Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15

Don’t divorce who you are from whose you are  by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15

“Who we are” is the first philosophical message of the Bhagavad-gita. It explains that we are at our core eternal souls. Understanding this can free us from worldly cravings: If I am not a material creature, then material things can’t make me happy.

However, some people, on understanding that they are indestructible souls, start equating the soul with the all-pervading spiritual Absolute Truth – they start equating themselves with God. But we are not God – we are God’s. We are eternal parts of Krishna, as is unambiguously declared in the Bhagavad-gita (15.07). The same verse points to the cause of our struggles in material existence: captivation by the mind and the senses, which delude us with fantasies of worldly pleasures. To become liberated, we need to free ourselves from such material captivation and situate ourselves in spiritual consciousness. Because our position as Krishna’s parts is eternal, liberation means becoming situated in a loving relationship with Krishna, just as a part may become harmonized with the whole.

Unfortunately, when spiritualists think themselves to be God, though their spiritual self-conception may motivate them to liberate themselves of lust, greed and anger, they end up captivated by pride. After all, for the infinitesimal part to equate itself with the infinite whole is the height of presumptuousness. Moreover, such spiritualists deprive themselves of the higher happiness that comes from meditating on God as the all-attractive Lord of the heart. Because they are bereft of this happiness, they make rejection of material allurements unnecessarily difficult.

Thankfully, if we study the Gita submissively, we can get complete spiritual knowledge: knowledge of who we are and of whose we are. When our spiritual journey is based on proper understanding of both, we can, being empowered by Krishna’s mercy and bhakti’s higher taste, march swiftly towards life’s supreme liberation.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 06.

Check the train before you check into it by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 06.

Suppose an inattentive person on a huge, noisy, crowded railway station boards a wrong train. Some trains may stop after a few minutes, but some, only after several hours. In the latter case, the traveler will find getting back on track time-consuming and troublesome.

Our mind is like a congested railway station filled with the cacophony of various stimuli coming from our senses and our memories. If we don’t carefully check the stimulus that we dwell on, it may trigger within us a train of thoughts that is wrong – that takes us in undesirable directions. For example, the stimulus of someone looking at us with a raised chin may remind us of a past snub. That person’s opinion of us may not matter much for us. Still, if we let that behavior propel within us the anger thought-train, revenge fantasies may carry us away. Only later when we find ourselves with clenched fists, biting lips and palpitating hearts, we may realize that we are dissipating our time and emotional energy. Some thought trains can carry us so far away that we may end up dissipating our physical energy too – we may speak or do things that aggravate the situation.

To keep small things small, we need to check a thought-train before we check into it. When we check into a hotel, we presume that we will be staying there for some time. Similarly, when we check into a thought train, we presume it to be a desirable place where we can reside for some time. But it may not be. That’s why we need an alert intelligence to discern whether a particular thought-train is desirable or not. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita(06.26) urges us to attentively observe where the mind is going and, whenever it wanders, diligently bring it back on track.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita

Rise from sentimental bhakti to the sentiments from bhakti by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita

Sentimental bhakti refers to the practice of bhakti that is dependent on sentiments: “When I feel like practicing bhakti – when it feels good – I will practice it. When it doesn’t feel good, why should I practice it?”

Such sentimental practice makes our spiritual progress sluggish and erratic, like the recovery of a patient who takes treatment only when it feels good. Just as an uncommitted patient can’t reap the fruit of good health, similarly an uncommitted bhakti practitioner can’t become spiritually healed and relish the sentiments from bhakti – the fulfilling devotional emotions that characterize the soul in its healthy spiritual condition of love for Krishna.

In the Bhagavad-gita’s twelfth chapter (12.13 – 12.20), Krishna describes the characteristics of those devotees who are dear to him. Significantly, in this description he doesn’t focus on how those devotees are absorbed in directly devotional activities – he has done that already in previous chapters (09.13-14; 10.08-11). Here, he focuses on how these devotees practice bhakti without being distracted by worldly ups and downs. He mentions how these devotees stay fixed in service to him without being agitated by people and without agitating people, without giving in to dejection, agitation or even jubilation.

