way to do it. You can just, you know, take a knife and open your chest and look inside your heart.
Do I understand what is inside your heart? No. But at the same time, if you yourself want me to understand your heart, you will pour it out. You will say what is there in your heart.
So, and basically, that's the problem with understanding that God is the person and here Arjuna very clearly states to understand how is God person, what it means that God is person, you have to get His mercy. You have to get His consent to this. He has to agree.
You cannot really say, you know, okay, Krishna, from now on I want to know you. Here we are. Let's go. So it is a science.
And in the beginning of this chapter, Krishna says that you cannot understand me. Nobody can understand me. Demigods cannot understand me.
All the host of demigods and demons, which are the first living beings in this universe cannot understand the origin of all because he was before them.
If somebody is before you, you know, to understand him, you really have to have his permission to do this.
Revelation through divine mercy
And it's not so easy to understand, you know, if somebody was before you. In any case, Arjuna says here, and and after, and then Krishna says, Krishna explains the science.
Krishna explains that there is a way to understand me. Krishna, in Catuḥ-ślokī of Bhagavad-gītā and the very essence of Bhagavad-gītā, very succinctly and very shortly explains that how to understand him.
He says, first you have to accept that there is a origin of all. Krishna says, Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo, I am the source of all material and spiritual worlds. And then he says, those who know it, they're always in ecstasy.
And they always want to talk about me, they always want to understand me. And then the Shamsatata Yukta nam dadami buddhi yogam tam nya na mampayanti. They worship me with love.
And because they worship me with love, I reveal myself. I reveal myself to them. So that's the way to understand that Srila Prabhupada stresses this.
And when and when Krishna said this toward Arjuna, when he said that I am sitting in everyone's heart, and if I want, I can lighten the darkness which is there in the heart of every living being by lightening the you know by lighting the torch of knowledge within everyone's heart.
Then Arjuna burst into prayers and he started glorifying Krishna because he understood. At that moment he understood. That's it. You know, at that moment the revelation came to his heart and had this too.
This is Krishna, this is God. What I see in front of me is not just a human being. He is the source of everything. And because of this, being overwhelmed by this realization and understanding, he started praying to Krishna.
He started glorifying him, and he started saying that this param Brahma Param Dhamma Pavitram Paramam Dhamma Dhamam.
He started glorifying Krishna. And here he says that the only way to understand God is through the mystical process of revelation.
One way why we cannot understand God why essential reason why we cannot understand God, especially why we cannot understand God as a person, is that because we don't really want to do it.
Because to understand God as a person it's kind of commitment already. It's much easier to have an impersonal understanding of God because you can deal with kind of impersonal mechanism in an easier way.
Because impersonal means you do something and there is a mechanism. Some people, many people accept that there is a higher power behind everything which we see.
But most of the people's understanding is that it's kind of mechanical power. You do something good and this mechanical power gives something good in return to you and you are happy.
And you don't really care about God as a person. Because to accept that God is a person, you have to really, you know, live with this understanding. And that means that it's not that mechanical.
It's much easier to live with God who is not a person. Because to live with somebody who is a person is a problem. Those who are married, they know this. To live with somebody who is a person is difficult.
You know, to live with somebody who is not a person or with something which is not a person, it's easy, you know, because you have your way of doing things and uh everything else has to obey you.
But if near to you live somebody who has his way of doing things and you have your way of doing things, he has his desire and you have your desire, this is not so convenient because every now and then you have to adjust your desires.
And basically, that's one of the main impediments for us to understand that God is a person. Because if we understand that God is a person, we really have to kind of hear about him which we don't really want.
Because it's it's kind of you know if God is somewhere there, you know we you know it's nice to have God, but if we don't like Him, we just, you know, close the curtain. And we have our way, you know.
But understand that somebody is a person, person means desires. And if we live with somebody who has desires, we have to care for his desires. And who wants it? Nobody wants it. I don't want it. Nobody wants it.
Everyone is concerned about his own desires.
And therefore, one main problem for us to understand that God is a person, because if we stay that God is a person, we really have to accept that He has some kind of you know say in our lives.
