Author Archives: Chaitanya Charan das

Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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Krishna says in the BG that once we return to Him, we never come back. How does that gel with the fact that because of our marginal position we’re like the beach at the edge of the ocean, sometimes getting covered with water and sometimes not.

Podcast:

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Answer Podcast:

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Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

http://www.thespiritualscientist.com/audio/ccd%20classes/desiretree/2016%20classes/01-16%20classes/Gita%2008.22%20-%20Everything%20is%20in%20Krishna%20and%20Krishna%20is%20in%20everything.mp3
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Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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No one likes to lose. When we find ourselves losing, we often try to connect with someone stronger to emerge victorious. When people start worshiping God, they hope that he will help them win their battles. And the world’s scriptures contain celebrated narratives of how the devoted overcame herculean odds by divine grace.

Still, scriptures also contain alternative narratives wherein the devoted are defeated. How are such narratives to be understood? By expanding our conceptions beyond the material to the spiritual.

Such narratives compel us to recognize how our own existence and God’s protection extend beyond the material level of reality. If we expect that God will ensure our constant success at this level, then our faith will be shaken, even shattered, by worldly reversals. More importantly, we will deprive ourselves of the many eternal blessings available at the spiritual level of reality.

 

Doomed yet determined

To understand how spiritual vision can change our perception of reversals, let’s look at the Ramayana story of the vulture Jatayu. He is best known for having attained martyrdom while trying to stop Ravana from abducting Sita. That lecherous demon had conspired to abduct Sita by sidetracking her protectors. As he was carrying Sita through the airways in his mystic chariot, Sita desperately called for help. Though Rama and Lakshmana couldn’t hear, being too far away, someone else heard and acted.

Sita saw the vulture Jatayu rising from a tree. This elderly bird had been a friend of Dasharatha, Sita’s late father-in-law, and was residing in the Dandaka forest. When Rama, Sita and Lakshmana had come to the Dandaka forest, Jatayu had welcomed them with paternal affection. He had assured Rama that he would help protect Sita in the dangerous, demon-infested forest. True to his word, Jatayu was now flying to her rescue.

Being the wife of a warrior, Sita quickly assessed the comparative strengths of Ravana and Jatayu. She realized that the aged bird would be no match for the younger and stronger demon. So, she called out to him, asking him to inform Rama about her abduction and cautioning him against intervening, lest Ravana kill him.

But Jatayu found heeding Sita’s warning impossible. How could he live with himself if he did nothing to stop her abduction? Despite knowing that he would be hard-pressed to match Ravana, he felt driven to protect her by doing everything within his power. Determinedly, he flew by the side of Ravana, rebuking his irreligiosity in abducting a married woman. As expected, that discourse on virtue didn’t deter the vile demon. Jatayu promptly changed tack and challenged him to a fight. When the demon kept flying on, Jatayu goaded him by calling him a coward who had kidnapped Sita behind Rama’s back. When Ravana still didn’t respond, Jatayu resorted to the only option left for him: attack.

He pierced Ravana’s arms with his talons, caught his hair in his beaks and pulled him around. Ravana roared in fury, feeling humiliated at being dragged thus by a mere vulture – that too in front of the […]

The post Jatayu: Victorious in defeat (Ramayana Reflections 8) appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

http://www.thespiritualscientist.com/audio/ccd%20classes/desiretree/2016%20classes/01-16%20classes/Gita%2008.20%20-%20The%20spiritual%20is%20not%20just%20non-manifest%20but%20also%20nonmaterial.mp3
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Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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Podcast:

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jāḍyaṁ hrīmati gaṇyate vrata-rucau dambhaḥ śucau kaitavaṁ

śūre nirghṛṇatā munau vimatitā dainyaṁ priyālāpini

tejasviny avaliptatā mukharatā vaktary aśaktiḥ sthire

tat ko nāma guṇo bhavet sa guṇināṁ yo durjanair nāṅkitaḥ

jāḍyam — dullness; hrīmati — in a gentle person; gaṇyate — is perceived; vrata-rucau — in a strict follower of vows; dambhaḥ — pride; śucau — in an honest person; kaitavam — pretense; śūre — in a brave person; nirghṛṇatā — cruelty; munau — in a reticentt person; vimatitā — foolishness; dainyam — bootlicking; priyālāpini — in a softspoken person; tejasvini — in an influential person; avaliptatā — haughtiness; mukharatā — talkativeness; vaktari — in an expert speaker; aśaktiḥ — inambition; sthire — in a steady person; tat — now; ko nāma — is there any; guṇo — virtue; bhavet — existing; sa — that; guṇinām — of the virtuous; yaḥ — which; durjanaiḥ — by the miscreants; na-aṅkitaḥ — has not been maligned;

“Some people perceive the gentle as dull; the strict as pretentious; the honest as hypocritical; the brave as cruel; the reticent as foolish; the soft-spoken as bootlickers; the influential as haughty; the eloquent as talkative; and the steady as unambitious. Is there even one virtue of the virtuous that these faultfinders have not maligned?”

