Bhagavad-gita 16.4
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Москва · 2000
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Distinguishing divine and demonic natures
In this chapter, distinction between demonic and divine nature. From the very beginning he starts off listing the divine qualities which makes one happy. It gives a long list of divine qualities starting with Abhayam,
Sattva, Saṁsudhi, the divine nature, the person who has divine nature, they are abhaya. They have no fear. They have no fear of death. Because they know they do what they're supposed to do.
And some sattva saṁsudhi, they're trying to purify their existence and so on so forth. And then he very briefly describes the nature of demoniac persons.
And he says, ḍambha krodha. He lists certain qualities, ḍambho darpa abhimānaś ca, abhimāna. They are very proud. The main and the most prominent characteristic of demonic person is that they are very proud.
Like today Acharya Sanskrit Ananda gave me a list of glorious events which took place in Bhārata-varṣa in India. But then the title was Be Proud, Be Very Proud. And he said, cross over this title. This title is stupid.
The real title should be Be Humble. Be humble. This is the real quality. And Krishna says that the most prominent, the most outstanding characteristic of a demonic person is ḍambha. Ḍambha means pride.
Abhimāna means false ego, means that someone is hypocrissy, hypocrisy. Ḍambha is also hypocrisy. And but then when we study carefully
the list of qualities which Krishna gives for demoniac person, we will find out that all these qualities we have this is the most natural qualities of human being. He says, krodha. Who doesn't have krodha?
Who doesn't get angry? You know, is there anyone who doesn't get angry? No one. Everyone gets angry. And everyone is proud. You know, it is said that when a rickshaw puller has two rupees, he's proud because he's so rich.
You know, he has two rupees. And uh when we have some little thing, something, when we get some little education, little money or whatever, we immediately become proud. So in reality all these qualities are natural to our very existence.
All these qualities are sahaja. They are more or less born with ourselves. And uh all these qualities we possess. Like I remember when I I just beg uh started my devotional career so to speak.
I started studying Bhagavad-gītā, I gave Bhagavad-gītā to one of my friends. And he was very impressed. He read the whole Bhagavad-gītā and he was very impressed.
But then he said that the chapter he liked the most was the 16th chapter. He said, I read the 16th chapter. And Krishna says in the beginning, this is divine nature, this is demons. He said, I read and I understood.
I'm a demon. I understood that's about me. Therefore, he liked it very much. Understood that this is something which has some relation to him that which is quite relevant.
So when we see we can understand that all this qualities are natural for us. So, what to do?
And Krishna says that if someone has these qualities, if someone is a proud possessor of this glorious qualities, Dhamba, Kroda, and so on so forth, Abhiman. Then he says nothing good will happen to him.
He explains that all bad things will happen to him, he will go to hell and uh he says to Arjuna in the very beginning, uh don't be afraid, you're not of this nature, you're of divine nature.
It means that if somebody has this demonic nature, then he has to be afraid. And it means that we have to be afraid.
Necessity of following sacred scriptures
So the natural and simple question arises what to do? And how in this world all these good and glorious qualities can be obtained. Abhayam. How can we become Abhayam? How can we become sattva samsudhir?
By nature, by very nature of our existence, very opposite. Gita is that the only way to become divine, the only way Gita is that the only way to become divine, the only way
to develop these divine qualities is to follow Shastra. Because by nature we are Pashu. We are animals. You know, we there are Chatush Pada Pashu and there are Dvi Pada Pashu. You know.
We have two Two le two legs and some animals have four legs. But there is no there's no much difference. The only difference is that when animals live their animal life, they more or less follow the laws of nature.
But because we have such a good brain, such a inventive and fertile brain, we always break the laws of nature. This is the only nature the only difference.
You know, there are animals which follow the null nature and they're more or less happy. And there are animals who break the laws of nature and they are not happy as a result of this.
And therefore, for this dvipadapashu, for two-legged animal animals there is Shastra. And everyone has to follow Shastra. Everyone has to know that there is certain rules and regulations which we are supposed to follow.
And by following Shastras, we can develop all these good qualities. Without following them, we cannot develop this.
Therefore, by describing this very nature of and this is very simple and very important point of understanding. Shastras are eternal. And Shastras are speaking about eternal truths.