Focus on divine desires
And it's not that, you know, that mechanical. People who really you know relate with God as some supreme power, supreme supplier.
Sometimes Śrīla Prabhupāda would say that religion means to understand that there is God and how to get something from God. That's basically in common terms what religion is.
You know, basic understanding of God and common religions is that He is the order supplier. You have some desires and you write down to God, you know, I want this and this and this and this.
As if He doesn't know what you want. He knows. And usually when we pray to God, it's also we don't really understand that He is a person.
Like one nice Christian author he said that usually prayer is a very tactful way of reminding absent minded God what he forgot. You know, very minding, here I am, my dear Lord, and I want this and this and this desires.
Please be careful, you know. Please try to fulfill all these desires. But actually, when we live with the person, it's not an issue to tell him about our desires.
The real crux of the problem is to know what his desires are. If we want a nice relationship, if we want to establish relationships, relationship is always two ways.
And if we want to establish a relationship, our first priority and first concern should be what is his desire? What does he want? And that's the difficulty.
And that's exactly the difficulty with God because not only He is the person, not only He has His desires, but He also has the ways to fulfill His desires without even asking us.
And sometimes He imposes his desires upon us. Like there is a little anecdote about one Muslim Mullah. Somebody asked Muslim Mullah, how can you prove the perfection of God's will? That God's will is perfect.
He says, yeah, that's very easy. All the time which I remember you, his will is perfect because all the time which I remember myself only His will is being fulfilled.
Because if it was not so at least sometimes my will would be fulfilled. But it didn't happen. Therefore His will is perfect.
In other words, you know, if somebody has an understanding of God, he understands that something is going on in our lives and it's not really the way we want it. And here in this prayer of Arjuna, he actually tries to explain that to understand God as a person means to understand that He has control over our lives.
And that's the difficult thing to swallow. Here Arjuna says, and Śrīla Prabhupāda explains in the purport that there are stages of understanding this.
And basically to understand God is a person is to understand how much control He has over our lives. And Arjuna goes on to say that bhūta-bhāvana bhūteśa deva-deva jagatpate.
And Prabhupāda explains that somebody can understand that God is Bhagavān, is a person. And it's rare people, rarely people understand this.
Most people, even if they have some religious background, even if they have some religious understanding, they prefer to relate to God as some kind of power, which really we don't want to care about Him so much.
But then he says the first understanding of God as a person, he says Purusottama. Purusottama means the Supreme Person.
And then he says, even if person understands that God is Supreme Person, then he may not understand that he is bhūta-bhāvana means the father of all living entities. You may understand that he's a big guy somewhere there. But you may not understand that you are related to him directly. And father of all living entities means he's my father too.
It means I have to fulfill his orders, his will. And then he says: even if one understands that God is the supreme father of everyone, still he may not understand that he is bhūteśa, means he the controller of everyone.
Not only he father because sometimes father you know he may not really be in control of your lives and oftentimes especially when we become teenagers, we say, you know, you go your way, I will go my way. At least this is what teenagers do in the West.
So even to accept that God is Father is not enough. Therefore, Arjuna says bhūteśa. Śrīla Prabhupāda says this is the higher understanding of God.
To understand that He is bhūteśa, the controller of everyone means to understand more about God than just to understand that He is Father or even understand that He is the Supreme Person.
And then he says Deva Deva, which means that he is not only the controller of small living entities as we, but he is the controller of big living entities, demigods, he is the controller of the Lord of Death. He is the controller of Vayu, he is the controller of everyone else.
And this is again even more difficult. Because we are, and that's another difficulty for us to understand that God is a person because we're rebellious living entities.
And because we're rebellious, rebels they don't want to accept authority. Teenagers usually rebels and they go to father and they say, you know, I I want to have my way, you know. I want to do as I want.
And therefore they reject their authority and basically therefore they forget about the Father. They forget altogether about the Father.
And the same thing happened to us because we're rebels, because we don't want to accept authority. And uh because this is the main reason of us being here.
