The Bhagavad-gita (09.01) declares that the
knowledge it shares is most confidential. Why confidential? Is Krishna too
frugal, even stingy, in sharing his merciful message?
No, not at all.
That Krishna wants this knowledge to be
shared liberally is evident from both the setting and the content of the Gita:Krishna spoke it in public place in a battlefield (02.10), and encouraged its
hearers to share the message (18.68-69).
Then how and why is the message
confidential?
Its confidentiality lies in its
experiential essence – the greatness and sweetness of pure spiritual love for
Krishna.
Envy makes us see Krishna not as our
benefactor, but as our competitor.
Such love can be relished only by a heart
that is pure, being purged especially of the mentality of envy, as the same
verse (09.01: anasuyave) underscores. As long as envy contaminates our heart,
we have little, if any, desire to love him or to even know him in a way that
portrays him as lovable. We see him not as our benefactor, but as our
competitor. So even if we learn about his glories, that knowledge only makes us
insecure, irritated, incensed. As such negative emotions towards Krishna are
deleterious for our spiritual health, he kindly protects us from being
overwhelmed by those emotions.
How?
By no longer revealing his glories to us,
even if we study the message that expounds those glories. We get caught with
peripheral points in the Gita, mistaking them to be its essential message.
Though we may imagine that we are grasping it better, actually our
misunderstanding is becoming greater.
If instead we humbly study the Gita, as it
has been traditionally received (04.02) – in a spiritual lineage of
devotee-seers – then such mentors gradually reveal its devotional import. And
thus the confidential becomes discernible, intelligible and relishable –
eternally relishable.
http://www.gitadaily.com
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