A: So, Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Q: Hare Kṛṣṇa.
A: Thank you for allowing me to come and say something now. The topic for today's talk is being in the world but not of it. Meaning, we are all situated in the world, but we should not live in such a way that we are so much entangled in it. Because being entangled in this world means repeated birth and death. And that is the meaning of being of the world. But being in the world we cannot really do anything about. We are all born into this world in a particular body. But we can choose to live in such a way that we will not take birth again, or at least we will strive for a better situation in the next life, with more opportunity to serve God and surrender unto him, which is the ultimate goal of life. So, I will read a verse from Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā, Chapter 5, which is called Karma-yoga, Action in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, 10. So, Bhagavad-gītā 5.10.
brahmaṇy ādhāya karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tyaktvā karoti yaḥ
lipyate na sa pāpena padma-patram ivāmbhasā
So, brahmaṇi—ādhāya—karmāṇi—unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead, ādhāya—resigning, karmāṇi—all works. So, resigning all works unto brahman. Here brahman means God. The root of the word brahman comes from bṛh, bṛh. Right? That's the Sanskrit root, which means to grow or to increase. And the greatest of all is, of course, God, because he is guṇa-sampūrṇa. sarva-kalyāṇa-guṇa-sampūrṇa, means he is full of all auspicious guṇas or virtues, qualities. And in this way he is the greatest of all, and therefore he is known as brahman, brahman. So, brahmaṇi—in brahman or unto brahman—ādhāya—resigning or giving up—karmāṇi—all works. saṅgaṁ tyaktvā—and giving up saṅga. saṅga means connection or association. saṅga means go together, sam plus gam, go together. And saṅga here means our saṅga to this material world, our attachment to it. So, giving up that, tyaktvā—giving up this attachment. karoti yaḥ—he who works, he who does his actions in this way, resigning them to brahman, resigning them to God, and giving up attachment to any result of the action. lipyate na sa pāpena—lipyate is affected. He is not affected, never, by sin, or any, yeah, any bad work, any bad result, he is not affected by it, if he just resigns the work completely to God. padma-patram—padma-patram—padma means lotus, and patram means a leaf. So, even like a leaf of a lotus—ambhasā—by the water. So, he, just like a lotus petal is resting on the water, but is not, in that sense, affected by the water, or it's, it's just resting on top of it without being submerged. So, like that, he who acts in such a way, he is not touched by any sin. Now, the word sin means when we do some, some activity that brings a bad result, basically. We, we do some activity that is causing harm to someone, or we neglect our duties, or anything of that kind, then we get a bad result. But here in this, yeah, in this verse, it says that we are free from sin, but it's not only sin, we are freed from all results of work, even pious results. We are freed from all entanglement in this material world. Even good works with good results, with, with good results, we will still take birth again. But here Kṛṣṇa is giving a path for someone—giving a path how he can act but not be entangled. So, this is the meaning of being in the world but not of it. Being in the world in this sense means that we are engaged in action, in, in work in this world. We are forced to do so many things, and we have our responsibilities. Not being in the world would be take sannyāsa, live in the forest, just completely absorb ourselves in sādhana, in meditation on God, and not do anything in this world. But we cannot do it, and we are not recommended to do it. Kṛṣṇa is saying to Arjuna that, "No, you should not reject your duty of fighting and just go to the forest and beg." That was Arjuna's idea, that it might be better to go out and beg for a living, even if I would be completely cursed by everyone I know, everyone would curse me and say, "You are a coward. You, you..."
"...give up your responsibility of fighting and you just live by begging," which is very bad for a kṣatriya. So, but Arjuna thought that maybe it's better to live like that than to just engage in this horrible war. But even such a horrible situation, such a horrible responsibility that Arjuna had, even that should have been executed by him. We are not, maybe, engaged in such horrible activities, I mean, horrible works that we have to kill our own kinsmen and grandfather and guru and all of that. But we, we still have our responsibilities to take care of our family. And we have to do it. We cannot give up that. So, therefore, we are in the world, meaning we are, we are acting in the world. But not of it. This word "of", means sambandha, means a kind of relation. If you look at Sanskrit grammar, we have the genitive. Genitive case, which is that there is a relation between one thing and another. Then you use this genitive case, "of". But we are not supposed to be so related with this world. We should be like the lotus petal, just staying on top of the water. So, now Śrīla Prabhupāda—he translates this verse as: "One who performs his duty without attachment, surrendering the results unto the Supreme Lord, is unaffected by sinful action, as the lotus leaf is untouched by water."
