RadhaKrishna Krishnakatha KrishnaStories

The inconsiderate can be as injurious as the incorrect

A doctor who prescribes incorrectly hurts the patient. But so does a doctor who prescribes inconsiderately, who doesn’t consider the patient’s case history and prescribes a contraindicative treatment.
We all are like patients, being afflicted by the disease of misdirected desires. Although we are eternal spiritual beings, we crave for temporary material things, thereby sentencing ourselves to repeated birth and death. The Bhagavad-gita’s message of spiritual love guides us to redirect our desires from worldly things to Krishna. When we share the Gita with others, we become like spiritual healers. While sharing the Gita, if we deviate from its pure and potent message, we will perpetuate people’s spiritual ignorance and material attachments. Knowing this, we carefully guard against speaking incorrectly.
However, we aren’t so careful to avoid speaking inconsiderately. We sometimes speak things, which, even if true, agitate people’s minds unnecessarily. Of course, outreach sometimes requires disturbing people by challenging their conceptions just as treatment sometimes requires subjecting them to surgery. But just as contraindicative treatments are excessively and unnecessarily distressing, so too are inconsiderate words.
Based on their socio-cultural background, some people may be super-sensitive about some issues. If we speak insensitively on those issues, they get so agitated as to become hostile to the Gita’s central message of spiritualizing one’s consciousness. Thus, their ignorance gets perpetuated by our inconsiderateness, just as it would have by our incorrectness.
The Bhagavad-gita (03.26) cautions us against agitating people’s minds, even when we are detached and knowledgeable, and they are attached and ignorant. The same verse urges us to expertly inspire people towards spiritual elevation, even if gradually.
When we strive to be both correct and considerate, we better represent Krishna’s wisdom and Krishna’s love. By thus appealing to our audience’s head and heart both, we ease their path to spiritual healing.
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Krishnakatha RadhaKrishna

The #material and the #spiritual can be competitive, but they can also be cumulative

When we start practicing spiritual life, our material and spiritual sides can seem to be competitive.
Both require our time and energy. As these are limited, we need to choose between the material and the spiritual. And yes, we need to initially separate our life into material and spiritual sides so that we invest enough time in directly spiritual activities. Thereafter however, we need to integrate both in our life’s overarching purpose.
Gita #wisdom raises us beyond being generic spiritual seekers to becoming devotional seekers. This bhakti vision helps us appreciate that both matter and spirit come from Krishna, being his energies. The Bhagavad-gita (18.46) points to this integrated vision when it urges us to worship Krishna with our work. It stresses that the arena in which we work comes from Krishna and is pervaded by him because everything comes from him and is pervaded by him. Though usually#worship is associated with direct devotional activities such as offering lamps, waving fans and ringing bells, the Gita extends the ambit of worship to include our work. Thus, it presents the material and the spiritual not as competitive, but as complementary – even the material can be spiritualized.
To realize this complementariness, firstly we shouldn’t let our material life eat into our fundamental spiritual commitments. Simultaneously, we shouldn’t let our spiritual life make us resentful of our essential, unavoidable material obligations. When we invest adequate time in directly spiritual activities, our consciousness becomes infused with a devotiona

l service attitude. Then, we can carry that attitude into our material activities, thereby spiritualizing them through our intent.
With our life animated by service attitude, our material and spiritual sides become cumulative. They both help us grow in our relationship of loving service to Krishna and in finding enduring fulfillment therein.
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Krishnakatha RadhaKrishna

Those who anger us conquer us

Sports are sometimes marred by unwholesome practices such as sledging. In cricket, for example, fielders may provoke a batsman by taunting. If the batsman gets angry, he plays a rash shot and gets out. Thus, the fielders who anger the batsman conquer him.
Anger is a natural reaction when things important to us are attacked. Though anger is natural, the way we express it is not always desirable. If we are conditioned to acting indiscriminately on our anger, we give others inordinate control over us. They can, by pressing the buttons that drive us wild, make us act self-destructively.
The Bhagavad-gita (16.04) cautions that anger characterizes the ungodly. This suggests that the further we go from God, the more vulnerable we become to anger. And conversely, the closer we go to God, the more we can channel constructively the energy underlying anger. By regular devotional practices, we become strongly rooted in our relationship with God. Thereby, we develop the inner strength to choose our actions based on our higher purposes and principles – and not get goaded into actions by circumstantial provocations.
In the Mahabharata, the Kauravas, especially Duryodhana and Dushasana, provoked the Pandavas repeatedly, by swindling them of their kingdom and dishonoring their wife. Naturally, the Pandavas were furious, but they didn’t impulsively act on their anger. Instead, they, with great fortitude, bided their time, living through the thirteen-year exile period. Then they offered peace on the most accommodating terms. When the arrogant Kauravas predictably rejected the peace proposal, their bellicosity and viciousness was exposed for the whole world to see. In the ensuing war, the Pandavas channeled the energy underlying their righteous anger and attained an extraordinary victory.
By thus refusing to let the Kauravas’ provocations deviate them from dharma, the devoted Pandavas exemplify how to respond to provocations wisely and firmly.

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Radhakrishna Krishna

#Spiritual surrender is not an admission of defeat – it is a vehicle to victory

In contemporary idiom, the word “surrender” conjures strong negative imagery. When a warrior is overpowered and has no way to resist or escape, he surrenders, which is a reluctant, often resentful, admission of defeat.

This negative conception may make us recoil when bhakti wisdom urges us to surrender to God. However, spiritual surrender is an entirely different ball game, as can be seen from how it is demonstrated in the Bhagavad-gita.

