Zitat von Vedanta am 10. Dezember 2016, 15:42 Uhr

Class on Bhagavad Gita in Pierre Chatel, France
His Holiness Shri Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji Maharaja

shri-bhagavan uvaca
imam vivasvate yoga proktavan aham avyayam
vivasvan manave praha manur ikshvakave 'bravit

Shri Bhagavan said:
I taught this imperishable yoga to Vivasvan, the sun god, Vivasvan spoke it to Manu, and Manu conveyed it to Ikshvaku.

- BG 4.1

In the 4^th chapter, Arjuna has not asked any question. And still Krishna continues to speak. He said that I have spoken this knowledge [of Bhagavad Gita] long ago to the sun god. And then from the sun god the knowledge came down to the kings, and today I am revealing this knowledge to you because you are My friend. Then Arjuna was very much intrigued: 

"Krishna is of the same age as me, we are born together around the same time – how is it that He spoke it to the sun god who is so old?"

Arjuna therefore asked Krishna: 

"Do You want to fool me or is it the truth?"

Krishna said: "No, I am not telling lies because Me and you, both of us have taken many births – you have forgotten, but I remember."

Then Krishna starts speaking about Himself and His births. The difference between God and ordinary human beings is that we forget and God does not forget. If I asked you "what did you eat two days ago during breakfast?" then it may not be possible for you to remember that. And we remember nothing from our past life. But Krishna says that He remembers everything. And He is not saying for the sake of saying, but this is a fact. Even we could remember [everything] because everything we have experienced is stored inside us in the chitta. The only thing is that at present we have no means to access that knowledge which is stored. As far as Krishna is concerned everything is available to Him. We are influenced by ignorance or, to be more philosophical, we are influenced by maya. And Krishna is the master of maya. Therefore, He is not in ignorance, He is in perfect knowledge, He knows.

Then He starts speaking about His birth.

ajo 'pi sann avyayatma  bhutanam ishvaro 'pi san
prakritim svam adhishthaya sambhavamy atma-mayaya

Although I am birthless and my transcendental body is immutable and although I am the independent regulator of all beings, I still appear [in this world], while remaining situated in My own essential form and nature, through My intrinsic power (atma-maya).

- BG 4.6 

He says that "I am unborn". That is the first thing He says. He says that He is unborn. And we as atma, as soul, as spiritual being – we are also unborn, because the soul was never created, the soul is eternal. It is only the body which takes birth. And we are not the body. Therefore, we are also unborn. That is the similarity we have with God. But He says that He is the master of all living beings bhutanam ishvaro ‘pi san. That is the difference between us and Him. We are unborn, He is unborn. We are living beings, He is also a living being.

But He is the master, He is the controller and we are the controlled. He says prakritim svam adhishthaya sambhavamy atma-mayaya: "I come, I take birth" – God also takes birth, He was born in Mathura. But He was born by His own will. When we take birth, we don‘t have a choice. When you are born, it is not that you choose "I want to be born in France". Or you want to be a girl or a boy. Or you want to have black hair or blond hair. Did you make a choice like that? - No, you cannot choose. Because you don‘t have that power to choose. You were born according to the result of your previous karma. But God takes birth not as a result of His karma but by His own will. This is what He is saying in verse number 6, that "I come by my own will". He has His own desire and when He desires that He wants to come in this world then He appears. That does not mean that He was not existing before that. But He decides. Therefore, His birth is different from our birth. This He will speak later on. So in verse number 7 He says what makes Him come here. And this is one of the very popular and very famous verses in India:

yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bharata
abhyutthanam adharmasya tadatmanam srijamy aham

O Bharata, whenever there is decline of righteousness (dharma) and unrighteousness prevails, I manifest Myself.

BG 4.7

He says whenever dharma is reduced or dharma becomes weak. Everybody knows what is dharma? What is dharma? … yes, it is law, righteousness, morality, religion … He says when this reduces and adharma – means chaos, immorality, evil or sin – increases or sinful people that do not follow religion increase, He says "then I manifest Myself". Tadatmanam srijamy aham, "then I appear", "I become available in this world". Just like you have highways. And the traffic is flowing there. Suppose, nobody is breaking the traffic rules, and the traffic is flowing very nicely. Then there is no need for the police to come on the highway, right? Why is police on the highway? Because there are people who break rules and therefore they put cameras to check your speed. They are there only to regulate people. They are there to make sure that everybody is following the rules. Which means, everybody is following the dharma of the highway. But if there is too much chaos, too many accidents, then you will see lots of police. Whenever there is an accident, immediately you see the police comes there. Whenever something wrong happens or there is a traffic jam then there is police which appears there. So they are coming to maintain order and to punish those people who are not following the order.

