Video Information: 16.02.2020, Month of Awakening, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand
Context:
~ We receive Krishna in a way that we look for.
~ What are the various images or forms of Krishna?
~ What is Krishna really?
~ What is the meaning of Avatar?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
~ We receive Krishna in a way that we look for.
~ What are the various images or forms of Krishna?
~ What is Krishna really?
~ What is the meaning of Avatar?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Pranam Acharya ji, earlier during the discussion you were telling us that we receive Krishna
00:16 in a way that we look for and on one hand we are reading Srimad Bhagavad Gita today
00:24 and in a more direct way we are coming close to him.
00:30 On the other hand we have heard few stories in Bhagavad Purana about Krishna and his way
00:40 of life.
00:41 When we read that he was a charmer, he used to dance around with women of his village,
00:56 he used to be a prankster with his friends, he used to be a notorious thief during his
01:08 childhood and he was a friend of friend to Krishna and even to Arjun.
01:16 So what is Krishna then like?
01:25 What's the contradiction that you are seeing?
01:29 Where's the problem?
01:32 We said the avatar could be anywhere in any shape at any time.
01:42 Wherever the avatar would be in whatever shape, he would have a personality and where there
01:48 is a personality, where there is a person, there are stories that person would be doing
01:53 something right?
01:54 That person would have a name, a gender.
01:59 Bhagavad Purana has such stories.
02:05 On the other hand like we study, we get to know that we cannot create an image of him,
02:16 creating any image of him would be falsity or it would be like limiting.
02:22 You should not limit yourself to one particular image of him.
02:30 That's where the problem lies.
02:33 Not that you cannot have an image of him but do not be too obsessed with one particular
02:38 image else the danger is that you will miss all the other images.
02:47 If you are obsessed with the lover boy image of Krishna, then you will miss Krishna when
02:57 he does not come as a charming lover and he will not always come as a charming lover.
03:04 If you are obsessed with Krishna, the male, then you will miss Krishna when he comes as
03:14 a woman because in your imagination, Krishna is the one wearing the peacock feather with
03:26 the flute at his lips, appearing in attire that belonged to those ages, enjoying milk
03:47 and butter, speaking Sanskrit.
03:59 That's the image that you will so intensely stick to that you will miss Krishna in flesh
04:08 and blood even if he walks past you.
04:10 Why?
04:12 Because this time he is not carrying the flute, because this time he is not speaking
04:18 in Sanskrit.
04:23 So you will totally miss him.
04:28 Not that Krishna cannot have an image but you should be open to all images of Krishna.
04:41 If you have to look at Krishna as Sagun, Sakar, then you have to be receptive to all
04:49 images and if you look at him as Nirgun, Nirakar, then you very well know that there can be
04:55 no image.
04:59 Problem starts when it's one image that becomes very dear to you, one particular image,
05:08 then there can be a problem.
05:11 In this case, then idol worship or reading about those things, so that's why there are
05:19 so many idols so that you don't stick to one particular one.
05:24 But then this can become a bondage in itself and this can.
05:30 So if you have it in you, then simply go to the Nirgun, then there are no images or deities.
05:45 Image worship comes from a very practical realization which is that most people do need
05:52 images even if they claim that they worship only the formless, still somewhere in their
06:00 mind they are dreaming up a form.
06:04 Even word is a form, even name is a form.
06:08 Even if you say that the absolute truth is formless, even in calling the absolute truth
06:15 as formless, you have accorded a form.
06:21 So India has been wise enough in realizing that most people do need images and forms.
06:32 So from there comes the method of idol worship, image worship, deity worship.
06:43 It's a practical method.
06:50 So like when one is going for a darshan or he is seeing the idol, then basically he should
07:06 not have any fantasies or image.
07:10 Before you go to look at an image, the image should have benefited you, otherwise why will
07:18 you go to look at it?
07:19 It is almost like this.
07:21 You read the Gita with me here, right?