In the #Gita, the first mention of surrender comes in the beginning when Arjuna surrenders to Krishna, admitting his inability to figure out the right course of action and seeking knowledge of dharma (02.07). This is the only reference which somewhat resembles the negative stereotype of surrender.

How the Gita’s conception of surrender is positive is revealed as its thought-flow evolves. It (07.14) declares that those who surrender to Krishna will cross over worldly illusion. Here, surrender is shown to be eminently positive, as a means to attain victory in the war against illusion. And the fundamental illusion is that God and we are antagonists – that his definition of pleasure is opposite to our conception of pleasure. Gita wisdom counters this illusion by explaining that God is our greatest well-wisher; he wants us to attain the greatest fulfillment by realizing our eternal nature as his beloved, blissful parts.

When #Arjuna understands Krishna’s omni-benevolence, he responds to the call for surrender (18.66) with a whole-heartedly affirmative reply (18.73). He declares that the Gita’s message culminating in surrender has helped him overcome his illusion and doubts. And the Gita concludes with a prophecy of the surrendered Arjuna’s imminent victory in the upcoming war (18.78).

When we too open ourselves to Gita wisdom, we will see surrender as supremely empowering, as the cherished vehicle to life’s ultimate victory.

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The Appearance of Śrī Nārada

Chapter Four
The Appearance of Śrī Nārada
TEXT 1
vyāsa uvāca
iti bruvāṇaṁ saṁstūya
munīnāṁ dīrgha-satriṇām
vṛddhaḥ kula-patiḥ sūtaṁ
bahvṛcaḥ śaunako ‘bravīt
SYNONYMS
vyāsaḥ—Vyāsadeva; uvāca—said; iti—thus; bruvāṇam—speaking; saṁstūya—congratulating; munīnām—of the great sages; dīrgha—prolonged; satriṇām—of those engaged in the performance of sacrifice; vṛddhaḥ—elderly; kula-patiḥ—head of the assembly; sūtam—unto Sūta Gosvāmī; bahu-ṛcaḥ—learned; śaunakaḥ—of the name Śaunaka; abravīt—addressed.
TRANSLATION
On hearing Sūta Gosvāmī speak thus, Śaunaka Muni, who was the elderly, learned leader of all the ṛṣis engaged in that prolonged sacrificial ceremony, congratulated Sūta Gosvāmī by addressing him as follows.
PURPORT
In a meeting of learned men, when there are congratulations or addresses for the speaker, the qualifications of the congratulator should be as follows. He must be the leader of the house and an elderly man. He must be vastly learned also. Śrī Śaunaka Ṛṣi had all these qualifications, and thus he stood up to congratulate Śrī Sūta Gosvāmī when he expressed his desire to present Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam exactly as he heard it from Śukadeva Gosvāmī and also realized it personally. Personal realization does not mean that one should, out of vanity, attempt to show one’s own learning by trying to surpass the previous ācārya. He must have full confidence in the previous ācārya, and at the same time he must realize the subject matter so nicely that he can present the matter for the particular circumstances in a suitable manner. The original purpose of the text must be maintained. No obscure meaning should be screwed out of it, yet it should be presented in an interesting manner for the understanding of the audience. This is called realization. The leader of the assembly, Śaunaka, could estimate the value of the speaker, Śrī Sūta Gosvāmī, simply by his uttering yathādhītam and yathā-mati, and therefore he was very glad to congratulate him in ecstasy. No learned man should be willing to hear a person who does not represent the original ācārya. So the speaker and the audience were bona fide in this meeting where Bhāgavatam was being recited for the second time. That should be the standard of recitation of Bhāgavatam, so that the real purpose can be served without difficulty. Unless this situation is created, Bhāgavatam recitation for extraneous purposes is useless labor both for the speaker and for the audience.
TEXT 2
śaunaka uvāca
sūta sūta mahā-bhāga
vada no vadatāṁ vara
kathāṁ bhāgavatīṁ puṇyāṁ
yad āha bhagavāñ chukaḥ
SYNONYMS
śaunakaḥ—Śaunaka; uvāca—said; sūta sūta—O Sūta Gosvāmī; mahā-bhāga—the most fortunate; vada—please speak; naḥ—unto us; vadatām—of those who can speak; vara—respected; kathām—message; bhāgavatīm—of the Bhāgavatam; puṇyām—pious; yat—which; āha—said; bhagavān—greatly powerful; śukaḥ—Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī.
TRANSLATION
Śaunaka said: O Sūta Gosvāmī, you are the most fortunate and respected of all those who can speak and recite. Please relate the pious message of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which was spoken by the great and powerful sage Śukadeva Gosvāmī.
PURPORT
Sūta Gosvāmī is twice addressed herein by Śaunaka Gosvāmī out of great joy because he and the members of the assembly were eager to hear the text of Bhāgavatam uttered by Śukadeva Gosvāmī. They were not interested in hearing it from a bogus person who would interpret in his own way to suit his own purpose. Generally the so-called Bhāgavatam reciters are either professional readers or so-called learned impersonalists who cannot enter into the transcendental personal activities of the Supreme Person. Such impersonalists twist some meanings out of Bhāgavatam to suit and support impersonalist views, and the professional readers at once go to the Tenth Canto to misexplain the most confidential part of the Lord’s pastimes. Neither of these reciters are bona fide persons to recite Bhāgavatam. Only one who is prepared to present Bhāgavatam in the light of Śukadeva Gosvāmī and only those who are prepared to hear Śukadeva Gosvāmī and his representative are bona fide participants in the transcendental discussion of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam