Summary of Bhagavad Gita Chapter 7 - Part 3 | Art of Living Australia

Summary of Bhagavad Gita
Chapter 7 - Part 3

4 Apr 2015 Bali, Indonesia

(Below is a continuation of the post Summary of Bhagavad Gita at Bali - Day 2)

Yesterday we discussed the 4 kinds of people who come on the path:
1. People who are miserable and who want to get rid of their misery, they come onto the spiritual path
2. Those who have desires and want to fulfill their desires, and so they come to the master
3. People who want to know the higher truth, and so they come to the master with inquisitiveness
4. Those who come to the master because they are wise. They have wisdom and they are intelligent
Only intelligent people come onto the spiritual path, that is what I feel.

7.21

'Yo yo yam yam tanum bhaktah sraddhayarchitum icchati. Tasya tasyacalam sraddham tam-eva vidadhamyaham’

'Wherever one has faith, and whomsoever one has faith on, that faith is given by me'. It is the self which translates itself into faith. Faith comes from the self. So he says, 'I am the one who is giving you faith'. This is similar to what I say, even love is a gift. If you feel love for someone, don't think you can take credit for it. If you are in love with somebody, that is also a gift. Joy is a gift, time is a gift; almost everything in life is a gift, or a blessing.
7.22

‘Sa taya shraddhaya yuktas tasyaradhanam ihate. Labhate cha tathah kaman mayaiva vihitan hi tan’

'I have given faith, and with the faith that I have given a person engages in worship, and through this worship he attains his desires. And this is ordained by me. I have ordained this natural law'.

See, doctors give you medicine, but suppose you don't have faith in the doctor, will you take that medicine? No you won't. And even if you do take it without having faith, will it work? No, it will not work. Faith is a factor in every function. Any function, anything you do, faith is an important factor. 

So all these effects of specific results, from specific impulses of creations (deva means the specific impulses of creations; rays of consciousness) are ordained. They are part of the law.

7.23

'Antavat tu phalam tesham tad bhavaty alpa-medhasam. Devan deva-yajo yanti mad-bhakta yanti mam-api'

Let us say you are a bodybuilder, and you spend all your time only in bodybuilding. You ignore your intellect, you ignore your emotions and everything else in life. Then you are not attaining fullness.

Same way, just imagine someone is a violinist, and they just eat and sleep violin and they do everything with the violin from morning till night, and neglect all the other aspects of their life. Will they be a complete personality? No!

So if you are stuck in this one area of only doing one thing, then your blossoming is not possible. It is necessary to attend to all of this, but also see me, look at me, I am the complete and so come to me.

7.24

'Avyaktam vyaktim apannam manyante mam abuddhayah. Param bhavam ajananto mam-avyayam anuttamam'

This is so beautiful. He says, 'The foolish think of me as the un-manifest coming into manifestation, knowing not my higher immutable unsurpassed nature'. 'I am un-manifest, but people only see my manifested aspect. They only see my outer appearance'.

See, whenever you relate to somebody, you only relate to their external. In fact, it is the self or the mind, or the spirit inside them which you are relating to, but you never pay attention to that. Do you see what I am saying?

When you are relating to someone, what is it that you are relating to, the body or the spirit? You have never even thought about this.

He says, 'People think of me only as the external human being, they do not see that space, that consciousness which is in fact speaking and which is doing everything. They only see the eight fold prakruti, nobody sees something beyond that. Such people are not intelligent'.

Then he says, 'And it is not their mistake also because I don't reveal myself to everybody'.

7.25

'Na-aham prakasah sarvasya yoga-maya-samavrtah. Mudho 'yam nabhijanati loko mam ajam avyaya’

I am not manifest to all as I don't revel myself to all, because everyone is veiled by Yoga Maya.
Maya means illusion. Maya means that which is temporary, that which is not the truth. Maya simply means appearance. Like the sunset is maya, because it only appears to be setting. In reality it is not setting. So sunset is maya.
You put a pencil in a beaker of water and it appears to be curved or bent, that is maya. Maya means that which changes, which is not permanent.

Lord Krishna says, 'The deluded one knows me not. Not everybody knows me, I am the unborn and imperishable. I was never born and neither will I ever die'.
The spirit or the energy has no birth and no death. There is something deep inside of you that was never born and that never will die.
7.26

‘Vedaham samatitani vartamanani cha-arjuna. Bhavishyani cha bhutani mam tu veda na kashchana

There is an old proverb which says, 'Don't try to gauge others'. And for the enlightened it is said, 'You can't gauge the enlightened, by their action or by their words. You can't know them'.
Why is this? It is because the consciousness is so vast, so deep and so multi-dimensional, and we have the ability to only know a few dimensions.
The consciousnesses is multi-dimensional and so only the consciousness can know. One knowing that becomes that.
'So, I know the past, the present, the future and everything, but nobody knows me'.
7.27

'Iccha-dvesha-samutthena dvandva-mohenabharata. Sarva-bhutanisammohamsargeyantiparantapa'

Cravings and aversion, it is almost in-built in your system. Almost is what I said, not really. It appears to be in-built. Cravings and aversion creates a cloud in our mind and prevents us from seeing the deep blue sky which is beyond it; the unblemished sky beyond it.
On a dark cloudy day, you can't see the blue sky that is clear. So it is the same with consciousness. Our mind has this fog of cravings and aversion, and so it cannot see the clear consciousness.
7.28

'Yesamtv-anta-gatampapamjananampunya-karmanam. Te dvandva-moha-nirmuktabhajante mam drdha-vratah’

'Those who want to go to that un-manifest, to the Brahman, you have to go through me'.
In the bible also there is a similar saying, 'If you want to go to my father you have to go through me'. Something like that!
Same here, Lord Krishna says, 'I am here as your friend, I am here to guide you. So if you say that you are going to go to the un-manifest direct, then that is not possible. You have to go through the principle'.
7.29

'Jara-marana-moksaya mamasrityayatanti ye. Te brahma tad viduhkrtsnamadhyatmam karma chakhilam'

You know, people who are on the spiritual path, they feel young and alive all the time. They overcome senility. This is one thing for sure.
People who meditate, who engage in seva, who have a goal in their life and who live for others and not only themselves, you will see that they have a glow in their life, and on their face.
If you look at Mahatma Gandhi, or Nelson Mandela, you see that there is a glow in them. That is because their life is dedicated to something bigger. So Lord Krishna says, 'One who comes to me will never have this (jara) old age. There is no death for them and they feel liberated'.
 
Coming to the master is not being bound but feeling the inner freedom. It is not slavery, it is mastery over oneself. It is freedom from our own mind. Freedom from craving and aversions. Freedom from feeling of 'I can do this' and 'I cannot do this'.
So those who take refuge in me, strive for liberation.

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