— (Nīti-śataka of Bhartṛhari, Verse 54)

(This verse and translation were provided by Hari Parshad Prabhu. My thanks to him.)

Criticism is among the most powerful influencers in our life. It can guide us to become better, but it can also wound our will to become better. When we receive criticism delivered insensitively or immoderately, it can damage our foundational sense of self-worth. If that sense is destroyed, we lose the confidence and the will to improve, just as a building collapses when its foundation is destroyed.

Even when people criticize us for faults we actually have, still it can demoralize us. What then to speak when people criticize us for faults we don’t have. And critics sometimes indulge in such unjustified criticism by giving a negative spin to our good qualities. The Bhagavad-gita (18.28) states that expertise in insulting others characterizes those working in the lowest mode of ignorance. Illustrating such perverse expertise, this verse from Bhartruhari, one of the greatest Sanskrit grammarians in Indian history, gives several examples of how critics perceive good qualities negatively.

jāḍyaṁ hrīmati (The gentle are called dull): Gentleness is a virtue, but habitual critics deride it as lethargy that prevents people from being assertive. Srimad-Bhagavatam, canto one, describes how the gentle sage Shukadeva Gosvami wandered about through towns and villages in a spiritual trance, indifferent to his surroundings. Not understanding his transcendental absorption, common people pursued him till he entered an assembly of sages. When that illustrious assembly offered him a seat of honor, they shrank back in surprise.

vrata-rucau dambhaḥ (The strict are called pretentious): Strictness in honoring one’s vows is laudable, but critics deride it as pretentiousness, wherein one wants to attract adulation and praise. Srimad-Bhagavatam, canto eleven, narrates the story of a brahmana from a place called Avanti referred eponymously as the Avanti brahmana. […]

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Answer Podcast

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Answer Podcast

http://www.thespiritualscientist.com/audio/CCD%20QA/2016%20QA/01-16%20QA/How%20could%20Arjuna%20ask%20Krishna%20to%20become%20his%20charioteer.mp3
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Answer Podcast

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Answer Podcast

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Answer Podcast

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Answer Podcast

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Podcast

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Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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Answer Podcast

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Answer Podcast

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Answer Podcast

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Answer Podcast

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Answer Podcast

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Answer Podcast

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Answer Podcast

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Though victimized in body, Draupadi refuses to be victimized in her heart. Her exceptional character transforms the lowest point in her life into the highest point.

Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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Draupadi. Her admirable character is revealed in the most humiliating incident of her life – her disrobing by the wicked Dushasana. Though victimized in body, she refuses utterly to be victimized in her heart.

By her exceptional character, the lowest point in her life turns out to be the highest point. The incident in which she is the most dishonored, she emerges as the most honorable.

On that dark day, her period has just ended and she has emerged after bathing, wearing a single cloth before she puts on her royal dress as the chief queen of the reigning monarch. Unknown to her, the monarch Yudhisthira has, in a rigged gambling match, lost everything, including all his property, his brothers, himself and finally his wife Draupadi.

The jeering Karna suggests that Draupadi be brought into the assembly and be disrobed publicly for she was now the Kauravas’ slave, meant to do their bidding. If the Kauravas had succeeded in disrobing her, whether they would have physically violated her in the public assembly is doubtful. The atrocious idea was not just driven by lust but by power play – the Kauravas saw Draupadi not as a person, but as a tool to demean the Pandavas. Objectification of women runs through and through in the mentality of the Kauravas. They order a court messenger to summon Draupadi to the palace.

When the messenger informs her that she has been summoned to the assembly and tells her all that has transpired there, she is aghast. But pulling herself together with amazing speed, she comes up with a strategy to buy time. She tells the messenger to ask the assembly whether she had been rightly gambled and lost when Yudhishtira had already gambled and lost himself – when he was not his own master, was he her master to have gambled her?

While the fact that Yudhisthira gambled Draupadi might suggest that women were treated as property and were thus objectified, the sequence of the events reveals a much more nuanced reality. Yudhisthira gambles her after he has gambled himself, whereas he gambles all his property before. So Draupadi, even if she is considered to be his property, is of a drastically different level than all the objects that were his property – she is more precious than not just all those things, but more precious than he himself. Rather than using the word ‘property’, the right word is ‘belonging.’ In love, the two lovers often say two each other: “You are mine; you belong to me.” Such statements by a lover makes the beloved feel valued, treasured, cherished.

When the messenger conveys Draupadi’s message to the assembly, the Kauravas demand that Draupadi come and ask that question herself. When she asks again through the messenger whether the righteous assembly had actually summoned her, a chaste woman to come in her condition to the assembly, Dushasana goes to her palace and drags her by her hair.

Draupadi, though distraught, offers her respect to the assembly and requests that it answer whether […]

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Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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Answer Podcast:

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Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast

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