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Intro. to Bhagavad-gita Catur-sloki

[ Article crossposted from soc.culture.indian,alt.religion.vaisnava,soc.culture.tamil,soc.culture.malaysia,soc.culture.sri-lanka ]
[ Author was Nathan Parker ]
[ Posted on 21 Feb 1995 07:17:39 -0800 ]

Introduction to Bhagavad-gita Catuh-sloki, a lecture given by Sriman
Atmatattva Das Adhikari, Mayapur (West Bengal), Gaura purnima 1994

	So this is a course on the four essential verses, called
"Catuh-sloki" in Sanskrit. Bhagavatam has a catuh-sloki, like that we have
also a Bhagavad-gita catuh-sloki. You can not say these are the most
important verses, rather these are the seed verses. L ike the whole
Bhagavad-gita, if you consider Bhagavad-gita as a tree, these four verses
are the seed. In the Bhagavatam, Brahma was given, the Lord spoke to
Brahma four verses, and those four verses, through Brahma comes to Vyasa,
Narada, and then Vyasa m akes it into a Srimad-Bhagavatam literature. So
this is why these verses are known as "seed verses". Like a tree is grown
from the seed, these books are grown from this seed. So Bhagavad-gita seed
verses, they appear in the Tenth Chapter of Bhagavad-gita. They are 8, 9,
10 and 11, starting from aham sarvasya prabhavo. 

	"Out of many standard and authoritive revealed sriptures, the
Bhagavad-gita is the best. The Gita-mahatmya says that one should read
Bhagavad-gita very scrutinizingly with the help of a person who is a
devotee of Sri Krsna and try to understand it without...Thus
Bhagavad-gita..." 

	So there are standard and authoritative revealed scriptures.
Scriptures in the Vedic civilization, scriptures are always revealed
scriptures.That means that there is a drasta, means one who sees, and he
sees certain aspects of matter, spirit and control ler. Because of his
austerity and sense control, a rsi or a drasta, by chanting some mantras
which are given to him. These mantras are the prayer to a particular
expansion of Krsna, particular expansion of God. Say one drasta has a
Nrsmha mantra, so he si ts down and chants this Nrsmha mantra. And when he
becomes very perfect in that chanting then that Deity of that mantra
becomes present to him. He reveals a whole lot of information about that
particular Deity and the connection with him and the world. So like this,
these rsis are known as drastas, and they see. Because they see, they are
called "seers". In Bhagavad-gita Krsna uses the word "seers" (Bg. 2.16): 

nasato vidyate bhavo
na bhavo vidyate satah
ubhayor api dristo 'ntas
tv anayos tattva-darsibhih

	So this tattva-darsi means one who sees. Also in that verse about
spiritual master, Krsna says: "He can reveal the truth because he has seen
the truth". So this seen, seer is a very important thing. In that way we
get scriptures. These are known as revea led scriptures. So they actually
see. Apart from that Veda is revealed because it is the breath of the
Lord. Whenever Prabhupada says it's the Lord's breath, he quotes this
verse: asya mahato bhutasya nisvasitam. Nisvasitam, svasa means breath.
Nisvasita means coming out of breath. So Veda, or sruti, is the breath of
the Lord. So Veda is like, you have sristi, you have the creation and you
have that sound there simultaniously. When the world is created that sound
is there. Like in the Bible there is some thing that Prabhupada quotes.
"In the beginning there was word, and the word was God." Revealed
scripture, the scripture is always revealed. Scripture is not pauruseya.
Scripture is not written or authored by anybody, that some intelligent man
saw the wor ld and its problems and he thought,"If we make these rules
then the world will be better", so he wrote them down. Just like in the
Christian religion also, Moses, he got these ten commandments, Prabhupada
always used to say about that, "He got it from God , It was revealed
scripture". It's not that he just thought,"Well, how to or what do I
write. Let me think. "Thou shalt not kill." He didn't write like that. So
it's revealed scripture. Scriptures are always revealed. Even though we
say revealed scripture , every scripture is revealed, only. When the world
is created, sound is there, because this is the instruction booklet, how
the world should function, how people should funtion in the world. 

	Then we are talking about "authoritative" revealed scriptures.
That's because there are many scriptures that are claimed as revealed.
Especially in the new age. Somebody sits at a typewriter and types some
5000 pages of information, in a language that he doesn't know, and then it
comes out as a thick book. They call, "This is revelation." So this
revelation is unauthorized revelation, because you don't know who sent it.
So the main claim is, we don't know where it is coming from. 

	But the revealed scriptures are authoritative, because even though
they have no authors, they are authoritative, because it is coming by
revelation through the seers. So Veda is there, in the Vedas the mantras
are there. In the Vedic civilization the sys tem was, the guru will give a
mantra to the disciple, and the disciple will sit down and just chant that
mantra and he has to get mantra-siddhi, perfection in chanting. When you
get perfect in chanting, the Deity will be revealed to him, and the Deity
wil l reveal everything to him. That's how the whole Veda is understood.
the same with Brahma. He just heard this word "ta-pa", and he sat down and
meditated. Then the Lord shook hands with him, Prabhupada says, and He
revealed this whole thing. 