For us to come back, we have to accept uh the levels of authority of God and the more deeply we understand His authority over our lives, the more closer we stand.
And therefore, Prabhupada explains in this purport, determining stages of understanding personality of Godhead.
He says Purusottama, then Bhuta-bhavana, and then Bhutesha, then Deva-deva, and ultimately Jagat-pate, he is the Lord of the whole universe. He is the one who controls everything and of course this
is not even the highest understanding. The highest understanding is even higher and Arjuna doesn't go here that high. That the highest understanding is ultimately God is not only
Surrender as constant remembrance
the controller, but He is also the lover of all living entities. That there is the highest power of God which is yet not revealed in this verse.
But in any case, the point of this verse, the real point, the main point of this verse is to understand that God is a person means to understand that He is in control. And this is actually the way to remember about Him.
Because ultimately Krishna says that the essence of Bhagavad-gītā, the essence of spiritual science, The culmination and real success of spiritual science is when you can remember about God 24 hours a day.
Then when you really can remember about him, and what Arjuna is explaining here is that ultimately to remember God you have to surrender to him. Because now we don't remember about him. Why?
Because we remember about whom? About ourselves. Because we don't care about him. Because we care about ourselves. And this is called pride. Pride means that we are self centered.
And when we are proud, really pride is the main impediment, the main obstacle, main hindrance for us to remember about somebody else.
When we are proud and when we are self-centered, we don't really care about anyone else. We just care about ourselves and you know we care about anyone else only as much as it's needed for us to be happy in this world.
But what Krishna says is that if you really want to remember about Me, you have to surrender.
The culmination of Bhagavad-gītā is this verse: man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru, mām evaiṣyasi satyaṁ te pratijāne priyo 'si me. But then Krishna goes a little back and he says that the way to achieve this is that Sarvadharman Parityajamakam Saranamraja. You think about me, you you you surrender to me. You become humble.
Because sarvadharma-parityāga means, as Prabhupada explains in Bhagavad-gītā, that it means Saranagati. It means that I totally surrender my will to the Lord. He is my maintainer, He is my protector, He is my everything.
And by taking this humble position, I'm acquiring the highest treasure of life, the highest happiness of life is to remember about God 24 hours a day.
Before and until I do this, until I accept God's authority in uh in very clear terms, until I understand that I have to surrender my will, uh, until I understand that I have to take his ways. I will not be able to remember about him.
It's actually the if we look in in the Gospels, this is the also there. We know that Jesus Christ when he went in this you know in the seclusion before he was crucified, he was praying to God.
And he knew that something wrong is going to happen with him, something really bad, you know. He knew he felt it in his heart, he felt that he will be suffering like anything. And he started praying.
And initially it was his prayer was please don't give me this sufferings. I don't want this. I don't want this.
But when his heart became purified through the process of praying, then he said, okay, I accept whatever you will do to me. Let your will be over my will. I don't want it. Yes, I don't want to suffer. Who wants to suffer?
Nobody wants to suffer. But the perfection of religion means you surrender to the Lord, it means whatever you send to me, whatever you do with me, I accept. And I accept with grateful heart.
Basically, to understand that God is a person means to say yes to God. Like this famous mantra, which in personalist chant this om mantra. The literal meaning of oṁ is yes.
Accepting the Lord's will
When they you know they when they see they are in uh seclusion and they you know do some pranayama and they say oh what they say they say yes and yes is very important but it means yes it
means we say yes to God before we used to say no to God you know no no no I don't want this I don't want this this is not good this is wrong and you are, you know, you're wrong person you,'re doing this to me. But to surrender means to say yes to God.
It means we say, you know, whatever you will do with me, whatever will happen in my life, I will accept with grateful heart.
And that's also the meaning of Hare Krishna mantra when we say Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Ram Hari Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare.
Basically that's the prayer when we say my dear Lord you, please do with me whatever you like. Caitanya Mahāprabhu says this in his Śikṣāṣṭaka. Whatever you want to do with me, I will accept.