This analysis doesn’t mean that serious devotees are unemotional; rather, it means that they are ready to subordinate their worldly emotions so that they can relish devotional emotions – and Krishna finds this endearing.

In any relationship, commitment is demonstrated by sacrificing something dear for the pleasure of one’s beloved – and such commitment is naturally endearing. Krishna demonstrates a similar dynamic in underscoring that he finds endearing his devotees’ indifference towards worldly sentiment so that they can stay absorbed in steady committed practice of bhakti – and he being pleased mercifully rewards them with unending devotional sentiments.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita

Don’t just push the mind towards the spiritual – let the spiritual pull the mind too by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita

Suppose we were pushing a heavy trolley uphill. It would be a demanding exertion. If we became lax even for a moment, the trolley would start rolling back downwards. If someone ahead were also pulling the trolley up, then moving it becomes much easier.

A similar dynamic applies to our attempts to push our mind from the material level of consciousness upwards the spiritual level. When we understand start practicing spiritual life, we know that we need to fix the mind on spiritual reality instead of material things. Such a redirection of the mind can seem a laborious pushing exercise because the mind has a default attraction towards material things akin to the force of gravity.

If our conception of the spiritual is attractive, then it exerts its own pull on the mind, making the ascent of our consciousness easier. However, if our conception of the spiritual is largely a negation of the material, then it exerts little if any pull, making the ascent of our consciousness dependent entirely on our own pushing capacity. Aptly, theBhagavad-gita (12.05) warns that those who hold on to impersonal conceptions of the spiritual make their spiritual journey troublesome.

In contrast, the next verses (12.06-07) declare that for those who fix their mind on the personal absolute Krishna, he lifts them up and delivers them swiftly. Krishna is the all-attractive supreme person having unlimited auspicious qualities. These qualities in and of themselves attract increasingly the purified mind, thereby exerting an upward pull on it towards the spiritual. And due to the most pertinent among these qualities – mercifulness – Krishna himself lifts us up too by his benevolent omnipotence.

By refining our conception of the spiritual from impersonal to personal, we can make our spiritual progress speedier and sweeter.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 02

What is not eternal is eternally inconsequential by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 02

Success in any field requires focus on the important things while putting aside the unimportant things. When we understand our eternal spiritual identity and strive to attain an eternal destination, we need to focus on the eternal and put aside whatever is non-eternal.

The Bhagavad-gita in its second chapter echoes this theme in its presentation of the path to eternity. It first (02.13) reminds us of our identity as unchanging souls within changing bodies, then (02.14) urges us to tolerate the changing, knowing it to be temporary and finally (02.15) assures that those who don’t let themselves be disturbed by the ever-changing binaries of life such as happiness and distress can attain the eternal.

To not let ourselves be disturbed doesn’t mean that we become like unfeeling robots that are de-sensitized to all ups and downs. Rather, it means that we become purposeful pursuers of the eternal who consciously keep the radar of our consciousness fixed on the eternal and evaluate everything from that perspective. Paradoxically the perspective of eternity makes our response to the temporary better, not worse. When our consciousness is caught in the temporary, then it becomes so big as to overwhelm us and induce kneejerk rush-of-blood type reactions that are usually short-sighted and counterproductive.

In contrast, when we connect with and root ourselves in the eternal by cultivating spiritual knowledge and devotional realization, we can calmly consider the situation and respond appropriately to various ups and downs.

The more we realize that what is not eternal is eternally inconsequential, the greater becomes our ability to focus on the consequential and to deal with the relatively-less consequential in a way that doesn’t backfire on us, distracting us further. By remembering the consequentiality of the eternal, we can respond maturely to the non-eternal and also progress steadily towards the eternal.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 06

Absorption is a function of not just attraction but also determinationby Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 06

Sometimes during our devotional practices we may find our mind slipping away to other things that we are more attracted to and may wonder, “How can I stay absorbed in Krishna when I don’t have much attraction for him?”

Actually, absorption doesn’t come from attraction alone – it can come from determination too. Consider students preparing for an important exam. Rarely do they feel strongly attracted to their subject. Yet responsible students push themselves to study by the power of their determination.