	Then we are talking of standard scriptures. Among scriptures there
are many various categories. Mainly there are three categories of
scriptures, they are prasthanas, namely nyaya-prasthana, sruti-prasthana
and smrti-prasthana. Prasthana means something w hich is established
rightly, established evidently. So in the Teachings of Lord Caitanya if
you look under sruti, smrti or nyaya you will find, Prabhupada says this
in the Teachings of Lord Caitanya, it comes from the Caitanya-caritamrta
originally. In ma ny places, but Adi-lila, Ch.7 discusses that. Sruti
means "that which is heard." smrti means something that is remembered. And
nyaya means which explaines, or which gives a logic. So, sruti is like a
"what" factor of Absolute Truth. Smrti is a "how" factor of Absolute
Truth. And nyaya is a "why" factor of Absolute Truth. For example, sruti
will say, "One shall worship Indra." The smrti will say how you do the
worship. And nyaya will say why you should do that worship. This a crude
way of explaining. These are known as prasthanas. So among these
prasthanas, Veda is the first apauruseya coming from the Lords breath.
Then smrtis are the seers. When they chant the mantra, when they perform
tapasya, things have been given to them so they write it down. Before they
were not writing they were just speaking and disciples were remembering,
and then later they were written down. That is smrti. And nyaya is
explaining these factors through various systems of philosophy. That's
known as nyaya. 

	So among these there is standard and authoritative revealed
scriptures.  That's a very standard thing, that if you are performing a
ritual, it must be according to some smrti. Like Rupa Goswami says: sruti
smriti puranadi. So if one performs devotion wit h no reference to sruti,
smrti and Purana, and also Pancaratra. Puranas are like law-journal. Veda
is like law-book. For example, income-tax-law says, "One shall pay
income-tax." And the law-journal will say, "Mr. Joseph against the
government of Berlin, because he did not pay the tax", and what happend to
him. This is the law-journal. The law-book is, "One shall pay tax on
income." So Veda says certain things, for example, "Don't kill a person
who surrenders to you." And the Puranas will say that, Ravana was fighting
with the king of Benares, the king of Benares surrendered to him and said,
"I've surrendered, please help me", and Ravana chopped his head off. While
dying, the king of Benares cursed him that "Even though you have so many
benedictions, you will be helplessly killed by a human being." He got
cursed like that as a result of which Lord Rama came and killed him even
though he was so powerful. So this is law-journal, this is Purana. Purana
takes each section of the Veda and then through some actual happening,
not as Max Mueller says. Max Mueller says Puranas are mythology. "It's all
bluff", he says. Purana is not mythology, just like law-journals are not
mythology, not bluff, but actual cases which happened. Hiranyakasipu
defied God. "Don't defy God", Rg Veda says. Hiranyakasipu defied God, what
happens to him? A little surgery is done on his stomach, the intestines
are out. That's what happens when you defy God. So Purana is like a
journal, and the Veda is like the lawbook. 

	So we have the standard scriptures, revealed scriptures. Anything
that goes in this world, regarding anything, not only God, even how to
build a house, how to paint the floor. Everything. Not only matter, but
also spirit, not only that, controller also.  Everything should be
according to the standard revealed scriptures. Otherwise these things
won't give you the result that you're supposed to be getting. So this is
the system that you do it according to scriptures. Even a building, you do
it according to scriptures. Even if it is disposing of waste, you do it
according to scriptures. This is called "standard". This is a sentence
dictated by Srila Prabhupada "Out of many standard and authoritative
revealed scriptures, the Bhagavad-gita is the best". So Bhagavad-gita is
the best, and the Gita-mahatmya says that "One should read Bhagavad-gita
very scrutinizingly with the help of a person who is a devotee of Sri
Krsna and try to understand it without personally motivated
interpretation". Otherwise Krsna says, "Surrender to me", and somebody
comes along and say, "He doesn't mean surrender to Him, He means surrender
to that unmanifest, indescribeable, deaf, dumb, lame Brahman inside His
liver." They will say like that. That's why personally motivated
interpretation is no use, you can not understand revealed scriptures.
Revealed scripture is revealed to a self-realized person. 

	So, to understand scriptures a self-realised person's explanation
is necessary. Without the help of a self-realized person one can not
understand scripture. And studying Bhagavad-gita, or any revealed
scripture, should not be like you're studying some Time-magazine or
National Geography. It should be scrutinizingly studied. Prabhupada
sometimes used another word "analitically studied". He said that, "This
book should be studied analitically". Analize the subject matter nicely,
and study. Apart from that one should certainly read this book from cover
to cover. Prabhupada always used to ask this question, "Have you read my
Bhagavad-gita As It Is cover to cover?" Once a temple-president came, with
a big problem with his temple, to Prabhupada in Vrindavana.  He tried to
talk to Prabhupada for many days, but Prabhupada was so busy. Then he had
to go and went to get blessings. "I'm going, Prabhupada", and Prabhupada
said, "I heard you have some problem." "Yes, Prabhupada, but I have to
go." He can not leave the temple too long. Prabhupada said, "Have you read
my Bhagavad-gita As It Is cover to cover?" He said, "No." Prabhupada said,
"Why don't you do that?" So he said, "I will do it, Prabhupada."
Prabhupada said, "No, no, no, go back to the room, read it." So he went
back to the room, spent three days. Just after mangal-arati he would read
the book, for the whole day. He finished it. He came back with all his
bags and luggage, a big smile on his face, and said, "Prabhupada, I'm
leaving." Prabhupada said, "You had some problems?" "No, Prabhupada", he
said, "I can manage." It's just because he read this book cover to cover.
Prabhupada said, "Just see. This book can solve all problems, just see."
So if one reads this book cover to cover there is possibility of solving
problems. Bhagavad-gita should be studied scrutinizingly. 

[For more discussions on these topics read alt.religion.vaisnava]
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