Gita Satsangh Chapter 16 Verses 10 & 11

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Dandavat pranams to all!

 

 

Tasmaat shaastram pramaanam te kaaryaakaaryavyavasthitau; Jnaatwaa shaastravidhaanoktam karma kartumihaarhasi. Therefore, let the scripture be the authority in determining what ought to be done and what ought not to be done. Having known what is said in the ordinance of the scriptures, thou shouldst act here in this world. (BG 16.24)Gita Satsangh Chapter 16 Verses 10 & 11To listen to Swami Brahmanananda of the Chinmaya Mission chanting this Chapter...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B50lu0Oilak & feature=related

 

Kaamamaashritya dushpooram dambhamaanamadaanvitaah; Mohaadgriheetvaasadgraahaan pravartante’shuchivrataah. 10. Filled with insatiable desires, full of hypocrisy, pride and arrogance, holding evil ideas through delusion, they work with impure resolves.

Sankara Bhashya (Swami Gambiranda's Translation and Commentary)10. Giving themselves up to insatiable passion, filled with vanity, pride and arrogance, adopting bad objectives due to delusion, and having impure resolves, they engage in actions. And asirtya, giving themselves upto; duspuram, insatiable; kamam, passion-a kind of desire; dambha-mana-mada-anvitah, filled with vanity, pride and arrogance; grhitva, adopting; asad-grahan, bad objectives, evil intentions; mohat, due to delusion, owing to non-discrimination; and asuci-vratah, having impure resolves; they pravartante, engage in actions in the world.

Swami Chinmayananda's Translation and Commentary

THE VIEW-POINT OF THE LIFE OF A MATERIALIST AND HIS MOTIVES IN HIS EVERY-DAY LIFE, ARE BEAUTIFULLY DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING STANZAS:

 

10. Filled with insatiable desires, full of hypocrisy, pride and arrogance, holding evil ideas through delusion, they work with impure resolves. The gruesome ugliness of the inner nature of a pure materialist, as he struts about in the fields of his achievements, cannot be better expressed than what Vyasa has accomplished in this stanza. For a more vivid and thorough depiction of the mental contents of the 'Diabolically Fallen,' for a clearer description of the quality and texture of his activities in society, one has to go ransacking the entire existing literature of all the languages in the world, only to fail to find a parallel to this pregnant verse. FILLED WITH INSATIABLE DESIRES --- Activities are not at all possible unless they are instigated by desires. Where desires have ended, the expression of dynamic life in achievements is impossible. And yet, to remain as victims of desires, is to be some horrid machines of activity, vomiting out into the world our inner poison of ego and ego-centric passions. To sustain life only for the satisfaction of desires is unintelligent; for they have a knack of multiplying themselves as we go on satisfying them one after another. They are 'hard to appease.' Filled with insatiable desires, when a man uses his intelligence, abilities and knowledge, he naturally brings about an endless stream of disturbances in and around him. FULL OF HYPOCRISY, PRIDE (CONCEIT) AND ARROGANCE --- Desire is but an expression of the ego when the seeker seeks a permanent satisfaction and infinite fulfilment through sense enjoyments. When he is thus deluded in the misconception of his ego-vanity, negative tendencies such as hypocrisy, pride (conceit), and arrogance will naturally rise up, and smothered by them, he ceaselessly strives to satisfy the unending demands of his own unbridled desires. VICTIMS OF DELUSION --- Desire cannot come to the all-fulfilled. Desire can come only to him who fails to feel his own Infinitude and expresses himself as a limited ego (Jiva). Forgetting his own divine nature, in his identification with the unreal things and values of life, he develops in himself a hunger to enjoy peace and happiness. Naturally, numerous desires arise in him and seeking fulfilment of all such desires, he indulges in sense-gratification. THEY WORK WITH IMPURE RESOLVE --- The mental biography of the 'Diabolically Fallen' (Asuras) is complete in its sequence when the stanza says that the ego, desperately struggling to gain inner peace, must necessarily forsake all consideration for others, ignore all noble values-of-life, and enter into the fields of activity, shamelessly intolerant, inconsiderate and even brutal. Drunk with passions, opiated with his own desires, he works in the world as a maniac, hurling blood and acid, death and disaster all around him in the community! The picture, viewed microcosmically, shows a materialist, building his life upon the restless waves of his desire-tossed mind. The same world-painting, when looked at macrocosmically, portrays vividly the ugliness of materialistic communities and nations. Life's beauty depends upon the beauty of the philosophy upon which it is built. If the foundations are false, the edifice, however strongly built, will prove to be no better than a card-castle. The economic break-up, social evils, political upheavals, and general restlessness that are found all over the world are all thoroughly discussed in this stanza, if we know how to read them all into it. It is also interesting to note how Krishna, while explaining the 'Diabolically Fallen' (Asuras), without directly saying so, is painting the picture of a materialist, who by nature, is an atheist in thought and a tireless hunter of pleasure in action. In this age of materialism, don' t we prove ourselves faithful to the type just now discussed! PAINTING THE CONCEPT OF LIFE IN A CONFIRMED MATERIALIST, KRISHNA CONTINUES:

 

 

Chintaamaparimeyaam cha pralayaantaamupaashritaah; Kaamopabhogaparamaa etaavaditi nishchitaah. 11. Giving themselves over to immeasurable cares ending only with death, regarding gratification of lust as their highest aim, and feeling sure that that is all, Sankara Bhashya (Swami Gambiranda's Translation and Commentary)

 

11. Beset with innumerable cares which end (only) with death, holding that the enjoyment of desirable objects is the highest goal, feeling sure that this is all. Upasritah, beset with; aparimeyam, innumerable; cintam, cares-worries that defy estimation of their limits!, i.e., constantly burdened with cares; pralayantam, which end (only) with death; kama-upabhoga-paramah, holding that the enjoyment of desirable objects is the highest goal-kama is derived in the sense of 'that which is desired for', viz sound etc.; considered their enjoyment to be the highest; having their minds convinced thus that this alone, viz the enjoyment of desirable objects, is the highest human goal; niscitah, feeling sure; iti, that; etavat, this is all-Swami Chinmayananda's Translation and Commentary

 

 

11. Giving themselves over to immeasurable cares ending only with death, regarding gratification of lust as their highest aim, and feeling sure that, that is all (that matters).ENDLESS CARES --- Wedded to anxiety and care, such desperate men drag their life of futile endeavours along the corridors of sobs and sorrows to the silent court-yard of death. In an ordinary life, cares besiege the citadel of peace and joy, especially when hosts of powerful desires conquer the individual. The struggles-in-acquiring (Yoga) and anxieties-in-preserving (Kshema) the acquired objects-of-desires are the contents of all cares of life. To waste an entire life-time in such anxieties, and in the end to realise how miserably one had failed is indeed a tragedy. SATISFACTION OF LUST AS THE HIGHEST (Kama-upabhoga-parama) --- Consistent effort either in the field of the good, or in the field of the vicious, put forth without a philosophy of life that sustains the continuity of an individual's activities, is a haphazard endeavour, ignoble and futile. The philosophy of life that is accepted by the 'Diabolically Fallen' is invariably the same wherever they be. The philosophy of the (Charvakas) atheists has been hinted at herein. To them, satisfaction of their lusty nature is the goal of life and there is nothing beyond it. ASSURED THAT IS ALL --- Generally, such materialists are no fools; they have an ample share of a rough and ready intellect. They do realise that a life dedicated to an endless hunt after sense-gratifications is a tragic way of living, and that in such a scheme of existence the individual is called upon to pay an exorbitant price for relatively insignificant gains. And yet, they continue, seeking satisfaction of their uncontrolled lust. If you question them, their answer is that life is nothing but a series of such strifes. They know not of any life, the contents of which are peace and joy. They are generally pessimistic, and since they scrupulously avoid seriously thinking about life, they invariably come to express suicidal tendencies and homicidal temperaments. According to them, sorrows and care alone constitute the fabric of life. They fail to discover any harmony or rhythm underlying the superficial disturbances in life. Entertaining no hope, either for themselves or for the world, they live with embittered hearts, revengefully meeting the happenings around them in the world. In unproductive exertions, they waste their powers only to die a miserable death; exhausted, wearied, disappointed. THE EXPRESSION OF THE ABOVE PHILOSOPHY IN THE LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IS DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING STANZA:

 

to be continued....Hare Krishna!!!