And this truth is truth always, all the times, in all circumstances. It's not only truth in Bharata Varsa.
It's not that in Bharata Varsaw you have to follow the rules, you have to abstain from meat eating and intoxication, and when you come to Russia you don't have to do this because these laws don't exist here. No.
These laws are eternal. These laws are in the shastras. And shastras are eternal, and shastras are speaking about eternal and absolute truth.
But demonic nature, the very sign, the very prominent characteristic of demonic nature is that they want to break, they want to follow, they want to throw up all these laws.
They want to follow Kama Vartate, as Krishna will say later on. He says they're just following their whims. Whatever I want to do, I will do. You know, this is you know this is human nature.
Be natural, as they say in Russia or in any other countries. One should be natural. One should relax, one should, you know, all these rules and regulations make someone hang up and you know so many problems are there.
You know, why don't you relax and follow your nature?
Philosophical basis of demonic worldview
And for that, demonic person they have to have some philosophy.
And in this particular verse, Asatkya Mapratistamte, Jagatahura Nishwaram, Krishna explains the theory, the philosophy, the philosophical basis of their existence. Because everyone has to have some philosophical basis.
It's not that, you know, if you don't follow anything, you don't have to have philosophy. Everyone has philosophy. Even communists they also have philosophy, you know. They have so many volumes of philosophy.
Although the whole philosophy, the whole point of this philosophy is to prove that there is nothing really, you know, to follow. But still to prove this, one has to have philosophy.
To prove this very simple and very stupid point, one has to have, one has to write volumes and volumes and volumes of philosophy.
And in this particular verse Krishna explains what philosophical basis one has to acquire, one has to somehow rather take shelter of to prove that his way of existence is the only uh proper way of existence.
And he says, he starts off saying, Asatyam Apratishtamte Jagadahura Nishwaram.
The first thing which you have to prove, which you have to somehow or other uh to um see or to uh to have a vision of is that this world is unreal. Asatyam. There is no real substance in this world.
And there are so many different theories how you can say that there is no substance. Some say that this world is only matter. And to say that this world is a matter is to say that there is no substance.
Because matter ultimately has no substance. Matter is dead. Matter is dead either now on the or in the near future. You know, it will be dead.
Matter is nothing substantial is there. There is no vastu in it. There is no substance in it. I don't know Sanskrit, I'm Murka. But uh since he asked me, I will try. Since you want to learn. Since I want to learn, yes.
That's right. Since we're supposed to know the language of the shastras. So Asatyam Apratishtam te, asatyam, first of all you have to say that there is no real substance. That this world is a dream. This is kind of illusion.
And there are so many theories, so many philosophies which say these things: Mayavadi philosophy or Advaita Vedanta philosophy, which is very prominent nowadays. So also say that this Jagat uh Jagat
Mithyam, that Brahmasatyam Jagat Mithya, Jagat is mit— something unreal, it's something which has no real existence. But Krishna doesn't say this.
Some say that this is very philosophy, that in Vedas they say that this world is Maya. And Maya means illusion, right?
But Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, in the very Bhagavad Gita, he says, Mayad Dyakshana Prakriti, Sujate Sacharacharach, Mayadshana Prakriti, this whole prakriti is working under my direction, under my supervision.
And we know that Krishna, his word is satya sankalpa. Whatever he says, whatever he wants is truth. Satya sankalpa, whatever he wishes, it becomes truth. Satyam. And this world is the creation of the Lord.
How the creation of the of someone who is Satyam can be mitam. It's also satyam. Asatyam a pratistem te and then when we say that there is no basis, there is no truth,
there is no real substance, there is no there is no reality in this world, then very naturally you can make next conclusion, a pratistum.
And a pratistum, if you translate... If you translate it into a mo language of the modern science uh it's uh it's to say that everything is relative.
You know, there is this relativity theory, famous theory of the twentieth century, you know, the greatest theory, everything is relative. There is nothing really, really substantial. Appratistum.
There is no there is no basis of anything. And uh the main relative thing which you have to prove, the main relative point, the main point of relativity.
Of course you know everything is relative, the everything is just you know moving in different directions.