Similarly, we too can as spiritual students in the bhakti-yoga university can bolster our determination to absorb ourselves in Krishna by using our intelligence. The Bhagavad-gita (06.25) urges us to slowly, step-by-step bring the mind under control by using a combination of intelligence and determination. When the mind slips away from Krishna or refuses to re-focus on him, we can use our intelligence to focus it on the consequentiality of bhakti practice: bhakti-yoga can rescue us from multiple lifetimes in miserable material existence and grant everlasting spiritual happiness.

Additionally, we have a big advantage over students of ordinary subject matters. Krishna is inherently attractive, in fact supremely all-attractive. And our heart is meant to be attracted to him, for we are his eternal parts. Just as an iron filing’s attraction to a magnet becomes re-manifest once the rust covering it is removed, similarly our attraction to Krishna will manifest as the impurities covering us are removed. And these impurities are most efficaciously removed by meditating on the all-pure Krishna. Thus the more we force ourselves to stay absorbed in Krishna, the less we will need to force ourselves; as we become purified our attraction for him will manifest and will power our absorption in him.

When our absorption comes from attraction, our devotion becomes increasingly, eternally joyful.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18

Don’t obstruct bhakti with an intellectual filter – or with an anti-intellectual filter either by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18

An intellectual filter in bhakti refers to giving our intelligence the role of arbiter in deciding what is acceptable and what isn’t. But the intelligence may well filter Krishna out of our heart, deeming him as irrational or mythological. Why? Because Krishna sometimes performs feats that may not make sense to our logical-skeptical intelligence. Actually, his ability to perform such deeds simply proves his supremacy – if he truly is the greatest being, then he must be greater than our intelligence. So in principle, he can’t be caught or conquered by our intelligence, that is, he can do things that can’t be comprehended by our intelligence.

Acknowledging the trans-intellectual omnipotence of Krishna is not a rejection of the intelligence, but its perfection. It requires great intelligence – intelligence strong enough to resist the seduction of the ego – to acknowledge that it is subordinate to God. The Bhagavad-gita (15.19) declares that those who worship Krishna wholeheartedly as the Supreme Person are the most intelligent.

While an intellectual filter can be a pitfall in bhakti, an anti-intellectual filter can also be a pitfall. Some practitioners may equate any intellectually demanding study of scripture with the jnana-marga (the path of knowledge). Further, they may deride as jnanis (dry intellectuals) those who go deep into philosophical technicalities.

However, such simplistic denunciation of the intelligence is misinformed because philosophical technicalities have been analyzed by many of the greatest devotee-acharyas. Further, the Gita (18.70) declares that those who study its message are worshiping Krishna with their intelligence, thereby revealing the right role of the intelligence in bhakti – not as a filter, but as a facilitator. We use whatever intelligence we have for appreciating Krishna’s glories; better understanding ourselves: our nature and conditionings; and improving our personal application of scripture, thereby firmly marching towards Krishna.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 08.

Reflect on time’s cyclicity to reduce the mind’s imbecility by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 08.

The mind’s imbecility is to believe that the things that haven’t provided fulfillment till now will provide fulfillment next time round. It imagines that the same unfulfilling activities – eating, sleeping, mating and defending – that we have indulged in millions of times in this and previous lives will give us something new, something exciting, something sensational, if we just do things right next time. By this hope the mind keeps us trapped in material existence, looking for something materially enjoyable and enduring the repetition of birth, old age, disease and death.

Time’s cyclicity refers to how things go round and round in nature – from the seconds hand on an analog clock through the periodic cycling of the days, months and years to the circular movement of the celestial bodies. From a philosophical perspective, the cyclic nature of time implies that ultimately there’s nothing new in material existence – there’s only the eternal recurrence of the old. As it is wisely said, news is simply old things happening to new people.

Understanding the cyclicity of time is a good medicine for the mind’s imbecility. The Bhagavad-gita (08.17) while countering the human craving for fulfillment at the material level warns that even the heavenly abodes such as that of the creator divinity Brahma are time-bound and perishable. Only by rising from the material level of consciousness to the spiritual level and learning to love the non-material supreme divinity Krishna can we get everlasting fulfillment. He is ever-accessible in his many manifestations internally and externally, still we are often unable to focus on him due to the mind’s material infatuation. Meditating on time’s cyclicity helps us realize that materially things only run down, never work out. This realization can provide us the necessary detachment to determinedly focus on spiritual realization and thereby find devotional satisfaction.