If you want to you know, if you want to disappear from my life, it's fine with me. I will live in separation with you, and this separation with you, my love will even become stronger. And that's difficult.
Not everyone is ready. Sometimes you know, people, especially the beginners on the spiritual path, they say, you know, where is God? You know, you get God here. I want to see him. But this is not love.
Love means if he wants to appear in front of me, fine. If he doesn't want to appear in front of me, I accept this as well. If he wants to crush me, I accept this.
If he wants to you know to make me happy, I accept this as well. Because I'm not concerned about myself. This is the highest the pinnacle of religious understanding which is not easy.
But we only can understand that God is person if we have this attitude within our heart and basically the sādhana the practice of bhakti means to develop gradually this attitude within our heart the attitude of surrender.
From being rebels, from being rebellous persons we have to soften our heart enough to really say yes to God and it means to say yes to whatever is happening with me as well.
And it means ultimately even this simple act of surrender makes one happy.
When we say this, you know, we immediately feel that you know from now on I am Lord's property, I belong to Him, whatever He wants with me to do with me, I will accept and I will not keep you know bitterness in my heart, I will not keep grudges in my heart, I will not keep all this, you know, bad things in my heart.
I let it go. There is no reason for me to be bitter. There is no reason for me to be kind of things. You know, I'm I'm I'm surrendered to the Lord. I'm his and he's mine. This is even higher understanding.
I'm his and ultimately when I develop this understanding that I belong to him, that as Rūpa Gosvāmī explains in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, the next stage of understanding, he is mine, he belongs to me.
God is only mine and nobody else's. You become really possessor of the Lord. And this is actually this is the perfection of life because if we have God, we have everything else.
If we don't have Him, we are we are beggars, we are poor people, we don't have anything else. So we want to have God ultimately, and for that we have to say yes to Him. It means to accept what He wants.
Story of the clever servant
And only do what He wants us to do and don't do anything else. And of course, this is not easy.
Like there was a story in Orissa. Once there was a king, and this king he announced that on such and such day I will give I will fulfill all the desires of my citizens. You come to me and you ask whatever you want.
And a big queue was there, big, big, huge queue. And everyone would come to the king and say, you know, I need a husband. And king would say, you know, find a husband for her. And somebody would say, I need some money.
And King would say, you know, take the money. And then there was a personal servant of him, and he didn't ask anything. And the king was giving and giving and giving and giving and giving.
And then ultimately he saw this personal servant and he said, You didn't ask. Why didn't you ask me anything? He said, Because I have everything. He said, No, you have to ask.
And then this personal servant, being very clever, he said, Okay my dear Lord, I have only one desire, I don't want to ask you anything. But you please come to my home.
You know, I want and spend the night at my home. Just please come there. And the king said, yes, of course, I will do this. I will come to your home on such and such date, and I will spend night there.
So and the king announced to his ministers I am going to home of such and such servant of mine on such and such date and I will spend night there.
So the ministers they became really launched. So they made a big road to this little home of this you know guy and they rebuilt it completely and they built nice you know bedrooms for the king to spend night.
And uh he got everything. And uh of course the king came and spent the night and everything else remained with with the servant.
But the point is that if you have the Lord, you have everything. And to have the Lord, basically we have to surrender to Him. We have to give up this rebellious attitude which is there in the heart and accept that He has the he has to say over our lives. You know, that you know we are not on our own. There is somebody whose will we have to take seriously.
And basically, as Prabhupāda explains in this purport, to understand his will, how we can understand his will? Just one way.
We have to read what he says in Bhagavad-gītā. And we have to follow uh what he says in Bhagavad-gītā as it is without trying to you know twist it in such a way that it would feed our purposes.
So uh and that's the main uh the main crux of the issue, the main uh method of understanding God, just follow him, just accept his authority. And that's the first step.
And when we do this, the next step will go more or less naturally. Then we will actually develop this very personal feeling about the Lord.
But not before we say very clearly that yes I accept whatever you do then only we will feel that there is a person which is behind us which is actually watching us at every step and following us at every step and helping us at every step.
