ViBha Class Notes – March 12, 2023
Bhagavan Krshna shares that His Bhakta should be praised and served more than Him. The logic of this is that it is through Bhaktas that Bhagavan nurtures, manifests Yasha which means reverence or fame. Pujya Swami Tejomayananda has shared that it is Bhagavan’s Bhaktas that make Bhagavan famous. The visualization that was given is that Bhagavan is like a Chandan tree (Sandalwood tree) and a Bhakta is like a breeze, the one who spreads the fragrance of Bhagavan. For all of us, we are engaged in this katha where we are internalizing Bhagavan through our ears, but this is not just a katha for us. This is Vedanta, a vision, from our ears to our mind, and we will know we are a Bhakta because if Bhagavan enters our mind, then our whole lifestyle will be to bring fame to Bhagavan, to help others revere Bhagavan. We will think it, we will say it, we will act it. So, are we a breeze?
In Skanda 11, Chapter 19, Rshi Uddhava asks many questions. In the beginning of the chapter, his questions are more absolute in nature, and later on in the chapter, they are more relative in nature. Shri Krshna compassionately answers these questions in a simple, memorable and practicable way, not so much for Rshi Uddhava, but for us. One of the insights that Bhagavan Krshna shares at an absolute level is that Bhakti is the best Yoga as it is the simplest Yoga. That which is simple is that which can be remembered, and that which is remembered, can be practiced. With Bhakti, the means and the ends are the same, making it simpler, and therefore Bhakti is described as Ananya. For the majority of what we do in life, the means and the ends are different. In Bhakti there is No Other, thus the means and ends are one.
Shri Krshna ends this chapter telling Rshi Uddhava that he is so immersed in what Papa and Punya is, what bad and good is, what comparisons like Heaven and Hell are. Bhagavan Krshna ends this chapter asking – What is the use of these labels? You are Absolute! So why invest so much in that which is relative? In the 11th Section there is a shift from katha to Vedanta. The 10th section is very much about the katha. What did Bhagavan Krshna eat? Whom did He marry? Now this section is about Vedanta, and it is harder-hitting for one’s mind. We need this.
A seeker in our community asked what they can do to nurture Balavihar, and Vivekji shared that first generation seekers need more insights and less rituals. This is very evident between Chapters 10, more about katha, and Chapter 11, more about Vedanta. The Vedanta will have a longer lasting impact on us.
In Chapter 20, Rshi Uddhava wants more details about what the best Yoga is, and Bhagavan Krshna has already answered that it’s Bhakti Yoga, but Rshi Uddhava wants to know now why Bhakti Yoga is the best. Bhagavan Krshna shares that it is our level of independence that determines which Yoga, which path we should follow. If we are highly dependent or attached, then Karma Yoga is the most suitable Yoga – engage in the right actions, and that will nurture the right attitude. If we are highly independent, detached, then Jnana Yoga – one feels all is relative, is Maya, and one keeps freeing themselves from it. If we are in-between the dependent attached and the independent detached, then Bhakti Yoga is the right path where we will love more, not just for the name and form, but for their qualities. There is nothing to escape from then, nothing to renounce.
Last week, Vivekji shared a special verse from Chapter 20. These chapters in this section are about practice – what path one should follow, and what are the practices on this path.
Skanda 11:20:17 – It is one’s fortune to have the body of a human. You got this without any effort, but through a lot of evolution. Stones, plants, animals and even the Semigods want a human body. You got this body, which is like a boat, and the Captain of this boat is one’s Guide. She/He knows where to go, how to go. And on this boat with the Captain as one’s Guru, there are favorable winds, our opportunities that Shri Krshna has manifested. These favorable winds are helping us evolve. However, the one who does not immerse or invest themselves in becoming independently Joyous or free, they have wasted the Captain, the winds, the boat. They have wasted their opportunity!
In this chapter, Shri Krshna explains what the vision and action statements of Yoga are. The vision of Yoga is to restrain the mind, and the action of yoga is to reflect with the mind. Which Yoga is the best? – Bhakti. We are almost fortunate that in this path we have so much Grace; we have the favorable winds and the Captain. What is Bhakti Yoga to do to us? Our mind is to be restrained from articles, beings and circumstances and it is to reflect on the Divine. Bhakti yoga is such a pure path that one does not even desire enlightenment because that too is a desire. When we reflect on the Divine, we do not have to desire the Divine. We just have to Be Divine. Pujya Swami Tejomayananda has shared that we should follow whatever path that is natural to us, and the fulfillment of these paths is that all these paths come together. So follow what is natural.