And I will read Śrīla Prabhupāda's purport: "Here brahmaṇi means in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The material world is a sum total manifestation of the three modes of material nature, technically called pradhāna. The Vedic hymns—sarvaṁ hy etad brahma (Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad 2), tasmād etad brahma nāma-rūpam annaṁ ca jāyate (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.1.9)—and in the Bhagavad-gītā (14.3)—mama yonir mahad brahma—indicate that everything in the material world is a manifestation of Brahman. And although the effects are differently manifested, they are non-different from the cause. In the Īśopaniṣad it is said that everything is related to the Supreme Brahman, or Kṛṣṇa, and thus everything belongs to Him only. One who knows perfectly well that everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa, that He is the proprietor of everything, and that therefore everything is engaged in the service of the Lord, naturally has nothing to do with the results of his activities, whether virtuous or sinful. Even one's material body, being a gift of the Lord for carrying out a particular type of action, can be engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It is, then, beyond the contamination of sinful reactions, exactly as the lotus leaf, though remaining in the water, is not wet. Kṛṣṇa also says in the Gītā (3.30): mayi sarvāṇi karmāṇi sannyasya. The sum total of the matter is that one without Kṛṣṇa consciousness acts according to the concept of the material body and senses, but a person in Kṛṣṇa consciousness acts according to the knowledge that the body is the property of Kṛṣṇa and should therefore be engaged in the service of Kṛṣṇa."
So, in this purport Śrīla Prabhupāda explains how to act in the Kṛṣṇa conscious way. As I said, we, we cannot just sit down and do our sādhana the whole day. That is not possible. It may be possible as a monk in the temple, you are always serving the deity and always engaged in some kind of sādhana, study of Bhāgavatam. But, in general, people are so busy, I mean, very, very busy with family life, taking care of their children, bringing food to the table, and these kind of responsibilities, paying the rent. And in this day and age, this requires kind of full dedication, full-time work somewhere. And then maybe you can find some time in the morning to chant some rounds of Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, and then in the evening, maybe have some time to read something from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. And then in the, in the weekends, we can come to the temple and participate in the programs. So, these things are important, but we must also learn how to, how to make our whole life Kṛṣṇa conscious, even when we do activities outside of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, so to say. That is something I realized when I left the brahmacārī-āśrama and one is so filled with responsibilities, that it's easy to just get lost in it. So, we have to find a way how to act in a way that our, our action brings us closer to Kṛṣṇa. Because spiritual life is not so limited that it can only be performed in the temple, or in, in our own meditation or sādhana, or going to the forest, or serving the deities. It's not limited like that. Kṛṣṇa is giving the practical advice in Bhagavad-gītā. And practically, not whole Bhagavad-gītā, but a majority of verses in the Bhagavad-gītā contain this teaching, how to act in this world in a Kṛṣṇa conscious way. Because it's spoken to Arjuna, a fighter, who, yeah, on the battlefield you cannot chant Hare Kṛṣṇa or just worship the deity, like you have to be fully attentive in what you do. So, in that way, we should find a way how to work in a way that we are not of the world. We are not belonging to the world, we belong to Kṛṣṇa. And at the same time, we cannot give up our action and just, our responsibilities, and just go fully to serve Kṛṣṇa. For some it may be possible, but for majority, no. And it's actually a sin to just give up one's responsibility. That is, that should not be done. First of all, we have to understand like theoretically, that we do not belong here in this world. We live here, but we don't belong here. Belonging and living is different. Like now I'm, I visited Simhesh's home. I actually live in Stockholm. So, I, it's nice to be away for some time, but you, you belong somewhere else. So, you can be somewhere else temporarily, but eventually you will get back to where you belong. So, we all belong with God, in Godhead, or we belong to Godhead in his spiritual world. So, theoretically, we should understand that everything that we know since we were born belong to this world. Like if you see our possessions, our money, our house, our very like possessions that we own, we don't, those belong to the world, like to the material world. They are, they are products of material nature, and we have been given them for some time, and then we will give them up after a time. It is said that when we leave, leave this body, we will not be able to take anything with us. So, we should handle our