Break free from the material conception of the external and the internal by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15

Suppose a thief has broken into a house’s premises. In one sense, the thief is outside the house, being in the courtyard. But in another sense is inside the house in the sense of being inside the premises. If the house’s main security is at the gate of the premises, not the door of the house proper, then the thief has essentially broken into the house.

The key point here is that what is considered outside and what, inside varies depending on the reference point. What applies to the house applies to us too. As we identify ourselves with our body, we consider things outside our body external and those inside our body internal.

But Gita wisdom explains that we are not our body – we are the soul inside the body. And the soul is covered by not just the body, but also the mind. So, from the soul’s perspective, the mind is external, though from the body’s perspective, the mind is internal. And dangerously for us, the mind is already filled with worldly cravings that impel us eternal beings to the vain pursuit of temporary pleasures.

Such cravings are akin to thieves that have already breached through our major defenses. Why? Because they have entered into our mind, thereby making us misidentify them as our own desires instead of recognizing them as intruders who have somehow slipped in. Significantly, the Bhagavad-gita(15.07) groups the mind with the senses, indicating that they together cause the soul to struggle in material existence, sentencing ourselves to unnecessary suffering.

How can we protect ourselves? By serious scriptural education and diligent devotional purification, we can break free from the body-based conception of external and internal – and cultivate the soul-based conception that will help us act cautiously and wisely for our best interests.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 07

We can’t become pure devotees without becoming devotees by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 07

When we hear how pure devotees don’t ask Krishna for anything material, we may aspire for similar selfless love. While this aspiration is wonderful, we need to actualize it gradually.

Before we can have a selfless relationship with Krishna, we need to first have a relationship with him. And relationships develop substantially by sharing of the heart. Like it or not, presently, our heart is largely occupied by material things because, after all, we live in the material world, and have obligations and ambitions here. If in aspiring for pure devotion we decide to never take our material anxieties to Krishna, we may divorce a major part of our heart from him, thereby keeping our relationship with him superficial.

In the Bhagavad-gita (07.16), Krishna mentions that the distressed worship him to gain relief. And far from condemning such worshipers, he appreciates them as pious (07.16: sukrtinah) and large-hearted (07.17: udaarah). Significantly, distress can serve as an impetus for bhakti not just at the start of our spiritual life but thereafter too.

Of course, we shouldn’t let distress become the only reason for our practicing bhakti. Otherwise we may give up practicing it once the distress ends, thinking, “Why do I need to practice it?” or if the distress doesn’t end, thinking, “What is the use of practicing it?”

So if material distress afflicts us during our regular practice of bhakti, we can see the distress as an opportunity for intensifying our bhakti. We can pray to Krishna not just to remove the distress, but also to give us experience of his shelter through his remembrance – shelter that will enable us to tolerate and even transcend the distress. It is this realization of his ever-available shelter and the selfless love it represents that will inspire our devotion to rise towards pure devotion.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 04

Learning according to leaning nurtures growing  by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 04

We all have a natural leaning towards certain things. We often feel good about and are good at doing some things. Such comfort and competence are fair indicators of our inclination.

When our learning is streamlined according to our leaning, we learn quickly and joyfully because what we study interests us. In contrast, when we have to learn loads of uninteresting things, education becomes drudgery.

To facilitate learning according to leaning, Gita wisdom endorses the social structure of varnashrama. Within this system of social organization, people are categorized into four broad human types according to their qualities and activities (Bhagavad-gita 04.13). Based on such classification, members of each type are provided customized education that nurtures their natural inclinations.

Unfortunately, that healthy system of tailor-made division of labor in human society degenerated over time into the discriminatory caste system, wherein people were labeled according to their births, not inclinations. Based on such stereotyping, they were often deprived of opportunities for learning according to leaning. Thus the caste system ended up defeating the defining purpose of its pristine ancestral varnashrama.