We move on to Chapter 21. Right now there is a theme of Bhagavan Krshna sharing with Rshi Uddhava – What is the use of labels? In Chapter 21, He is explaining relativity in a general way. And the purpose of explaining relativity is to teach us that it will never make us feel Absolute. If we are incomplete and we associate with another who is incomplete, what is going to happen? We will feel even more incomplete. So He is really zooming into the relativity of our experiences, our equipments, the ego.
Skanda 11:21:19 – This comes directly from the Bhagavad Gita. The more one thinks about articles, beings and circumstances, the more infatuated we are with sense objects. Then naturally we get attached to what we are thinking about. That thinking leads to attachment and attachment leads to desire. Does everyone see Chapter 2’s Ladder of Fall? This is what is unique to Bhagavata now. In Bhagavad Gita, it is shared that from desire comes anger, while in Bhagavata it is shared that from desire comes kalih or conflict. The Bhagavad Gita presents its teachings in a war, a fight. We too are in a fight with our own desires. If we have conflict in our life, that is a war or a fight, but thinking of the genesis of this, it came from desire, which came from attachment, which came from thinking.
This ladder continues to fall in Verses 19-22. This is for us to further study –
From conflicts arise uncontrollable anger. This is followed by delusion, complete inability to distinguish right and wrong, the proper and the improper. Delusion quickly swallows his moral sense completely. O good friend, humans then become a zero as far as their humanity is concerned. They are as good as dead. They lose all the great values attainable through a human life. They merely exist, absorbing food like a tree and breathing like a pair of bellows. Due to their excitement with sensuous enjoyment, they know not anything about their own real nature, nor do they have any love and sympathy for others.
As we think, so we develop. If we think of materials, we will become inert like that material. The key point is that we live in Kaliyuga where there is kalih or conflict. We see that outside, but how did it start? It started from being distracted. We rarely know what we are thinking about. We have this natural devolving of distraction into this and that. So that is why Vivekji has always encouraged us to unitask. By unitasking, we are not distracted as we do not overthink. If we over think what someone said to us yesterday, we are reliving that. Unitasking will therefore prevent this fall from happening.
In the middle of this chapter, Bhagavan Krshna is sharing with Prince Arjuna – Morals, labels, these are all relative. He gives examples of how morality is different for someone who is less evolved. Their morality is lower. For someone who is more evolved, their morality is higher as their standard is higher. If our job is to judge people, then we should label, but if our job is not to judge people, then we should not label. So morality, labels are all relative. Bhagavan Krshna ends this chapter with – How do we know that we are understanding what Bhagavan Krshna is teaching? We first feel that all of our experiences are manifest – they are real. Until our relationship with Vedanta, did we ever question that we were more than this body? Did we have a purpose more than our family? Everything is real. This body is real. This family is real. But the more we understand relativity, we feel that our experiences and equipments are Maya. They are not real, but are relatively real. They come, and they go. As Pujya Swami Tejomayananda shares – If it can “aasakti”, it can “jaaskati”. Asakti means attachment and jaa in Hindi means go, which means if we can get attached to it, it means it can also leave, go away. So we start to feel that all is Maya. And when we start to understand how relative this is, then we start to feel that there has to be an Absolute.
If we understand that one is a part, then we will know that we have a responsibility to the whole. If there is a puzzle piece, then that means there has to be a full puzzle. If we feel we are an individual, then naturally there is a total. So if we understand relativity fully, that it is Maya, then we also know that there is an Absolute. What is all of this then? It is Me, that is Bhagavan Krshna. The least mature person thinks this is manifest. The more mature person thinks this is Maya. But the most mature person thinks this is Me – Bhagavan Krshna, and that is why Bhakti Yoga is the best. We just keep loving Me, Bhagavan Krshna.
Chapter 19 – Rshi Uddhava wants to know more about the Absolute and the relative.
Chapter 20 – Bhagavan Krshna shares that all of the Yogas lead to the Absolute.