possessions in a very sober manner, that these are, these belong to Kṛṣṇa, it's his energy. nirmamatva means understanding that nothing is mine. Nothing in this world is mine. We are just given certain things that we take care of for a short time. So, that's just the externals, that is not ours. That belongs to the material world. Similarly, our body, our physical body, that's also a product of material nature, and that is not ours. We control it for a short period of time until it's, until it dies and joins material nature again. And also our mind is ultimately not ours. In Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa also says that our mind is one of his energies. Even the intellect is part of Kṛṣṇa's energy. The only thing that we are is this conscious entity within this body. And we are observing all things going on here. We observe our possessions, we observe our bodies, our mind, our intellect, but we are ourselves not any of that. Everything that we observe is different from ourselves. So, in this way, one has to—this is just not something to just hear and just accept, but it's something we need to meditate on and think through it by ourselves, like sit down and think through it, that we don't belong here. We are this conscious entity, which cannot be reducible to matter and it doesn't belong to matter. This, as Kṛṣṇa says:
mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ
That this eternal jīva, the soul, belongs to Kṛṣṇa, it's his aṁśa. aṁśa means a part, that we belong to Kṛṣṇa only. And we can also understand that Kṛṣṇa is the self of our very self. He is the—he is also present in the body, and he is also present within the jīva, within the jīva soul, as the antaryāmī. antaryāmī means the inner controller. antar means within, and yāmī means the controller. So, he is situated within. Within the jīva, within each sense, within our mind, within our body, and within our possessions and within everything. Everything is controlled and pervaded by God only. And this is the meaning of the word aham in, if we see ahaṁ brahmāsmi, I am Brahman. This is generally thought to mean that we are God, we are God. But if we look deeper, if we look deeper into the Vedic words, the words of the Vedas, we can find that there are—these are all names of God. I mentioned in the, during the homa, that all the names of the devatas are ultimately names of God. But not only that, but all the words of the Vedas are also describing God. So, this word aham, which is a pronoun, "I" in Sanskrit, aham, if you analyze it etymologically, then it means aheya. It comes from the root hā. It's a Sanskrit root, hā, and then you put a negation before it, a-hā, and then you make it into a noun, ahā, and then in the neuter gender, so aham. This is like the way you break it down etymologically. This is the way that Sri Madhvacharya shows. He interprets the Vedas in these ways, how the words of the Vedas can be broken down. And the word aham then means "not discardable." Not discardable, aheyatva, means that it is not possible to discard it. Therefore, God is known as aham. aham. ahaṁ brahma—also brahma I explained before, means the great, great one, God, brahma—asmi. The word asmi also, it's a verb which means "I am." But if you also break that word down, it means "the one who upholds existence," the one who is the very measure of our existence. So, in this way, aham, the Lord is present in our heart, and he is the very giver of existence. It is only by him that we exist. It is only by him that we function. It is only by him that we breathe and that we act. He is the one who is giving the functioning of all our senses, mind and intelligence. And he cannot be discarded. He is aham. He is the only thing that cannot be discarded. We can discard everything else, but not this God present within us. That's the meaning of ahaṁ brahmāsmi according to the deeper meaning. So, in this way, we can contemplate that we actually do not belong at all here. So, therefore, we are not of the world. But how to act in such a way, because it's so easy to get entangled in this world by—Kṛṣṇa is saying that there are two things—or actually one thing... ...that keeps us bound in this world. And it is kāma eṣa, kāma eṣa. That is what is bringing the difficulty in our actions, like we cannot act properly because of this kāma. kāma means desire. It means any kind of selfish desire. And from this kāma, then krodha eṣa, kāma eṣa krodha eṣa. krodha... ...means anger or frustration, that when this kāma is not satisfied, it becomes or it, it is, it produces anger. So, these are the two main obstacles in our actions in this world. So, there are two kinds of actions. If we break it down into two categories, we have sakāma-karma and niṣkāma-karma. sakāma means with desire, or yeah, with desire, and niṣkāma-karma means without desire. And it is this, exactly this niṣkāma-karma that Kṛṣṇa is glorifying and describing in the Bhagavad-gītā, how to perform niṣkāma-karma. Whatever it is. In the old days we had the varṇāśrama system, everyone followed their varṇa duties. And in the context of Bhagavad-gītā, that is what Kṛṣṇa is speaking about when