Parable of footsteps in sand
So that's what it is. And surrender means this understanding that God is always there and He always helps me.
Like there is this beautiful you know story about one man who hmce had a dream and in a dream that was before his death.
Usually before somebody is when somebody is about to die, he kind of remembers uh everything which happened in his life. So this man had a dream and it was before his death.
So in his dream he saw his whole life, you know, from the very beginning through the very difficult things and he saw uh that you know he saw it in a symbolical way. That, you know, he saw like steps, the footsteps.
And he saw that actually when he was passing through difficult situations, that there always two footsteps, two rows of footsteps. And he was in this dream he was talking with God, you know, uh and uh he kind of understood that uh while walking through the life, he was not alone.
God is always there. He's walking with us. But then somehow or other he you know when the difficult part of his life would come he would see that there is only one row of footsteps. And he started arguing with the Lord.
How is that possible? When everything is good, I see your footsteps and my footsteps and we are going together. But when something is bad, there is only one row of footsteps. It means that you leave me at this point.
And the Lord answered him, you know, no, at this point I would take you on my hands and I would carry you through this. So the footsteps which you see is mine, not yours.
So if you are surrendered, then you have this feeling that in any situation of life Lord is there. He is there to protect you, He is there to help you, He is there to be with you.
But this feeling only comes and this understanding only comes when you say this yes,
when you say that yes, you are Purushottama, yes, you are bhūta-bhāvana, yes, you are Bhūteśa, yes, you're Devadeva, yes, you are Jagat Pate. Yes, you're the controller. Yes. You know what you're doing.
And whatever is happening to me is not just an accident. It's a perfect plan by you for me. So I think I will finish now. I don't want to go too late. If somebody has some questions.
I think Prabhupāda explained that there are two ways for the jīva. One is to be controlled by Maya, and the other is to take shelter of the internal energy.
So when we have this understanding of taking shelter, so it's not like a fearful uh thing to obey the order of the law. Yeah. Yeah, because in any case we are surrendered.
But in one case we are surrendered to the illusory energy because we are marginal potency, we have to take shelter of either one energy or another energy.
When we take, but we prefer to take shelter of inferior energy because we are, being superior energy, have this illusory understanding that if we take shelter of inferior energy, we are in control. Because it's inferior.
You know, and we're superior. And we are kind of manipulating it and controlling it and trying to control.
But in any case, in any case, we are taking shelter, either in inferior energy and inferior energy means full of fears. Because this is an unnatural situation for us.
Or taking shelter of superior energy and it means fearlessness. When we really feel that we took shelter of the Lord, uh actually this is what Jīva Gosvāmī explains.
He says that the first sign of faith, if somebody has śraddhā, faith in his heart, the first sign, and this is how you can recognize whether you're a faithless person or faithful person, is that you become free from fear.
When you acquire faith in God, then immediate psychological effect of this is you become totally free, or to a certain extent, to a greater extent, free from fear.
Personal law behind karma
And you see it, you you you can feel the difference in comparison. Yes, you're right. Thank you.
And you were talking about before you were talking about how people who aren't personalists, they believe in karma, but they don't believe that God is personal.
I was having a discussion with this one person who was a Buddhist. I think they believe in karma and that they're understanding karma is the same.
If you do something good, you get something good, if you do something bad, you get a bad reaction. I try to explain to him, that proves that there's uh reciprocity, is there's uh reciprocal behavior.
Because if it's impersonal, then who decides what's good and what's bad? So how do you get some person to understand that the law of karma is actually personal.
See in a sense law of karma is like law of the state and behind the law of the state there is a person. But law itself isn't personal. It's a mechanism to kind of to to establish the will of the person, right?
The president or the king of the state. He issues the law and that's his will.
But then with this will and with the law he also established some mechanism and uh you know to really fulfill the law, there is some kind of mechanism in place, and you don't really have to interact with him, and he doesn't have to interact with you.
And that's basically what Krishna says at the end of the ninth chapter, where he explains this bhakti as the personal interaction, he says that there are in reality two kinds of interactions between the human being and the Lord.