Chapter 21 -To understand the Absolute, we have to understand the relative also. This is explained generally.
Chapter 22 – Bhagavan Krshna explains what the relative is specifically
Skanda 11:22:17 – Bhagavan Krshna shares – In the beginning of creation, there was Prakrti in the form of cause and effect. This Prakrti manifests as the gunas of tamas, rajas and sattva. Who is the witness of all of this? That which is unmanifest, which is the Purusha. In this chapter, Bhagavan Krshna is sharing with Rshi Uddhava that the relative is Prakriti and it manifests as tamas, rajas and sattva, but the one who is distinct from this, the one who is the Sakshi to this is Purusha, meaning the Spirit.
In this chapter, there are many explanations from Bhagavan Krshna about what this multiverse is made of. The tattvas or the elements are sometimes classified as five, as eleven, as twenty-one, as twenty-six; there are so many counting variations. But before Bhagavan Krshna even elaborates on this, He shares that for the one who quietens their mind, then they do not go about counting all of these elements. They do not go about dissecting these numbers. The mind of the one who is not quiet keeps on comparing, competing. If we think of the term comparative religions, what is going to come from that is competing religions. So we must quieten our minds, so that we are less calculating about religions, about relativity, about what people have done for us or not done for us. So those with a quiet mind are not concerned about all these numbers.
Then Rshi Uddhava asks what happens to one who is not freed from the relative. What happens as they die? Bhagavan Krshna shares – As we think, that’s how we die. As we die, that is how we develop or are born again. So for the person who is thinking so much about the world, what the world says about them or doesn’t say about them, where do we think they will be born again? Back into the world, and dying will be filled with fear as they think they are leaving the world. But for the one who is not thinking so much about the world, if the world likes or dislikes them, as their portal to the world decays and dies, they do not do so fearfully; they do so graciously. As we think, we become like that, and if we are holding on to things tightly, there will only be fear. If we are not holding on to things tightly because it is relative, they die graciously.
Bhagavan Krshna makes another point as He is talking about as we think, so we die and so we develop – For those who keep thinking about sense objects (the Ladder of Fall), they don’t realize how time keeps repeating. They are born, they think, they die, they are born, they think, they die… they don’t realize how fast the lifetimes are going. And finally this chapter ends with Bhagavan Krshna sharing that for the one who is tuned into the Absolute, they have found or rediscovered the Atma, and so they feel more centered.
So how do we know we are following Bhakti Yoga? Chapters 19, 20, 21, 22 – One feels more centered. How many of us feel more centered in 2023? Let us see what Centered feels like –
An aspirant for enlightenment might be subjected by evil men to abuse, insult, ridicule and meanness. They might be beaten, imprisoned, deprived of livelihood, spat upon, urinated upon, persecuted for their faith or might fall into any dangerous situation. In all such conditions, they should, without getting shaken from their high spiritual elevation, remain calm with the Self as the support, looking upon all these experiences as brought about by one’s karma.
Now Rishi Uddhava asks if it’s possible for someone to be so centered and rediscover the Atma.
And in Chapter 23 begins a special Gita called, Bikshu Gita. It is a very special and powerful song about someone exactly like us, a user, who uses others for themselves, and eventually starts to reflect. In this case he practicesYoga – restraining the mind, reflecting on what is behind the mind, and this user becomes a seeker, becomes a Master. And all the people he used, they come and spit on him, urinate on him. So these are some of the introductions to Bikshu Gita. So have we found our Center?
Discussion: How can we practice Viraga? Raga here means gunas like tamas, rajas and sattva. Raga also means the mind since from the gunas comes the mind. Raga also means moods. The mind is moody. So how can we practice not being moody?
Vivekji’s thoughts: Dissect negativity. Reflect why we are moody. What is the cause of our moodiness? It is ourselves. It has nothing to do with any place or energy. If we go deeper, it is not us, it is the mind. We are the Purusha or the Spirit that is watching the mind.
Our mind should always be practicing ECO – Engaging, Chanting or Observing. Engaging is gross, chanting is subtle, but even more transformative is observing. We should always be observing what the mind is and where it is going, but whether our eyes are open or closed is not relevant. At all times, we should know what our mind is doing.