he is speaking about karma. You do your karma, means you do your varṇa duty according to your status and your āśrama also, according to varṇa and āśrama. But even like the principles of Bhagavad-gītā are also not limited to that. In this day and age, we do not have varṇāśrama. Everyone just has some random job that they do. They work in the post office. Where would you put that in varṇāśrama? Of course, it's śūdra, śūdra work, in that sense you can categorize it. But computer scientist, there were no computer scientists in the old days, or yeah, so many different occupations that are coming up. But we can still apply the same principles that Kṛṣṇa is talking about. He is saying we should do our karma. And our karma is our occupation. So, we have to do it in a proper manner. And here Kṛṣṇa is saying that brahmaṇy ādhāya karmāṇi, that these karmas should be resigned to brahman, to God, and we should give up the attachment to the results of the action, saṅgaṁ tyaktvā. So, what does it mean? What does it mean to act and resigning it, resigning the work to God? What does it mean? On a very practical level or, or on a very gross level, like first level, first layer, is to give up some fruit of the action. We do work, we get some salary, we give up that to the temple, and in this way, it's a form of brahmaṇy ādhāya karmāṇi, resigning the work unto brahman. But that is only the first step. That one can do even without Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Of course, there has to be some interest in, in pleasing God, some piety there to give it to God. But we can do it without much attention. So, that is only a very superficial—it is important, we should, we should give whatever we can to serve the Lord. But we should also come to the sense that our very action is—we resign the very action to God. And there is—there are a few things we have to keep in mind when doing this kind of action. First of all, as I said, nothing is ours. Nothing is ours, and therefore we just... ...do our duty without any—we don't need any, to get anything from it. The duty itself is our right. We have right to perform the duty only. And in this way our mind becomes free from, from mental load, or like we just understand that, "Okay, I have to do this work," so I go, and I do my work, and I don't need to worry so much about what will I win from this, what will I lose from it. We just do it. And that's what Kṛṣṇa is saying, that you just do your work for that, for the sake of work itself. And then we understand also that God is the one who is behind action itself. That is also spoken about in Bhagavad-gītā, that Kṛṣṇa is the main agent behind all actions. As I said, he is the antaryāmī, he is the one situated within, as the inner controller. So, all our actions are ultimately performed by God. In that sense, we are not the doer. Kṛṣṇa is saying that one who thinks he himself is the doer of activities, he is deluded, he is deluded by false ego. He thinks, "I am doing so many things. I am doing this and that."
But, ultimately, we are just sitting in the body and we are just observing all of this. And with this understanding, we can work always remembering that Kṛṣṇa is behind our very work, that we do, and he is behind everything. So, in this way, we can remember God in our daily activities. And Kṛṣṇa also says that when we do this work in such a way, not desiring the fruits of action, and that we give up the agenthood, so to speak, of action, then knowledge arises, jñāna comes. When we do action for our own purpose or our own selfish desires, then we are covered by ignorance. When we do the same action but without desire, then knowledge arises within the heart. Knowledge of God, and through this knowledge we will gradually attain God. It is said in the Upanisads that... ...only by knowing Brahman can one be freed from this world. So, it means that only by knowledge. And bhakti, then, or bhakti is a form of jñāna also. That is also explained by Baladeva Vidyabhusana, he explained that bhakti is a form of knowledge. It's, in that sense, not different from knowledge of God. So, when our knowledge of God increases, then our devotion increases unto him also, and in this way... ...we gradually become more and more absorbed in God, and less absorbed in this material world, and, yeah. So, knowledge is important. When we do action in this world, we have to have knowledge also. We have to study Bhagavad-gītā. Bhagavad-gītā is very important because Kṛṣṇa gives this very understanding of action. And he is saying that action is actually very difficult to understand, how it works, and he gives the—this secret knowledge in this Bhagavad-gītā. So, we have to dedicate ourselves to some measure of study of the Bhagavad-gītā to understand. So, then, in that way, living in the world but not of the world. We have that saying also in the Bible, in the Christian Bible, I mean, the New Testament. There is the saying that, "They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world." And then in the, also, Muhammad, if we look at the Islam, there is a similar saying, that "Be in this world as if you are a stranger or a wayfarer."