Similarly, this universe is not running just like that. It is following certain principles, some order. If that order is not there, then the universe will not function. When it becomes too much disorderly then God may come or He may send some of His own peoples, some saints or sadhus to maintain the order. Because He wants that everything runs properly. Just like we have our own body. If something wrong happens with our body then we try to rectify. If we fall sick then we go to a doctor and take medicine. Sickness means something is disorderly, something has gone out of balance in our system. We don‘t visit a doctor unless something is wrong with our body. We take care of our body if something goes out of order. So this universe is the body of God. This is called cosmic body of the cosmic person. If something goes disorderly, then He takes care of it. This is what He is saying yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bharata – whenever there is a diminuition in dharma, then I descend. Because, who is creating disturbance to dharma? Human beings, right? Human beings are very peculiar people. Animals are not creating adharma. Birds, beasts, bees, plants … they don‘t create adharma, they are following their nature. They don‘t cause any disturbance. But human beings they are the biggest disturbance to the universe. And they have so much energy to create disturbance that now they are going to other planets. They are saying we have disturbed enough here, now we will go up and disturb there also. So they are always looking for newer and newer places so that they can go and dump their garbage there. And create disturbance. They work very hard for this. Spending a lot of money and time and all they do is create disturbance. So they have done enough on this planet, this planet is nicely disturbed. So now let‘s go to Jupiter and disturb there. This is the human nature.

Therefore, once in a while God comes. Yet sometimes, there is no need for Him to come. He can also send a tsunami or an earth quake and shake people. But He also comes because when He comes He can speak and give instructions. Because tsunami or earth quake they are not giving any spiritual lectures. Therefore, God comes or He sends His messengers, His son or saints to give education to human beings. Education is very necessary for human beings. And our Alain here is always doing seminars on education. Of course, this education does not mean the education at college or university, but education how to follow dharma. How to keep our mind in balance. There is no education given at university or in the schools how to keep our mind balanced. And if we are not taught how to keep the mind in balance, then all other education will only create disturbance. Because we don‘t have the basic knowledge how to live in the society. Just like if you have to go to some place, you have a destination to reach, but you take a wrong highway. After you have taken a wrong highway you may drive very nicely. And you may be an expert driver. But you will never reach your destination. So in our human society, in our society at present, there is no program to train human beings as human beings. There are a lot of programs to train them as non-human beings.

It is said that human beings are made in the image of God. So what is the meaning that they are made in the image of God? The meaning is not that you just have a form like God – but you should behave godly. It means that human beings are made in such a way that they have the capacity to be godly. That is meaning of being in the image of God. But that will happen only if there is education which is given by God Himself. If we do not follow God‘s education, then we are not in the image of God. Then we are in the image of satan. And what satan does, everybody knows. Then God has to come Himself and rectify the situation. This is the time or reason for which He comes. Then in the next verse number 8, He makes it more clear:

paritranaya sadhunam vinashaya ca dushkritam
dharma-samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge

I manifest in every yuga for the protection of the virtuous, the eradication of the unvirtuous and the establishment of dharma.

- BG 4.8

He says that I come in every yuga. "And why do I come?" He says "to establish dharma", which means to establish the order in society. And paritranaya sadhunam – those who are following the order/dharma, I give protection to them. And those who are not following dharma, I destroy them.

One may think that God is very unbiased, He is equal to everybody, but from here it looks like He is not. Usually we think that God is equal to all. He says that He protects the sadhus and He destroys those who are not sadhu. So that means He is not equal. People have this understanding that we should not discriminate. Many times I hear this statement "don‘t judge!". You have heard this? "Don‘t judge". So if you don‘t judge, how do you know who is a sadhu and who is not a sadhu? How will you know? God says He comes to protect those who are following dharma and He comes to destroy those who are not following dharma. That means He is making a judgement. So we also have to do that. Not that we are God. And not that we can destroy those who are not following dharma. But we have to make judgement so that we can associate with those people who are following dharma and avoid the association of those people who don‘t follow dharma. But it is not in our power or capacity to destroy or kill or harm anybody.