But in reality, what you want to prove, what we want to prove, what all we want to prove, is that there is no pratistam, there is no basis for morality, for dharma.
Dharma, adharma, here it's dharma, there it's a dharma, you know everything is relative. You know, you just follow whatever you like to follow more or less and everything will be fine.
You know, this is dharma here, this is a dharma here, you know. Uh we should be realistic, we should be you know practical. Yeah. We should be practical. We should be practical. Doesn't matter. Jagatha huran iswaram.
They say Jagatahura Nishwaram, there is no Ishwara. And ultimately you have to say there is no God. There is no God, there is no controller. And who is controller? Naturally I'm controller, you know.
If there is no other controller, I have to control. You know, as they say in in Russia, one has to be, you know, uh Lord of one's own destiny.
You have your destiny, you have to board it over, you have to go through it, push through it, you know, grab it. Do something. Because there is no satyam, there is no truth, there is no pratistam, there is no uh
absolute truth, there is no dharma, you can do whatever you want, you can behave whatever you like, you know. And then Aparasparam Sam Bhutham, Aparasparam Sam Bhutham, this is interesting.
This is also Baladevida Bhushan explains that a parasparam sambhutam uh this is the theory of Buddhists, Svabhava Vada, he says. Svabhava Vada is that this world is somehow rather naturally appeared.
Without any real cause. A paras param. No no cause, no female. male, you know some naturally, some affinity is there. I uh had a scientific career as a chemist, and there is a chemical term, affinity.
You know, and they say that this world, you know, everything has some affinity with each other, and because of this affinity, all these forms are created.
These forms of this world, because of the affinity, somehow others they have natural natural, how you say it? Akarshanam. Akarsanam. Yeah. Akarsenam. Akarsinam. Natural attraction.
And some natural attraction creates different forms and different different uh different manifestations of this material world. Svabhava Vada.
It's just some naturally something we have, you know, just naturally and you know.
And uh but the most important and most amazing thing after proving that there is no substance, that there is no dharma, that there is no reality in this world.
Consequences of living for material enjoyment
What they do, they start enjoying this reality like anything. Like uh Śrīla Prabhupāda explains in the purpose. They say that this is a dream, but they're very expert in enjoying this dream.
You know there is no substance in dream. You cannot really enjoy any dream. But uh you enjoy this dream because there is no substance.
And then they say the main point, the main point, Kama high to come. The real cause of this material world is kama, is lust. Kama which we have in our heart and therefore we have to follow this Kama.
The main cause of this creation is Kama, Kama Hai to Kama. This is the theory of Charvak Muni. Charvakamuni says that last and only lust is the real cause of this creation.
There is no other cause, just last you so so be lasty you know be lasty enjoy
like uh when I was in India you know there was a big billboard advertising board of the new cinema, the end of innocence, you know, and it was a very seducive picture on men and women, you know and I was thinking, you know, the end of innocence, the beginning of nonsense, you know.
And uh and there is the end of innocence the nonsense starts, you know. Kāmahaitukaṃ. Kāmahaitukaṃ, naturally you will become lusty, and when you are lusty you start doing nonsense.
You start doing all kinds of nasty things. And because of doing nasty things ultimately you will go to hell. And of course there is no substance in hell but you will suffer there. It's not real, but you will suffer there.
So that is uh that is the result of such strange and illusory theory. And kāmahaitukaṃ in another another explanation of this kāmahaitukaṃ, to come, they say that creator some say that there is God, that
that God has created this world, but they say that He created this world because of His kāma, because of his whim, because of his lust, because of his egoistic desire, because of his some selfish desire, some cruel God, you know, and he created this cruel world and we're suffering in this cruel world.
Kāmahaitukaṃ. And uh all this is only necessary to uh to prove or to explain to ourselves that vārtā ca bhūta-karanam. Na sa siddhiṃ avāpnoti. The result of this Krishna explains in the end of this chapter.
He says that Na sa siddhiṃ avāpnoti na sukhaṃ na parāṃ gatim, first you throw out all regulations of shastras. You throw out.
But the result is this Na sa siddhiṃ avāpnoti, you don't reach, you don't get the perfection, na sukhaṃ, you don't become happy, na parāṃ gatim, and you don't get the real destination, the higher destination.
