Link to purport by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada

Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya

So now naturally the question will come up if modes binds the person and keep the person in illusion then how can such a person come out of illusion that Srila Prabhupada described in the next verse and Krishna has answered in the next verse.

Bg 7.14

daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī
mama māyā duratyayā
mām eva ye prapadyante
māyām etāṁ taranti te

Word for word: 

daivī — transcendental; hi — certainly; eṣā — this; guṇa–mayī — consisting of the three modes of material nature;mama — My; māyā — energy; duratyayā — very difficult to overcome; mām — unto Me; eva — certainly; ye — those who; prapadyante — surrender; māyām etām — this illusory energy; taranti — overcome; te — they.

Translation: 

This divine energy of Mine, consisting of the three modes of material nature, is difficult to overcome. But those who have surrendered unto Me can easily cross beyond it.

 

daivī hy, Divine indeed 

eṣā guṇa-mayī, That actually the energy of Krishna is divine indeed 

mama māyā duratyayā, This is my Maya and it is duratyayā, it is very difficult to overcome

mām eva ye prapadyante, But those who surrender unto Me mām eva ye prapadyante, 

māyām etāṁ taranti te, They will cross beyond maya and come out of illusion.

So here what Sri Krishna is saying exactly? In the previous verse Sri Krishna has stated that Trver Gun Bhai …Ebe Sarvavidam Jagat. So he says that the covering of three modes deludes everyone now He is taking that understanding further. In 13th verse He is saying covering of three modes prevents living being in understanding Him. So if He considers 3 level Hierarchy what 13th verse is saying living entities are at lower level the three modes are covering living entity that is why they (living entity) cannot understand Krishna. So say we have Sun, the clouds and people who are observers at the earth, so when clouds are there they block the perception of Sun to the observers on the earth, so now it may appear that clouds are covering the Sun but the Sun is far greater than the clouds Sun cannot be covered, what is covered is the observer’s vision. So Krishna is telling that He is like Sun in the previous version He told He is Permovayam, transcendental He is inexhaustible imperishable so it is not He is covered it is actually we who are covered, now beyond that Sri Krishna is telling something more in this verse, that actually this covering is also under His control. So 13th verse told that there is covering which prevents us from perceiving, now Krishna in 14th  verse is taking it further and saying covering is actually not something that is independent of Krishna this covering is under control of Krishna and this covering is due to Krishna’s energy so mama māyā so Krishna is saying this is my maya, it is my maya which is putting the living entities under illusion so He has talked about the three modes in the previous verse 

tribhir guṇa-mayair bhāvair
ebhiḥ sarvam idaṁ jagat

that by the three mode everyone is deluded now He is saying that His maya is made of three elements guṇa-mayī and He says this is daivī, daivī means the divine indeed, so why divine? You may say that it is Maya which makes people do demonic things, maya which makes people drive away from Krishna towards bad things, so if Maya takes people towards wrong things then why Maya should be considered to be divine. Maya makes people lusty maya makes people greedy, maya makes people angry and all the abserveties and perversities people engage in are caused by maya. So how can maya is considered to be divine? So abserveties  and perversities are not caused by maya they are facilitated by maya they are caused by people’s free will. Earlier we have discussed the example of multiple choice paper, in multiple choice paper out of 4 options one is right and remaining is wrong, remaining four may be wrong, so when they are wrong like this who is making them wrong? Is it the teacher or the student? The teacher is providing the options but the teacher also provides the education for right option and the student is responsible for the wrong choice the student cannot tell the teacher that you gave me wrong option and I simply selected the wrong option. So if I get poor marks you are responsible and not me so it is maya who gave the options and it is we who ticked the choices. And if we take guidance from Guru, Sadhu and Shastra we won’t tick the wrong choices but we will tick the right choices so the purpose of teacher is not to fail the student but to promote the student and if the student fails that is primarily because the student doesn’t understand. Student doesn’t understood the subject properly and not study the subject properly, student has not applied the intelligence while attempting the exam, so in this way we can understand what causes the problem, the problem is not caused by maya.  The setup by which illusion are presented are created by maya but it is we who chose to go to maya or stay out of maya and each of us has the power to stay out of maya.