Just as the state government, it punishes those who are doing crime. And it may reward those who are doing welfare. Although, if the state government does not understand what is welfare they may even trouble [virtuous] people like that. [laughter in the audience]. Yes, it‘s a fact. I am living in Vrindavan and there is a law there, if you have electric connection in a personal way, you have to pay 4 Rupees per unit. And if you have an ashram, then you pay 6 Rupees per unit. This is the punishment for doing good [laughter in the audience]. This is because their concept of good and bad is different. They consider that these people are just a burden on the society and therefore they [the government] are creating some trouble for them. That is because of misunderstanding. God also has His own concept. And that is of course different than the concept of the state government. The state government may try to trouble us, but God helps. Because this is the promise He is giving here [Babaji laughs], right? We have to believe in His words! Of course, by this we should not misunderstand that the sadhus or svamis or saintly people don‘t get troubles. Sometimes we areactually seeing that they are having more troubles than others. One may ask the question:

"How is it that God says He protects, but He is not protecting?"

Of course, the simple answer could be that He protects when He comes, not other times [loud laughter in the audience], because He says "when I come, then I protect the sadhus" [Babaji laughs]. When Krishna was physically present, He protected sadhus, and He killed many demoniac people.

But the real meaning of this protection is different. He protects even when He is not physically present. Because what He protects is our consciousness, which is more important than just protecting physically. That means if we have a devotional consciousness, a spiritual consciousness, then He protects it. And not only He protects but He will create a situation for us so that we advance spiritually. Sometimes we may have problems externally, and we may even think "why this is happening to me?" But actually, if we have faith in God, we should know that this is happening so that I can advance spiritually. So don‘t become upset with God if some problems come. You should know that God is very merciful. But His idea of mercy is different than our idea. That is the only problem. Sometimes He puts you in a very difficult situation and that is His mercy. There is a saying that sometimes He gives you sweet chutney and sometimes He gives you hot sauce. You may like the sweet chutney and you may not like the hot sauce, but both are the mercy of God [laughter among the audience]. So when you are facing some trouble, some problematic situation in your life, if you can think that also as the grace of God, then you will make quick spiritual advancement. This is a fact. We have to see the grace of God coming in different ways. Because we should know that God is not our enemy. He is also not the enemy of those who He destroys. One may ask the question:

"If God is compassionate, why is He destroying those who are criminal?"

By destroying them, He is purifying them. Just like if we get some boil on our body, or some abnormal growth on our skin, then a doctor performs an operation on it. So the doctor is actually destroying it. It may be painful for us at that time, but this is just to keep our body healthy.

Question: But He is only destroying their body?

Answer: No, He is also changing their consciousness. By destroying their body He makes sure that they don‘t continue doing the wrong act. Otherwise, they have to suffer the reaction of their wrong actions. So He forcibly stops them from doing wrong. And simultaneously, He purifies their mind. This is what He does. This is the meaning of destroying. He is not only destroying their body but also their wrong consciousness.

It is described in shastra that whomever Krishna killed, they all became liberated. Or they became devotees. This means He made them free from their bad karma and put them on the spiritual platform. So this is His grace on them.

Whether one comes in contact with God by doing devotion or by doing some henious crime, it is all beneficial in both cases. When people hear this, many times the question is raised:

"Then should I become a demon? Then God will come and I will get His grace."

That is not a proper thinking. Because first of all, it is not necessary that He will come. And second thing is that if He comes and you are not conscious of Him ... – because the real point is to be aware of God, whether positively or negatively – … because purification ultimately has to happen on the level of consciousness. One has to become absorbed in God either through love or through hatred. So it is not just that you become sinful or criminal and you don‘t have thought of God in a negative sense. If one does that that is not going to purify. Then He will just destroy you and you will have to suffer the reaction of your karma. Moreover, why one has to take the trouble of becoming sinful and not become pious? If the destination is to be a pure person, a person with pure consciousness, then why take the wrong route?

If you have to take medicine, then take medicine with good consciousness instead of taking it with hatred and anger. Because the goal is to get your health back. God is like medicine. If it goes inside us it will have its effect. But the effect is magnified if we take the medicine with faith and proper consciousness. Therefore, God is not recommending that we should approach Him with hatred or anger or envy.

That is His work when He comes here. First He gave the reason why He comes here and then He explained what He does. So if you want to have the grace of God, you should also assist him in His work. He says that He protects the sadhus and He establishes dharma, dharma-samsthapanartaya. Because His real purpose is to establish dharma, to establish order in society. So if we do that, then we will get blessings from Him. That should be our effort. At least we should follow dharma ourselves. That itself will bring us blessings of God. And if we can inspire others, help others to follow dharma then that is very great.