He says, samo 'haṁ sarva-bhūteṣu na me dveṣyo 'sti na priyaḥ.
He says, if somebody is, you know, if somebody doesn't care about me, then samo 'haṁ sarva-bhūteṣu, so I'm neutral. And I'm not really, you know, and uh actually that becomes the law of karma.
Yes, behind this there is God, but it becomes law of karma. But then he says, but for my bhaktas, uh, if somebody worships me with love, that I take special care of him. So the law of karma is impersonal.
The person is behind this, his will is fulfilled through the law of karma, but this is impersonal mechanism of the Lord.
And it's there not without purpose because it's specifically for those people who don't want to see God as a person.
Therefore, He is kind of hiding. He's hiding away behind this law of karma. So if they don't want to understand this, they will never understand this. Because this is the purpose of law of karma. But if they have some brain, they can understand that law Prabhupada
explained it in very simple terms. He says if there is law, there must be somebody who established the law, there must be lawmaker, right? So that was simple reasoning of Prabhupada.
And if they don't accept this, you know what, can you do? This is very logical understanding and uh logical answer to this question. But because they don't want to accept this, they will reject this understanding.
And they will say, No, no, no, it's it's just impersonal. And basically Krishna says, yes, what can we do? You don't you want me to be impersonal, so I will be impersonal for you.
Ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham. I remember I came to United States in the year 2000 and there was a big meeting of religious leaders.
Some kind of interfaith meeting in United Nations and everyone came. Muslims came and Christians came, all different denominations, Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, and Buddhists came, and some Hindus came.
You know, and everyone, and rabbis came from Israel and from here, you know, and different, you know. And everyone would have a chance to speak and they would speak different things and nobody
would care about anyone else and it was it was it was a zoo. It was really, you know.
So one journalist came to me and was Japanese journalist and he wanted to take my interview and he said, what do you expect from this meeting? And I'm being politically correct and polite.
Well, I didn't say that I don't expect anything good from this meeting because these people they don't really want to hear what everyone else speaks. So I had to say something.
So I I started, you know, feverishly thinking, what do I expect from this meeting because I really didn't expect anything.
So, so, so I told him, yeah, perhaps we can expect that, you know, after speaking with each other and talking, you know, people can understand that there's only one God.
And everyone is praying to one God and everyone at least has this understanding in common that there is only one God.
And then this, you know, Japanese journalist said, yeah, but I am Buddhist and according to Buddhist philosophy, there is no God at all. So even this is not the common ground, you know, among the different religions.
And basically as as Krishna explains that, you know, sattvānurūpā sarvasya śraddhā bhavati bhārata that the faith, your conditioned faith, śraddhā in the 17th chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, śraddhā is developed according to your to the condition of your heart.
Sattvānurūpā sarvasya śraddhā bhavati bhārata. One develops faith according to his sattva and sattva can be translated differently.
Of course, sattva is sattva-guṇa, and therefore Prabhupada there explains that faith is coming from sattva-guṇa. But another explanation which is also given there in the purport to this verse: sattva-nurupa.
Sattva means being. Sattva means existence. So the faith is coming, the condition faith is coming from your existence or from your experience.
In other words, you know, you live a certain way of life, and the certain way of life develops or reinforces some faith in your heart.
And if you don't believe in God, you will have every possible proof that God doesn't exist. And Krishna himself says this.
He says: if somebody believes in some demigod, I'm being in his heart, make his faith stronger. I give him all possible proofs that he is the Supreme Lord.
So ultimately, if somebody doesn't want to understand that big that behind the law of karma there is a person, he has all facilities. Never understand this.
Perspectives on reincarnation and suffering
But you can give him the simple argument that beyond any law there is a lawmaker. Yes. I was wondering, in Christian theology there's really no idea of karma.
But I was wondering what do you think that the story of Jesus, Jesus' crucifixion has to say about karma within Christian theology?