Meaning we—we just exist in this world—we are like travelers. It's actually a very short time we are, we have in this body. We are just visiting for a short time. So, "be in this world as if you are a stranger and, or a wayfarer." And the same statement can be found in Srimad-Bhagavatam also, where it is said that just as, like logs on the river, they float, and then sometimes they come together, and then sometimes they separate. So, this is the way of material relationships, that sometimes they come together and sometimes they go apart. So, in this—we should have this mentality, that we are only here for a short time, and we should not become so entangled in it, so, so absorbed in it, that we forget where we belong. In the third chapter, Kṛṣṇa is saying:
mayi sarvāṇi karmāṇi sannyasyādhyātma-cetasā
nirāśīr nirmamo bhūtvā yudhyasva vigata-jvaraḥ
He said that, "Therefore, O Arjuna, surrendering all your works unto Me, with full knowledge of Me, without desires for profit, with no claims to proprietorship, and free from lethargy, fight." So, he mentions a few things here. mayi sarvāṇi karmāṇi sannyasya—giving up the works unto Me. adhyātma-cetasā—here Prabhupāda translates it as full knowledge of Him. But in what way, full knowledge of Him? It means to know that He is the, as I said, the inner controller, adhyātma-cetasā, with the understanding that God is the adhyātma of everything. He is the inner soul of everything. nirāśīḥ—not desiring any profit, nirmamaḥ—giving up ownership, giving up any sense of ownership, yudhyasva—you should fight in that way. So, if you, if you think—say you, you see a plate of prasādam standing on the, on the table. And you think, "That, that looks nice. I would like to have some." But then you hear, "This belongs to some Maharaj, maybe Sripad Kṛṣṇa Maharaj. This is the—this is his plate, and he will come and take this prasād." Then immediately you don't desire that plate anymore. You give up the ownership of that plate, and you give up the desires for enjoying that plate, because it's not yours, it's not yours to enjoy. In a similar way, if you think of the whole world, everything in this world belonging to God only, and we should not desire it for ourselves. In Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa says that one who takes something without offering it back to Kṛṣṇa, he is a thief. It belongs to God, and we just take it for our own sense pleasure. That is thievery. There has to be this sense of we should first offer it to God, and understand that it belongs to God. īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam—everything is pervaded and owned by the Supreme Lord. So, to conclude, to conclude, we have to have the understanding, first we should not think we will stay here very long. We, we have some occupation, some duty to perform, which is important, and we should put our full attention to it. But behind the scenes we should think, remember God in all these actions, in all these activities, and give up, give up the doership, give up the ownership, and give up the desire for it. So, we should become just like dead robots, basically. That's, that's what Kṛṣṇa is saying. We should be like robots, or, and also if we are not the doer, we, we are nothing. We are not even the doers of our activities. But the jīva also has its part. If we think, "Okay, we are not the doer of activities, so why are we even responsible for them? If we do some bad activity, why should bad results come? If we do something good, why should good results come? If we are not the doer of them." God is the doer of activity, so we, we have no responsibility for it. So, then, it is explained in the Vedānta-sūtras that the jīva is only a doer in a limited sense, that he is having some—what's the word? He is endeavoring. He has this endeavor and some desire to go in a certain direction. And when we have this, a certain endeavor, then God will give everything else. He will give the mental capacity, the intellectual capacity, the sensory capacity, and he will give the functioning of our bodies and senses and go towards that goal. The jīva is only the one who is sitting there and deciding, deciding where to go, basically. And that's what Prabhupāda means by that the jīva has a limited free will. Limited free will. And this is the one we can misuse, or we can use it properly. So, I will conclude there. If anyone has any question or comment, we can take that.