mama māyā duratyayā

Sri Krishna is saying it is my energy. It is called divine because ultimately the purpose is positive. It is a good purpose, just like the purpose of the exam is ultimately good. Although for some student the exam may result in bad result, students fail in the exam, they feel dejected by failing in the exam, and the failure may reflect on their career as negative but overall the purpose of the exam is to make them positive in their career. So Krishna is saying daivī it is divine because it is connected with Krishna, this energy is considered divine and 

Duratyayā

Duratyayā means this energy is actually very difficult to overcome, mama māyā, Krishna is saying my energy, when parent want to discipline child, parent may engage a tutor, the parent love the child but the tutor may be a disciplinary and strict so that he ensures child is educated properly, so parent is like Krishna and strict tutor is like maya,  

So mama māyā duratyayā, duratyayā means it is very difficult to overcome almost impossible. Because Sri Krishna is determined to ensure that only those who use their freewill properly will get through and this is ensured, implemented, actualised by Maya Devi. 

Once a devotee asked Srila Prabhupada that if our purpose is to serve Krishna then why maya is so strong? And Srila Prabhupada immediately replied because your purpose is not strong. What does it mean? If the purpose is to serve Krishna then why maya is so strong? Because the purpose is not strong. Actually all the temptation will trouble us as long as we are not determined to serve Sri Krishna. Once we become determined to serve Sri Krishna then we don’t be overcome by temptations, the temptations will come but we can put them aside because we can understand that I am going to be fixed in my purpose of serving to Krishna actually this principle of strong purpose helping a person overcome is seen everywhere when a student is serious about studies I wants to crack a particular exam the purpose is very exam, I am going to study and going to clear the exam, but then if anywhere there is favourite sports match, popular TV show, some super hit movie all these  temptations are there they could bring potential destructions but these destruction will distract the purpose of those students who are not strong, but those students who purpose is fixed one point they will not be deluded, they will not become distracted, 

So 

mām eva ye prapadyante

What does it need to make our purpose strong? It means to take shelter of Krishna surrender to Krishna mām eva ye prapadyante.

māyām etāṁ taranti te

So those people will cross over maya, māyām etāṁ taranti te, they will go beyond maya, how they will go beyond maya? By whole hearted surrender to Krishna, so if a person goes to visit somebodies house, and that person has got ferocious dog as a guard may be a german shepherd or some giant dog, and the dog will see this person as a trespasser and starts crawling ( or become alert) and the dog start charging to this person, dog is charging one may think what can I do? Now if I decide I will fight with the dog it is impossible, that dog is trained to byte and beat, byte trespasser and drive them away.

So what this visitor should do? If visitor know the owner and if he will call the owner, the owner comes out and see that he is my friend and he says dog Toomey stop-stop and then Toomey stops so now if I tell the dog to stop, it is not going to work but one word from the owner, the same dog who was grizzling, groaning and about to pounce on me that dog suddenly stops and becomes clam, how? That magical transformation happens when dog gets the order from his master, same way when we turn towards Krishna when we surrender to Krishna at that time we become free from maya. How do we become free from maya? Because surrender to Krishna is the choice that maya also wants us to take, ultimately when we select the right choice in the question paper then that question goes off, it is the next question after that, that way the whole purpose of temptation and tribulation from maya, temptation is let me enjoy by doing this, temptation means promises of pleasure, and tribulations means threats of pain, so all these promises of pleasure and threats of pain that is there, they are all removed for a person who surrenders to Sri Krishna because Sri Krishna tells the material energy to withdraw, hold back, stop, there is no more need to test this devotee, māyām etāṁ taranti te, By Sri Krishna’s arrangement the person can be taranti te, go beyond maya. That means this verse has two parts first part is telling how maya deludes that daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī, mama māyā duratyayā, so the two describers of maya are daivī and duratyayā, so daivī is divine and duratyayā is formidable insurmountable difficult so these attributes describes power of maya, and then in second part in c & d of this verse they introduced us to power greater than maya that is power of Krishna, and how do we access that power of Krishna by surrender, so when we surrender to Krishna māyām etāṁ taranti te, we go beyond maya, so that is the process if we follow the process we go beyond maya rapidly, now we may wonder what exactly is surrender? How do we surrender? Surrender will be discussed more in 18 chapter when we discuss Servadharma Partiyaja Mam Eakam sernam Vraja…but here it is suffice to say that surrender is not passive, surrender is active, now Bhakti Vinod Thakur talks based on scriptures about six elements of surrender