Christian theology do have some understanding of karma because they say those shall reap what you sow, something like this, they do have some understanding of karma. They may not understand and believe in the you know, previous life and next life. And even this they have some understanding.
They say that there is future life. And of course, this is not very philosophical and therefore
to explain out this whole tragedy which took place 2,000 years ago, they have to really they had to deify Jesus Christ and their explanation of this whole thing is that he was crucified because he accepted the sins of all the people who surrendered to him at that time and
he will surrender to him, you know, for the eternity more or less. So that's their understanding. And you know, it's a little, to my taste, it's a forced understanding of this whole thing.
But you know, Christian people when they were developing their theology there was some understanding of karma in previous life and future lives reincarnation.
Socrates was speaking about this, but you know, somehow or other it was developed and the way it was developed. Don't ask me why. To me it doesn't make any sense. So I I never heard any good explanation uh from them.
I spoke with quite big people on this very point, I asked the person, uh one theo theologian, Christian theologian, why somebody is born in a very nice family with I all the riches and he's beautiful and he's well educated and why somebody else is born if God is equal, God is fair, why somebody else is born in a very poor family and his parents are drunkards and he's you know diseased and has all kinds of problems, mental problems.
And his only answer was: you don't know what is good for this person, and because God knows that this is good for this particular person, he gives him this.
But you know, this is very shallow explanation because you have all rights to ask him, you know, I can understand this is mercy of God to everyone, that's fine with me. But if they don't have any previous karma, so to speak,
why does God create somebody for whom good means to be born without legs, without hands and you know with the parents who are drunkards and you know and he's dull-headed, you know. Why is it so good for him?
And uh and again the next argument would be: uh you know, how from experience we don't see how it is good.
Some people do have some predisposition towards religion and some people they are born in such a horrible situation they they will never think about God. You know, and they're so immersed in this material life that they will never, how is it good for them?
Where is the proof that it is good for them? But they have no answer. They say this is, you know, then they say this is all from devil, you know, that's something like this.
Speaker's experience with the KGB
And ultimately they will say you are coming from devil so you go to devil and I will follow my religion. Were in Uber and last morning explaining how you came pushing the consciousness? Yeah. He likes to tell the story.
I told him this story. He forgot it a little bit. So he explained. In essence, it's this, it's this is always this story. But uh yeah this is part of the story.
The part of the story goes like this that which she explains and
that I was doing my PhD degree in biochemistry and at the same time I started associating with devotees, started changing. And at that time everything was very closed, very everything was very underground and the KGB, the secret police, the secret intelligence of Russia was very active and they were watching all the devotees.
And they really started the whole huge campaign against devotees. And I was very new at that time. I was not really serious about Krishna consciousness. I was kind of trying.
Somebody told me you chant that your health will become better and something like this, you know, some kind of rubbish.
I didn't really believe in God, but I had some understanding, little understanding was there, but I was not really serious at all. So at one point uh I came to my place of
work where I was doing my thesis, I was making some experiments and I had my chief, scientific chief, who was a very bold man. He was very, you know, very courageous man.
And he was here in America, studied for some time, very famous too, very influential person. And when I came and I looked at him, I couldn't recognize him. He was he was white and he was trembling.
He was coming from his office. And he looked at me and he kind of you know mumbled something. He said, You go there. So I didn't know what to expect.
So I went to his office and I saw a huge guy sitting there, and this guy was from the KGB and he smiled very sweetly at me. So I think that the you know the spider probably have the same smile when he
sees the little fly in the combat. So I was there, face to face with him. Huge guy and a heavy guy. And the guy started, you know he said, Oh you are such a such nice educated
person and you are, you know, I know you are speaking with these Hare Krishnas, you know, and that you are chanting Hare Krishna and you know that they're very bad people and he started,
you know, saying all bad things about these people and, you know, flattering me, intimidating me, blackmailing me, saying so many things and I became really afraid.
And ultimately his point was you have to work for us, you have to spy for us. You have to go to these people and you know report to us regularly what they're doing because
otherwise you will lose everything which you. You will lose your, you know, profession, we will make your life hell and we will put you in prison. Everything was said there. And I became really fearful.