While the caste system deprives people through unwarranted discrimination, modern materialistic culture similarly deprives people through unwarranted glamorization of some professions. Due to social pressure, people choose glamorized careers, even when their leaning prompts them elsewhere. Being thus misled, they end up under-developed, maladjusted, dissatisfied.

Bhakti wisdom frees us from the pressure to conform to stereotypes. It helps us understand that we all are precious parts of Krishna and our talents are gifts from him – gifts he wants us to develop. Buoyed by this loving vision of ourselves and our talents, we can patiently and objectively observe ourselves to discover those talents. By gradually orienting our lives to learn according to our leanings and using those leanings in Krishna’s service, we can attain profound all-round fulfillment.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 06

The mind is illusion’s internal advertising agent by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 06

Much of today’s materialistic culture runs through advertising. Most multinational companies often spend far more on product promotion than on quality control.

Advertising agents are expert at persuading people into believing that their wants are their needs. In fact, the evil genius of advertising is that it can make people believe that they want more than their life things that they don’t need at all.

While the formidable persuasive power of advertisers is well known, much lesser known is the persuasive power of the internal advertiser: the mind. It is illusion’s advertising agent – it makes us go after the many products paraded by the illusory energy.

The mind is far more insidious than any other advertising agent because it doesn’t just persuade us – it pretends to be us. Because it lies inside us, it manipulates us into believing that its fancies are our fancies. So sinister and subversive is the mind’s spell that it makes us chase after trivialities, even risking in the process our financial security, moral integrity, emotional stability and spiritual sanctity.

Further, while we can just close the door on a persistent advertiser or even have one evicted, we can do neither with the mind – again because it exists inside us. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (06.06) warns that the mind can be our worst enemy if it is uncontrolled, that is, if it is allowed to unrestrictedly cast its spell on us.

The most effective way to counter the mind’s incessant promotion of petty worldly things is to expose ourselves to the glorification of higher spiritual things, ultimately of the highest reality Krishna. By absorbing ourselves in Krishna and his service, we can generate an inner devotional momentum that silences and steamrolls the mind’s distracting propaganda – till the mind eventually becomes purified and joins the devotional movement of our heart towards him.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 14

When we practice bhakti-yoga, our practice may at times seem tasteless and lifeless, prompting the doubt: “Why does Krishna feel so far away?”

Actually, Krishna never moves away from his proximate, intimate position in our heart. He always loves us and never gives up on us. When he didn’t abandon us for the many past lifetimes when we paid him little heed, why would he abandon us now when we are striving to devote ourselves to him? He certainly won’t.

The right question, then, is not why Krishna is far away, but why we feel that he is far away. Gita wisdom explains that our present feelings are shaped by the three modes. The lower modes distort our perception with temporary feelings that don’t reflect our deeper values or more enduring realities. We don’t let our feelings alone determine our actions even in our material life, especially for important things. For example, we don’t quit school or job just because it doesn’t feel good. Why, then, should we let our emotions become sole arbiters in our devotional life?

Instead, during devotionally dry phases, we can question our feelings: “Do they reflect the real me? Or are they the final gasps of a baser side of me, a side shaped by the lower modes, a side weakened and threatened by bhakti’s potency?” Such critical scripturally guided questioning will reveal that the present emotional emptiness is an opportunity for us to show Krishna the selflessness of our devotion by persevering even when it doesn’t immediately feel good.

Boosted by such guided introspection, we will be able to practice bhakti without being deviated by the modes and thereby, as the Bhagavad-gita (14.26) assures, attain transcendental existence – existence free from the distortion of transient emotions, existence where we relish Krishna’s love eternally.

Chaitanya Charan Das

Every trial is a teacher by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18

In life, we all go through various trials. A trial seems especially trying is when it appears pointless, when it seems as if that trial is causing us trouble without serving any purpose.

For example, when a soldier fighting on a battlefield becomes wounded or succumbs, that wound is celebrated as heroic or that death is celebrated as martyrdom. But if that soldier dies in an accident even before reaching the battlefield, then that death seems so pointless and purposeless.