anukulyasya sankalpah pratikulyasya varjanam

raksisyatiti visvaso goptrtve varanam tatha

atma-niksepa-karpanye sad-vidha saranagatih

So he says actually anukulyasya sankalpah pratikulyasya varjanam, accepting that which is favourable and rejecting that which is unfavourable. That is surrender, so what does this involve? It involves constant consciences choice, so how does we surrender to Krishna. Draupadi raising her hands and surrender, yes that is one way of surrendering, but that is not just only way of surrendering, even when Arjuna is fighting in battle filed with full intelligence, full determination, shooting the arrows, that is also surrender, it is not that just Draupadi’s raising hand is surrender Arjuna is shooting arrow intelligently and ferociously that is also surrender. How is that? Because surrender essentially means choosing the action which takes us close to Sri Krishna, and rejecting the action which takes us away from Sri Krishna, so for Draupadi in that particular situation when she was dishonoured, she tried her best, she tried to hold on to her saari, she tried to defend her, but when that didn’t work, she surrender to Sri Krishna, so that is important, now we also see that Arjuna also surrenders to Krishna in the start of BG, pṛcchāmi tvāṁ dharma-sammūḍha-cetāḥ, I ask you what I should do, so he is not raising up his hand to surrender but he is folding his hand and asking Sri Krishna for knowledge. But when Arjuna started shooting arrows he is acting on Sri Krishna’s instructions and that acting on Krishna’s instruction is also surrender. So to understand about surrender let us look from broad perspective, what is the basic principle of spiritual life? The basic principle of spiritual life is harmonising our will with the divine will of Krishna, that harmonisation can be sometimes through some outer activity and sometimes inner, surrender to Krishna’s will, it will vary how it is expressed externally, so essentially surrender means giving up our will to accept Sri Krishna’s will. Now how we will accept Krishna’s will, will vary from time place and circumstances so we cannot know in advance, therefore what is important is we should always be thinking what is anukul what is pratikul, that means when we do our sadhana diligently through our sadhana also we are surrendering to Krishna, when we do our seva diligently through that also we surrender to Sri Krishna, when we know that certain situations are tempting us moving away from that situation is also surrender to Sri Krishna. When our senses are getting agitated that time reject the agitation, crush the agitation with determination that is also surrender to Sri Krishna. Surrender can come in many forms. Essentially for us what we should focus on is anukulyasya sankalpah pratikulyasya varjanam, whatever is favourable accept, whatever is unfavourable reject, so much of what comprises are under will be within the mind, now within mind if we have entertain thoughts which take us away from Krishna, fuel desires that take us away from Krishna then we are not surrendering we are actually rebelling against Krishna, we may not have direct intention to rebel against Krishna but essentially the result is that we are rebelling against Krishna on the other hand we will turn towards Krishna and surrender that means we choose the thoughts and desire that will take us closer to Krishna .

Srila Prabhupada has mentioned in purport: The Vedas (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 3.8) confirm this in the phrase tam eva viditvā, or “Freedom is possible only by understanding Kṛṣṇa.”

End of transcription.