And actually, what they want when they say kāmahaitukaṃ, when they say that this world was created by some cruel and whimsical creature, by some cruel lord
Reflecting inner heart on the world
who created this world, they basically what they do, the logic which they follow is that ātmāvat manyate jagat. Ātmāvat manyate jagat. I am whimsical. I am lusty. I have kāma. So the creator is also whimsical.
He is also lusty. And he created this lusty world and I am living in this lusty world. Kāmahaitukaṃ. Ātmāvat manyate jagat. You see this world how you are.
And what uh actually what they do by projecting all these ideas, asatyam apratiṣṭhaṃ te jagad āhur aniśvaram, they basically project the impure mapratistamtea Jagatahura Nishwaram, they basically project the impure heart into the reality of this world.
They see this world, we see this world through the na through the uh meaning s through the uh how you say this the through the agency of our mind. And if our mind is not pure, then we see all this world is not pure.
Like there is a story in Mahabharata. The students approached Dronacharya once and they say
some people say that the Yudhiṣṭhira is very pious. And Duryodhana is not good, is wicked. You know, is it really true? How to prove it? How to understand that someone is pious and someone is not?
And Dronacharya said, I can prove you. It's very simple.
And he called Yudhiṣṭhira and he said, Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, please go out in the world and bring here some wicked men. If you find somebody who is wicked, please bring him here.
And then Dronacharya at the same time called Duryodhan. And he said, Duryodhan, oh, Duryodhan, Maharaja, please go out and find somebody good. You know, if you find somebody good, bring him here.
And then they went out, and then Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira came and he said, I couldn't find anyone wicked in this world. Everyone is good.
And then Duryodhana came and he said, I couldn't find anyone good in this world. Everyone is wicked. Everyone is evil. And then Dharanacharya said, Look, this is the reflection of one's own nature.
You see this world as you are. If you are envious, you will see everyone as envious. If you are lusty, you will see everyone is lusty. If you want some honor, some respect,
If you uh have all this pride, then you will see everyone is proud. And if you are humble, you will see everyone is humble.
If you uh if you follow Shastras, you will see that it is said that uh Uttama Bhagavata, Maha Maha Maha Bhagavat, Uttama Dikari, he sees everyone engaged in the service of the Lord.
And how we see everyone, we see everyone is so bad. We see he's bad and she's bad and he's bad and all of them are bad and devotees are bad and everything is so bad.
But this is the reflection, this is the manifestation of our heart. We see our heart as we are.
Purifying the heart through chanting
And the only way to purify the heart, the only way to develop godly qualities, divine qualities is to follow Shastras. There is no other way, there is no other way, there is no other way.
To follow Shastras, to follow the rules and regulations of the shastras and then gradually our heart will be purified.
And the shastras say that harer nāma harer nāma, harer nāmaiva kevalam, kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā. There is no other way. There is no other way. There is no other way.
There are so many statements of the Shastras. And if we examine very closely śāstras, if we examine the main vidhis, main rules and regulations of the śāstras, we will see as it said in, uh, in, uh, Padma Purāṇa that, uh,
Vismare... All the vidhis and niṣedhas of the śāstras, all the rules and regulations of the śāstras are only to remember the Lord. Are only to remember Viṣṇu and never to forget him.
All the rules and regulations, this is the main, the substance, the main essence of all scriptural teachings which is there.
You know there are so many rules you have to chant this mantra, you have to do this, you have to do this, but the reality is that you have to remember Vishnu. You have to remember Vishnu.
Even in Āyurveda, in Ayurvedic scripture it is said that the medicine will only be effective if by taking the medicine you remember Vishnu. If you don't remember Vishnu, the medicine will have no effect.
Oh will have very little effect. But the real essence, the real medicine for the soul is to remember Vishnu. Everything else is superficial. Everything else is not that important.
So therefore all śāstras, the essence of all vidhis and niṣedhas is to remember the Lord. And the best way to remember the Lord is to chant his holy name.
Like Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā, satataṁ kīrtayanto mām... They took shelter of the divine nature. And taking shelter of the divine nature means satataṁ kīrtayanto mām. They always constantly engage in kirtan.