Similarly, when we feel that our problems serve no purpose, we find them agonizing, mortifying, frustrating. Thankfully, Gita wisdom helps us understand that no problem is pointless, for every trial is a teacher. TheBhagavad-gita (18.61) states that the Supreme Lord directs the wanderings of all living beings. So whatever happens to us is ultimately sanctioned by him. And he is our greatest well-wisher. Whatever happens by his sanction happens to further the ultimate purpose of our existence: our spiritual evolution towards eternal love.

The trials we face in life may seem meaningless at the material level of reality, but the material level isn’t the only level of our existence. Far from it, it is actually the secondary level of existence, for we are primarily spiritual beings who are secondarily encased in temporary material bodies that exist circumstantially at the material level of reality.

In our essential spiritual existence, we delight eternally in love for the all-attractive supreme person, the source of unending pleasure, Krishna. We can learn to love him by practicing bhakti-yoga, but we need impetus to turn away from worldly pleasures and take up such practice. Trials often forcefully remind us of the hollowness of the world’s promises and inspire us to seek Krishna’s love, thereby spurring our spiritual evolution. Thus trials act as teachers if we just learn to learn from them.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita

Don’t give the mind power of attorney – and don’t let it grab it either by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita

Power of attorney refers to the power given by the owner to someone else to act in a legal capacity on one’s behalf. As the power of attorney grants a substantial amount of control to the empowered person,  it needs to be granted only to someone trustworthy. Otherwise one will end up deceived.

We often grant the mind power of attorney. That is, we let it act on our behalf without subjecting its plans to adequate scrutiny. On many issues, we just act according to our impulses without thinking sufficiently about the consequences or complications. Usually, such impulsive actions are prompted by the mind which has its own programs based on our past choices and conditionings.

Quite often, such actions impel us on to the path of self-destruction.

Actually, the mind can be much more insidious than anyone else with the power of attorney. It not only misuses the power of attorney, but also misleads us into ceding that power to it. Because the mind is inside us, we deem it trustworthy. In fact, so implicit is our trust in the mind that we even misidentify ourselves with it – we consider its voice to be our voice.

But the mind is often not worthy of such unquestioning trust. The Bhagavad-gita (06.06) warns us that the mind can act as our worst enemy, especially when it controls us rather than we controlling it. It presents its proposals with such persuasiveness, such forcefulness and such deceptiveness that we get bamboozled into accepting it. Only after we have acted self-destructively and borne the consequences may we question, “Why did I do that?”

To avoid such self-destruction, we need to vigilantly base our decisions not on the mind but on scriptural counsel.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15

Many people want God to give them a special signal for commencing their spiritual life: “When God calls me, I will begin.”

However, such an attitude is based on a fundamental misconception about the nature of our relationship with God. We are not meant to wait for him – we are meant to wait on him. Significantly, waiting on him is not degrading; it is fulfilling. It is the culmination of our innate longing to love. Just as we care for a loved one, we learn to care for Krishna. When we are intensely in love with someone, we eagerly and actively seek an opportunity to do something for that person – we don’t wait passively and apathetically till that person has to tell us what needs to be done.

The Bhagavad-gita (15.07) states that we are Krishna’s parts, implying that we can be truly happy only when we live in loving harmony with him. The same verse states that souls in material existence struggle with the six senses that include the mind. The point of the verse is that those who don’t wait on Krishna have to wait on their senses. When we don’t lovingly connect with him, we have no access to any higher spiritual happiness. So our innate need for happiness makes us look for it at the material level, where our senses allure us with promises of pleasure. Being beguiled by those promises, we end up waiting on our senses, running around at their beck and call, trying to gratify their demands, which are often untimely, unreasonable and unending.

If we reflect calmly using scriptural wisdom on our present plight of slavish submission to our senses, we will realize that the scriptural expose of our plight is a more than an adequate divine signal for turning towards Krishna immediately.

Many people want God to give them a special signal for commencing their spiritual life: “When God calls me, I will begin.”

However, such an attitude is based on a fundamental misconception about the nature of our relationship with God. We are not meant to wait for him – we are meant to wait on him. Significantly, waiting on him is not degrading; it is fulfilling. It is the culmination of our innate longing to love. Just as we care for a loved one, we learn to care for Krishna. When we are intensely in love with someone, we eagerly and actively seek an opportunity to do something for that person – we don’t wait passively and apathetically till that person has to tell us what needs to be done.