Q: First of all, thank you so much, Prabhuji, for the yajña, explaining us what we are doing. It was a blessing to have you here, and also followed by your wonderful lecture. So, coming to my question: in the morning during the yajña, you mentioned that our deepest or our greatest enemies, like greed, what's it, lust and what else?
A: Lust, anger, and greed.
Q: Lust, anger, and greed, everything is like within us. So, yes, that is our greatest enemy. And in this lecture, you mentioned that Kṛṣṇa gives us our thought process. Our thought process. So, like those two things, like how should we read this? Is Kṛṣṇa giving us those bad things for us to fight?
A: Yeah, so it's, it's similar to what I said, but yeah. God is the one who gives the functioning, and He is, He is the one who is basically doing it. But the jīva is sitting there deciding where to go, as I said. jīva is not just non-existent, that it's only God there. jīva is also there. But what the jīva has to understand is that I'm not doing anything by my own, everything is dependent on God only. So, our thought process, behind that is God. But the jīva can choose in which direction to go. So, the jīva can choose to, to nourish, to nourish these bad—lust, anger and greed—or he can choose to, to give them up gradually, and instead nourish the good qualities. So, so there is, of course, the jīva there also, and he has his say also of where to go. But the point I wanted to make was that when we understand that God lies behind everything, including our internal activities, then we can come closer to God in, in mundane activities, like if we remember that, that we are not even thinking by our own endeavor only. There is the jīva there also, as explained in the 18th chapter. Kṛṣṇa says that there are five factors of action. And there is—I don't remember all of them, the jīva is included there, as the, yeah. So, does that answer your question? Or yeah.
Q: Actually, I was thinking we are responsible for our thoughts. We have to control them in the right direction.
A: Yeah, yeah. We, we choose where to go. So, we, we can choose. Of course, we are also under the influence of material nature and the guṇas. So, if we are very much afflicted by tamas, then our thoughts will naturally go into tamasic thoughts. Or if we are under rajas, our thoughts will go into rajasic thoughts. That's like autopilot. If you go on autopilot, then you will just follow the guṇas. But if you try, if you endeavor, you can go against this and develop sattva, sattva-guṇa, by following the guidelines that Kṛṣṇa gives in the Bhagavad-gītā, how to live in a sattvic way, and gradually we will become more and more sattvic, and in this way, when we are in sattva, then it will become more autopilot to, to think good thoughts, and yeah. But, absolutely, the jīva also has to endeavor, that, that must be the, yeah.
Q: This is a bit of speculative question. So, for example, I might start to think that if my relationships with certain people, with certain family members lead to keep myself entangled to the world, why should I keep the same family, same job, same relationship, why can't I change them and get better? That could be that kind of thinking.
A: You mean better for the spiritual life or like...
Q: In general.
A: Yeah, if I have a bad relationship, I can give it up and start again fresh, yeah. So, then we come to the point of your duty, of your responsibility. Because it's not—it's actually, it is our responsibility to stick to one partner. That is part of our karma in this sense. And sinful reactions, they do not only come by, by doing what is wrong. They also come by giving up what is right, or what we should do, like giving up our duty. So, for example, Arjuna... ...he had a very difficult time on the battlefield, fighting against his relatives. He thought it, it might be better to just leave it, and live in the forest. It will be better for me, it will be better for them, it will be good for my spiritual life also, I can just focus on meditation, live on alms in this way. He thought that would be better. But it actually, it leads to bad reactions if we give up our responsibility. Having been married to one person, we have vowed to God, if we did a religious marriage. Marriage is actually a religious institution, and it should be for that purpose. Of course, nowadays you can get married in just the rådhuset or something, you can go somewhere, you just write a paper, and you are married according to Swedish law. But not according to God's law. So, anyway, the point is, when you have been married in a religious way, you are, you are vowing to stick with this person throughout life. And then to give it up would be, brings sinful reactions. We cannot avoid it. So, it would, it might be easier for the time being, easier for the time being, but... ...in the long run, these reactions will come to us. And the difficulty, we cannot escape our difficulties. The difficulties will come somehow or other to us. Even if we give up, "Okay, I move—I don't like to live here in Skåne, because so many difficulties here, I just move to Stockholm, maybe I will be happier there." But somehow or other, our karmic reactions will come to us, no matter what. Maybe in different forms. But we have to deal with it somehow. So, it's, it's better to stick together, and, yeah, live together, and understand that this is my duty, do my best to live together with this person. And if it absolutely doesn't go, like, say you are fighting every day, constantly, then you should still not be divorced, you should maybe, you can live separately. You can have two apartments, and live separately. But you should not divorce and get married again, yeah.