I r— because I was not really serious about Krishna consciousness. I was chanting a little bit. And so what happened next? And then he said to me, and I didn't give him definite answer.
I I definitely didn't want to say yes, but you know I was afraid to say no either. So then uh he said, you come to me to the headquarters of the KGB on such and such day, and
by that time you have to think really seriously about this, and by that time you will have to give me your definite answer. And the mind is such a guy, you know, the mind started really scaring me even more than this guy.
He knew what he was doing.
He just planted some seeds and the mind was start started projecting you know this is gonna happen with you and you will suffer in Siberia for the rest of your life and what gonna happen with this you know and I was becoming more and more worried.
And then ultimately before this date, on this day, before to go to them, I decided to meet with a devotee. I knew at that time a few devotees and there was one girl there.
She was probably eighteen years old or something like this. Very intelligent, nice girl. And uh because I kind of developed some respect towards her, I I wanted to speak with her.
So I called her and I said, I I need to speak with you. You know, I had you know all the problems in my throat. You know, I could hardly pronounce words. And she came out and we met in some secret place or whatever.
You know and I said they came to me. And she already knew what it means because at that time all the devotees knew what it means. They means KGB you know who else could come to you?
And uh and also I said that threading me this and that and she just looked and she smiled. She said, what can they do to you? She was she was she said she said you know what can they do to you?
And I you know I she said it with such a conviction and such a face, I and I thought, what can they do to me? You know, I kind of came back to my senses. I'm spirit soul, I'm eternal.
By that time I kind of had this understanding.
So I went to this guy after her and I was really bold, you know, I was proud, you know, I had like you know and I marched in the room where he was sitting and he was sitting with another guy. You know.
And he again smiled at me and I was, you know. So he asked me, did you decide? I said, yes, I decided. What did you decide? I said, I will not work for you because this is against my principles.
And I was very proud of pronouncing this in very bold terms. He became furious. Like I said, what kind of principles do you have except for four regulative you know besides for regulative
and and he started yelling and you know smashing me and you know but I was I I again became very small and but then I s anyway I I kept my word. I said no no I'm not going to work and he said you will see.
So uh and that went on. You know they, started calling me and interrogating me and you know and uh everytime I was, you know, kind of going to them and every time Krishna I felt the protection of Krishna.
I felt some kind of very strong energy in my heart after all these things. And then gradually, gradually, what came to me that this understanding that these people really take Krishna consciousness so seriously.
I don't take the KGB, I don't take Krishna consciousness that seriously. They take it much seriously than me. And I thought for myself maybe I should also become more serious
about this consciousness because the guys know what they're doing. They are not stupid. They're not fools. They really know if they take this movement so seriously it must be real moment.
It must be very you know powerful movement. So in a way they kind of helped me to become more serious about Krishna consciousness so that's little story.
Some you have some devotee from he's like KGB officer because he was studying for so long. Is it true? You have some devotee in the Moscow temple but we probably have a few of them.
No, um I heard a story, it was not in Moscow temple that KGB sent one guy, planted one guy, spy in a temple, and the guy became a real humble guy,
you know and he started washing pots and started you know chanting mantra and everything you know singing kirtans and he was at the same time he was working for the KGB reporting to them reporting, reporting, but ultimately he thought, what am I doing? you know?
Everything which I heard makes sense and he you know he gave up KGB and became the full time devotee. The story was there. It Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati.
When he started preaching, the English authorities at that time became really alarmed because there was a big movement and uh you know they were afraid of all this movement because at that time, you know, the this nationalistic spirit in India was becoming stronger and stronger and stronger.
So they sent one guy to Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvatī and said you sit on all his lectures and see if he is trying to agitate people and trying to say something against English authorities.
This guy was sitting and listening to lectures of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvatī and he listened and listened and listened and ultimately success okay I surrendered you know and he became a sannyāsī in Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvatī movement and guru. So that the amount. So that that association with devotees is very dangerous. I think I should go. Thank you very much.
Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thank you.