The Bhagavad-gita (15.07) states that we are Krishna’s parts, implying that we can be truly happy only when we live in loving harmony with him. The same verse states that souls in material existence struggle with the six senses that include the mind. The point of the verse is that those who don’t wait on Krishna have to wait on their senses. When we don’t lovingly connect with him, we have no access to any higher spiritual happiness. So our innate need for happiness makes us look for it at the material level, where our senses allure us with promises of pleasure. Being beguiled by those promises, we end up waiting on our senses, running around at their beck and call, trying to gratify their demands, which are often untimely, unreasonable and unending.

If we reflect calmly using scriptural wisdom on our present plight of slavish submission to our senses, we will realize that the scriptural expose of our plight is a more than an adequate divine signal for turning towards Krishna immediately.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16

The better way to feel better about ourselves is by appreciation, not denigration by Chaitanya CharanDas Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16

We naturally want to feel better about ourselves. Sometimes we try to feel thus by criticizing others. By pointing others’ faults, we think that the world will no longer think too highly about them and will think more highly about us on seeing our cleverness in finding faults.

Though such faultfinding may make us feel better temporarily, it frequently makes things worse. Everyone has a good side and a bad side. Gita wisdom explains that everyone is at the core a pure soul, a part of God, who is covered by varying degrees of conditionings that contaminate the godly essence.

To the extent we focus on the side that’s less than good, to that extent our vision gets caught in the unspiritual and triggers the activation of our unspiritual side. Dwelling on others’ faults especially when we delight in exposing those faults panders to our lower side, thereby opening us to the danger of aggravating that side. Pertinently the Gita (16.02) reminds us that the godly are characterized by an aversion to faultfinding.

Delighting in denigrating others is a bad way to feel good about ourselves. The good way to feel good is by offering constructive criticism privately and sensitively without delighting in the act, but doing it with a sincere desire to help the other person. The better way to feel better about ourselves is by offering appreciation for the good side of others, thereby encouraging them to develop that side. Appreciating others makes us feel better because we become radiators and stimulators of positivity, not negativity. The best way to feel better about ourselves is, of course, to stop looking at the world, either to find fault or to want appreciation for our faultfinding, but instead look inwards and improve ourselves by becoming better.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 09

Temptation can knock us down, but it can’t knock us out byChaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 09

In a boxing match, a boxer may be knocked down, but only when the fallen player fails to rise does the knock down become a knock out.

We are all engaged in a match with temptation, which sometimes gains an upper hand and with a sudden sweeping punch knocks us down. It devastates our intellectual defenses, decimates our determination and drags us down to activities that go against our ethical and spiritual principles. Such a knock down can be disheartening.

But we can take heart from the fact that it’s only a knock down, not a knock out. No matter how badly we fall, we always have the power to rise. Nothing can make us stay fallen unless we lose the will to rise. But once we lose the will to fight, just a small push, that would otherwise have not even shaken us, can knock us not only down, but also out. Thus the result of our match against temptation is determined far more by the presence or absence of our own will to fight than by the presence or absence of a formidable temptation.

Just as a boxer when squaring up against a fearsome-looking opponent needs the morale-boosting encouragement of a competent coach, we need when dealing with irresistible-seeming temptation the encouragement of the ultimate coach Krishna. He declares in the Bhagavad-gita (09.30) that even those who slip into sin are to be seen as saintly because their heart is in the right place; so, they will soon become virtuous (09.31). This declaration assures us that no wrongdoing, however grievous, can ever stop Krishna from loving us. Nothing that we do will make Krishna leave our heart and go away

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 04

Devotion brings knowledge into action and action into knowledge by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 04

In Vedic wisdom, two main paths are the path of action, karma-yoga, and the path of knowledge, jnana-yoga.

Gita wisdom explains how the strengths of both these paths are integrated in bhakti-yoga, which is the path of not just devotion, but of devotion that integrates action and knowledge.