Q: In morning during the yajña, you mentioned that the name of Agni and Indra and everything is also the name of God, Vishnu. How do we understand that? Because they are different personalities.
A: Yes, there is also that, yeah. So, so as I said:
devānāṁ nāmadhā eka eva
eka eva. There is one only, eka means one, there is one only who gave away the names to the devas. So, the devas exist, they are there, they are posts. Like... ...sometimes Indra will give up his post and someone else will take that post. So, these names, these names of the devas were given by God, because it's His, His names. So, we have to understand that the Vedas can be interpreted on many levels. They are not like ordinary books, where you just read a sentence, and it just says one thing. But it is stated in the Nirukta, and Madhvacharya also mentions, that there are many levels of meanings. The Veda can be interpreted in a yājñika, yājñika manner, that it refers to a yajña, like a physical yajña with fire and all the ingredients and all of that. But the same statement can also be interpreted to mean an inner yajña, that it's a kind of meditation. That's also stated in the Bhagavad-gītā in the fourth chapter. He speaks of different forms of yajñas, and there is the offering of the sense objects into the fire of the controlled mind, there is the offering of the prāṇa into, and so on. These are kind of meditative yajñas. So, the Vedas can also be interpreted in that way, like inner yajña. It can also be interpreted... ...to glorify the gods, the devas, Indra, Agni, and so on. And on the highest level, it can also be interpreted to be glorifying God only, Visnu, Narayana, Krsna only. So, for example, this name Agni, it can be broken down in many ways. Madhvacharya, he wrote a commentary on Rig Veda, there he goes through all of these different interpretations. And Agni, agri-ṇī is one meaning. One should be, yeah, one who should be, one who should be glorified first is called Agni. That's one meaning of the word Agni. So, that's why Agni is the first word of the Rig Veda, agnim īḷe purohitam. Agni is glorified first because that's the meaning of Agni. Agni means the one who should be glorified first. Agni can also mean the one who is leading, yeah, like acting from within, basically what I was speaking about in this lecture. In this way, Indra can also be broken down etymologically to glorify some guṇa of Bhagavan. So, we have to keep these two at the same time in our understanding, that these are words denoting devas, but they are also or primarily denoting God, the Supreme Lord. And that's also when we, when we offer offerings in the yajña, we offer to Indra, to Agni, to Soma. So, one understanding is that we are offering to the deva. But as Vaisnavas, we understand we are offering it to the inner controller of this deva, that he is present in these devas, and we, through this mantra, oṁ agnaye svāhā, we offer unto the Lord who is situated as the antaryāmī within Agni-deva. So, there are many different ways of seeing it, but in all cases, the ultimate meaning is glorification of God. And that's, that's what is the meaning of:
vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ
And in other places:
sarve vedā yat padam āmananti
All Vedas are speaking about this one God. I spoke about this in Lund, I gave a lecture in, no, in Malmö, I gave a lecture on this. And... ...because it's a little confusing if you open up the Vedas. This is supposed to be the essence of the Vedas, Bhagavad-gītā. Srimad-Bhagavatam is the essence of the Vedas. But then if we open up the Vedas, it's speaking about so many different things, like glorifying Indra... ...Vayu. So, we might be confused, how is it that Kṛṣṇa is glorified here? So, that's what Madhvacharya gives in his commentary on Rig Veda. He gives the way of interpretation. Okay. Do we have any other comment or question? Otherwise, we continue the program. Okay. Thank you very much. And we would like to invite you to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa maha-mantra together. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare
hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare
Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda kī jaya! Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā kī jaya!