07:25 And intensely let's say you read the Gita and then you go back to your native place,
07:31 you get busy with your usual schedule and you start forgetting the Gita and then when
07:44 you look at the face of Krishna again, then the Gita comes back to you.
07:52 That is darshan.
07:55 If you have no relationship with Krishna at all and you just look at a Krishna idol, that
08:01 will not benefit you.
08:03 Darshan is a technique.
08:06 It helps only when some previous groundwork has been done.
08:11 Are you getting it?
08:15 For you to benefit from Krishna darshan, darshan of the Krishna statue, first of all you should
08:25 have had a relationship with Krishna.
08:28 Now you have had a relationship, you already are full of respect for Krishna, you know
08:37 the Gita, but you are ignoring it in your daily run of life and then suddenly you find
08:52 yourself face to face with a Krishna statue.
08:58 That is the moment you are strongly reminded of something.
09:01 Reminded of what?
09:04 The Gita.
09:05 Now the statue, now the darshan is a great method.
09:20 But if you have not read the Gita at all, then what will the darshan do to you?
09:26 Nothing.
09:27 If you have had no prior relationship with Krishna at all, then darshan makes no sense.
09:34 Darshan is a good way to immediately bring back all that which has
09:53 gotten a little hidden under the dust of time.
10:01 It's a very efficient way.
10:05 Either you could re-read the entire Gita or you could just look at the Krishna statue.
10:17 So it's a fantastic method.
10:21 But only for Gita lovers.
10:26 So if you have a lot of virtues instilled in you, only then it makes sense to go for
10:37 let's say Sadhu darshan every morning.
10:43 The moment you look at that person, that reminds you of everything that comes from that person.
10:53 Have you not seen how memory operates?
11:00 Let's say there is a hotel room in which you stayed one year back.
11:06 One year back, many of us, most of us might have stayed in some hotel room.
11:12 How much do you remember today of that hotel room?
11:15 How much do you remember?
11:16 Very little.
11:17 But if I take you back to that hotel room, suddenly you will find that you remember a
11:23 lot.
11:25 All the small events and memories will come back to life.
11:29 Does that happen or not?
11:30 You will suddenly remember, oh, you know, that particular drawer was a little fractured.
11:38 I remember now.
11:39 But today if I ask you, you will not remember much.
11:44 This is the science behind darshan.
11:49 When you look at a face, all that is associated with that face comes back to life.
12:01 And you start saying yes, yes, yes.
12:02 Now I remember, yes, you know, last time I came here, that particular waiter was pretty
12:07 good.
12:08 Does he still work here?
12:09 Does he still work here?
12:12 Had you not returned to that same hotel today, you would have never remembered that waiter.
12:19 That waiter would have totally gone out of your conscious memory.
12:24 But now that the darshan has happened, that old thing has been rekindled.
12:34 So that's what.
12:36 Look at the idol every day, then just looking at that face will remind you all the history
12:41 that you have had with that face.
12:42 And that history is quite beneficial to you.
12:45 So it makes sense to look at that face in the morning.
12:53 So in India we have this phrase, Pratah Smarniye.
13:00 The one who has benefited you the most, you make it a routine to think of him the first
13:07 thing when you wake up in the morning.
13:13 When somebody has greatly benefited you or when somebody is greatly respectable to you,
13:23 then you call him Pratah Smarniye.
13:28 In the morning, the first thing I do is remember you.
13:33 Because the moment I remember you, by association I remember everything that I got from you.
13:41 And there is a lot of good stuff that I got from you.
13:43 It will be of help to me.
13:45 I cannot remember all the little things I got from you, one by one, piece by piece.
13:51 So instead I'll remember just one thing.
13:53 What?
13:54 Your face.
13:55 In remembering this one thing, I automatically get to remember the thousand things that I
14:01 got from this face.
14:02 That is called Darshan.
14:08 But for Darshan to succeed, I again caution you, first of all you should have had a relationship
14:14 with that face.
14:16 If there is no relationship at all, what is the point in ogling at any face?
14:24 A face is just a face.
14:25 It's a geometry.
14:26 It's a geometry.
14:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]