They chant holy name, they remember holy name, they uh they mm uh do japa. And Kṛṣṇa says in the tenth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā, he says that, uh, you know, of all the sacrifices,
so many sacrifices you can do, you can do big aśvamedha-yajña, you can do this yajña, that yajña, you can do some little yajña, but the greatest yajña is what? If you chant japa, this is the greatest yajña.
If you chant holy name of the Lord, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare. There is no greatest yagya. There is no greatest sacrifice.
Because by chanting the holy name of the Lord, you're saying, I surrender unto you. You're sacrificing something which is the most dear to you, your false ego.
Something which caused so much trouble to you over so many lifetimes.
But still, by doing this, you can get rid of the false ego. You can finally uh become free from this troublesome element of our life and finally you can become happy. Therefore this is the essence of the sixteenth chapter.
If you want to become godly, if you want to become divine, you have to follow Shastra. And if you want to follow Shastra, you have to chant the Holy Name of the Lord.
And you have to chant and follow the processes of bhakti. Śravaṇam kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smarṇaṁ pāda-sevanaṁ arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyaṁ sakhyam ātma-nivedanam. But
any process in fact any process of the life, whatever you do, starts from Śravaṇam. And if you want to remember about Vishnu, you have to hear about him. Like we're now trying to learn some Sanskrit.
And the first process of learning Sanskrit is what? Śravaṇam. One has to hear. One has to hear. And when one hears enough, then one has to repeat. And the same thing is about shastras.
If we want to follow shastras, we have to hear shastras. We have to hear, we have to come and hear shastras. And when we hear shastra enough, we have to repeat shastra. To make it clear, to make it very stable in our heart.
And when the Shastra is there in our heart, nothing will harm us. We will just go very happily in this life. We follow all these rules and regulations very happily. It's actually very natural.
We will understand that there are two natures, and by following our Pashu nature, our animal nature, we become unhappy.
And by following the other nature which is there in our heart, our divine nature, our real nature, we become happy. And to follow divine nature is to follow Shastra, because Shastra is a reflection of divine nature.
Shastra is not relative. Shastra is the reflection of absolute reality. And this absolute reality is reflected in the words of Krishna. Krishna is absolute reality himself and whatever he says is truth.
So we just have to follow Shastras, we have to hear shastras, we have to remember shastras, we have to study shastras, we have to worship shastras, we have to follow shastras, we have to uh understand that all this great very culture which makes one civilized, which makes one real human being, is based on Shastras.
And the more we follow Shastras, the more human we become, and the more happy we become and the more
Destructive consequences of modern ugra-karma
everything will become samīcīnaṁ, śobhanaṁ, sundaraṁ. Hare Krishna, this is uh few words which I could say one could say much more
about this verse because Krishna afterwards says about the uh pernicious effects of following this. He says that actually by following these theories, the whole world is destroyed. The very next verse, ugra-karma.
In the very next verse, he says that by following these philosophies, by following this you uh you create Ugra karma and by Ugra karma you destroy the whole world. The whole world is destroyed. And but what we can see?
There is there is plenty of proof, there is ample proof of Krishna's word in the reality of this world. By following this deadly course of whimsical uh you know not following any shastras, one destroys the world.
And by destroying the world nobody becomes happy. And now we we are about to destroy the world. You know, this by destroying the world. Like my acarya said that everything is plastic nowadays. Everything is plastic.
Everything you know plastic is a very bad thing. Just by plastic itself you can destroy the world, you know.
The whole India is covered by plastic, you know, all these small plastic bags, you know, it's uh soon it will be like this. Everything will be covered and nothing will grow there. And you cannot eat this plastic.
Everything is destroyed. It's destroyed by Ugra Karma, it's destroyed by our lust, it's destroyed by our greed, it's destroyed by our uh by our anger. And then we try to find some artificial solutions for this.
Some United Nations will make some summit and they will decide, you know, what to do. But it's simple. What to do? To purify the heart. To take care of the ecology of our heart, to purify the environment of our heart,
to get rid of kama, krodha, loba, mada, matsarya, moha, and then this is the only way. Kalau nastyeva nastyeva nastyeva gatir anyatha.