Author Archives: Chaitanya Charan das

If my office workload has decreased but I can’t chant or hear much, what should I do?
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How to reconcile the Gita – do your own duty, even if imperfectly – with the Gita – do what you are good at, according to your nature?
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Screen what appears on your inner screen – Learn to manage the mind
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[Congregation program at Washington DC, USA]

Podcast

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Podcast Summary

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Video:

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Gita 17.18 The show of austerity without the substance of spirituality points to superficiality or even hypocrisy
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Bhagavad-gita verse-by-verse podcast
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From possessions that dispossess to the possession that delivers
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aśanaṁ me vasanaṁ me jāyā me bandhu-vargo me
iti me me kurvāṇaṁ kāla-vṛko hanti puruṣājam

aśanam — this food; me — mine; vasanam — this cloth; me — mine; jāyā — this spouse; me — mine; bandhu-vargaḥ — these relatives; me — mine; iti — thus; me me kurvāṇam — while uttering the sounds ‘me’, ‘me’; kāla-vṛkaḥ — the fox of time; hanti — slaughters; puruṣājam — the goat-like attached soul.

“This food is mine; this cloth is mine; this spouse is mine; these relatives are mine.” Thus, the goat-like conditioned soul keeps uttering “Mine! Mine!” while the wolf of time pounces on it and devours it.”

Suppose a person driving a car to a shopping mall becomes infatuated with dreams of buying various things. If they become so infatuated that they don’t even notice that their car is headed towards a cliff with a deadly fall, they will soon meet with a disastrous end.

Similar is our fate when we become obsessed with worldly possessions. We can’t see the reality that our life-span is finite and is being depleted with every passing moment. While we live thus blinded, death suddenly comes upon us as a fearsome predator and dispossesses us of everything. A goat is often used to depict those unintelligently obsessed with small things while being oblivious to big dangers.

The Bhagavad-gita (16.13-15) outlines how the possessive mentality can make people ungodly, even demonic. We may not stoop to demonic actions, still the mentality of wanting more and more is obsessive and spiritually destructive – it deadens us to our spiritual potential and perpetuates our distressful worldly existence. What to speak of infatuation with future possessions, even infatuation with our present possessions can consume our consciousness. In fact, anything we possess can possess us. Just as a ghost may possess a person, driving them to act self-destructively, so too can our possessions infatuate us, making us act self-destructively.

As long as we are infected by the possessive mentality, our consciousness stays caught in the external things that we fantasize about getting or worry about losing. Thus, our obsession with possession of externals causes us to lose our most fundamental inner possession: our own consciousness. External possessiveness leaves us internally dispossessed.

When we detach ourselves from obsession with possessing things, we become possessors of our own souls – the Gita (02.46) refers to such people as “atmavan,” which translates literally as “possessors of their souls.” Our soul – its essential energy of consciousness – comes in our control so that we can intelligently choose where to invest it.

Most spiritual paths ask us to give up the possessive mentality. Devotional spirituality, however, is so inclusive that it channels even the possessive mentality. Bhakti wisdom explains that we are souls, who are eternal parts of Krishna (Gita 15.07). He is the all-attractive whole, and we are meant to delight eternally in pure spiritual love for him.

Love naturally means that the lovers possess each other; their consciousness stays absorbed in their object of love.

Of course, love is first and […]

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When we are not the doers – material nature is – why are we held responsible for our actions?
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Answer Podcast

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Gita 17.17 The mode in which austerity is performed different from the mode with which austerity is performed
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Bhagavad-gita verse-by-verse podcast
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Praising by criticizing – The paradoxical ways of expressing love
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gopāla iti matvā tvāṁ pracura-kṣīra-vāñchayā
śrito mātuḥ stana-kṣīram api labdhuṁ na śaknuyāt

gopālaḥ — protector and herder of cows; iti matvā — thinking; tvām — you to be; pracura-kṣīra-vāñchayā — with a desire to attain profuse milk; śritaḥ — I approached you; mātuḥ — of mother; stana-kṣīram — breast milk; api — too; labdhum — obtain; na śaknuyāt — I cannot;

“O Lord! Thinking that you are gopāla (the protector and herder of cows), I approached you hoping to get lots of milk. But you [cheated me in turn and] put me in such a condition that now I cannot even attain my own mother’s breast-milk.”
— Kuvalayānandaḥ of Appaya-dīkṣita (37.90)

 

This verse features the literary ornament (alankara) known as vyaja-stutih wherein affection is expressed through criticism.

The use of the negative to convey the positive is a rhetorical tool used in many traditions. In English, for example, the beauty of a diva may be described as devastating. Or the applause after a brilliant speech may be called deafening.

In expressing its veiled praise, this verse plays with the theme of milk – of seeking cow’s milk and losing mother’s milk. Krishna is celebrated as Gopala, the protector of innumerable cows. Cows supply milk, which is nutritious, delicious and precious. If we want wealth in the form of milk, we may naturally seek it by approaching the Lord of the cows.

Therein, the verse declares, lies the surprising twist. Approaching him and becoming attracted to him has an unexpected result: we lose even our mother’s milk. For a newborn, mother’s milk is immensely nourishing and satisfying; being deprived of it is a great loss. That privation is the negative used to poetically convey the supreme positivity of liberation – those who become attracted to Krishna don’t take birth again and so don’t need mother’s milk.

When we approach Krishna, his supreme attractiveness captivates us, especially if we approach him by associating with devotees and therein absorb their devotional mood. That devotional attraction grants us access to his supreme sweetness. When we relish that taste, our consciousness becomes increasingly elevated above mundane attractions and ultimately becomes liberated from the material world itself. Once we are freed from matter, we no longer need the mother’s milk that is necessary when we enter into a new body. Thus, the verse that seems to be a lament of deprivation is actually a celebration of liberation.

Similar verses that convey the positive through the negative are found in several other poetic compositions glorifying Krishna. One celebrated example is the Chauragraganya-ashtakam (eight verses in praise of the foremost of all thieves). In this endearing work, the great poet-saint Bilvamangala Thakura glorifies the supreme as the supreme thief. Its third verse declares Krishna to be such a deadly thief that he not only steals our home and leaves us on the streets, but also steals our knowledge of where to go when we are on the streets. Making us both homeless and pathless, he plunders us of everything.

Significantly however, when we are left with nothing, our heart […]

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How do the modes correlate with an analysis of the mind’s functioning?
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Bhagavatam study 73 1.14.18.33 – When we apprehend the worst-case scenario, we look for alternatives
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Podcast

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Bhagavatam study 72 1.14.12.17 – Inversion of natural order prophesies inauspiciousness
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Podcast

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