Devotion brings knowledge into action: The Gita explains how action can be infused with knowledge so that it leads not to bondage but to liberation. It (04.23) urges us to act in knowledge with the mood of sacrifice. Later it (09.24) reveals the object of sacrifice to be Krishna. And it (18.57) conclusively integrates both these insights when it urges us to use our intelligence for offering our work to Krishna. Such intellectually illumined and devotionally directed actions are liberating.

Devotion brings action into knowledge: The path of knowledge holds that because action causes bondage, we should give up all action to become free from bondage. But the Gita (03.05) declares that staying inactive as a sustained manner of living is impossible. The Gita (05.06) further asserts that mere renunciation without action breeds misery, whereas action spiritualized by yoga makes liberation joyfully attainable. And conclusively (18.54) it conveys how jnana-yoga culminates not in inaction, but in pure devotion and its associated selfless action: After jnana-yogis have attained the perfection of equal vision, they attain pure devotion. Thus, devotional action comprises the post-graduation stage of jnana-yoga.

When our action is thus guided by knowledge and our knowledge is enlivened by action and when both are permeated with the intention of love – love for the Supreme and love for all living beings in relationship with the Supreme – we can naturally and efficaciously move towards life’s supreme perfection.

As bhakti-yoga synthesizes and synergizes the strengths of both karma-yoga and jnana-yoga, it embodies the perfection of yoga.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16

Courage centers not on standing up to others but on staying true to your self by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16

When a principled person stands up to a powerful person, especially when that powerful person is autocratic or atrocious, then that act of standing up is often seen as courageous – and rightly so.

Still, it’s important to not reduce courage only to standing up to outside forces. Such an externalized conception of courage can make people glamorize rebellion against any authority for any cause – they may end up embracing rebellion for rebellion’s sake.

So we need to complement the external conception of courage with its internal essential counterpart. Inner courage centers on standing up to the inner forces that impede us in living according to principles. Gita wisdom explains the best principles to live for and the inner forces that impede us. We are at our core souls who can find lasting fulfillment in loving the supreme person Krishna and in loving all living beings in relationship with him. Such spiritual love is the noblest principle that we can live for. In living for such selfless love, we stay true to ourselves.

But we are often obstructed and frustrated in our attempts to live true to ourselves by the formidable inner force of the mind. The mind can act as an arbitrary autocrat who makes us do atrocious things. To stand up to this inner tyrant, we need courage. The Bhagavad-gita (16.01) points to this inner dimension of courage when in its list of the qualities that characterize the godly it follows courage immediately with purification.

In fact, as compared to the courage needed for standing up to external dictators, the courage needed to stand up to the mind is much greater. And the rewards of such courage are also far greater: the manifestation of our potential for pure love and everlasting happiness.

Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 12

Catch the current of emotion – don’t be caught by it by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 12

In an ocean, there are often multiple currents moving in different directions. To give a somewhat simple example for a complex phenomenon, in the Indian Ocean, there may be a current that moves from India towards Australia and another current that moves from Australia towards India.

Suppose a boat wants to move from India towards Australia. To move thus, the boat needs to catch the current moving in that direction. Otherwise, if it gets caught in the opposite current, then the boat will find even staying in its position difficult, what to speak of progressing.

Similarly, in our consciousness there are different currents of emotions that move in different directions. Broadly speaking, some currents move away from Maya towards Krishna and some away from Krishna towards Maya. If we want to progress towards Krishna, then we need to catch the devotional current that moves towards Krishna – and not be caught by the anti-devotional current that takes us away from him.

The anti-devotional currents in our consciousness correspond to our material attachments. When we let our thoughts dwell on those objects, we place ourselves in the current of emotions that propel us towards them.

The devotional currents in our consciousness correspond to our spiritual attachments, the manifestations of Krishna we are attracted to. The Bhagavad-gita (12.09) assures us that the more we strive to fix our mind on Krishna, the more our attraction to him will increase and the more our desire for attaining him will increase too, thereby propelling us towards him.

Thus, though our material attachments may presently make spiritual progress difficult, we can gain hope by knowing that this difficulty will decrease as we habituate ourselves to fixing our consciousness on Krishna and thereby find the current of emotion assisting, not opposing, us in our spiritual progress.