Link to purport by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada

Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya

Now the question will come up if surrendering to Krishna will bring liberation why not everyone surrender to Krishna.

Bg 7.15

na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ
prapadyante narādhamāḥ
māyayāpahṛta-jñānā
āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ

Word for word: 

na — not; mām — unto Me; duṣkṛtinaḥ — miscreants; mūḍhāḥ — foolish; prapadyante — surrender; nara–adhamāḥ — lowest among mankind; māyayā — by the illusory energy; apahṛta — stolen; jñānāḥ — whose knowledge; āsuram — demonic; bhāvam — nature; āśritāḥ — accepting.

Translation: 

Those miscreants who are grossly foolish, who are lowest among mankind, whose knowledge is stolen by illusion, and who partake of the atheistic nature of demons do not surrender unto Me.

 

na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ

Actually those who are Mudha, foolish they do not surrender unto Me duṣkṛtino, so Krishna is talking here four kinds of people who do not surrender to him. So in previous verse Krishna has said by surrender to Him people will get free from illusion, then the question come if it is possible to become free from illusion by surrender to Krishna why don’t people do so and become free from illusion. Become free from difficulty, now Sri Krishna is saying it is because they are duṣkṛtina so Kriti means activity in fact it means meritorious activity Kriti and Duskritina means not Meritorious activity but notorious activity, activity in wrong direction, so Krishna is saying na māṁ prapadyante. Do not surrender to Me. And who are these people Mudha, four categories Krishna is saying Mudha is the foolish, narādhamāḥ, lowest among mankind, māyayāpahṛta-jñānā, those whose knowledge is stolen by illusion, And āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ those who are outright demoniac people, now these four categories whom them represent? Srila Prabhupada gives elaborate purport who are these four kinds of people, now interestingly if we look at the previous acharyas commentary like Vishwanath Chakraverti pad, Srila Baladev Vidhya Bhusan, Ramanuja Acharya, Madhvacharya now all of them described slightly different people, they explain these category referring to different kinds of people, so what does it mean, actually we need to understand that scriptural knowledge is not just text but it is also in context. Context means it has to be relevant, many time we heard that we have to preserve the purity of the knowledge, yes there should not be any speculation there should not be any deviation, that is true, but one important thing which we have to preserve which is part of tradition is the relevance, and every Acharya explain the commentary explains the scripture which was relevant to the context at that time, if our presentation  of scripture is not relevant then actually we are not faithful to the tradition, because relevance is the integral part of the tradition which has to be preserved. So tradition is not immobile and static but it is living, that is why we will see that there are four kinds of people who are not surrender to Sri Krishna, but what these four types refer to, Acaryas writing commentary say, Ramanujacharya writing commentary in 10-11 century, so when he is going to present a commentary he is going to observe people around him that time, and  think who are these people which fit this category. Now those expressions may be relevance latter also, but the nature of maya is that Avidhya constantly keeps of getting updated, what does it means? Avidhya keeps of coming in newer and newer brand, ultimately it is same old thing and it is excuse of rationalisation or justification for forgetting Krishna that is what essence of maya is but maya comes in newer and newer brands and countering the latest brand of maya is the tradition of the Acharyas, so maya keeps updating herself and Acharyas keeps on updating their refutation that is how the tradition is, that is how there are some core principle that remains true but Acaryas gives commentary to counter the current version of maya prevalent at that times, because in broad ways the conceptions of people which block them from moving towards Krishna those conception will vary from person to person, those conception may cause people to go into delusion, that is why those conceptions are not always same for everyone, because maya herself comes in different ways, for example when Baladev Vidhya Bhusan writing commentary on Vedanta Sutra, in Govinda Bhasya commentary he will explain he will refute the system of 5 systems of philosophy apart from Vedanta and now the systems of philosophy are also not static, there are different scholars on those tradition who has commentaries so whatever thoughts at that particular time they will be refuted by Baladev Vidhya Bhusan while drawing insights from universal time independent principles that are taught in the scriptures, Srila Prabhupada when he is presenting his commentary he will draw from same time independent universal principles but he will address issues of his time, so for example during Srila Prabhupada time there is conflict between communist and capitalists and fear of a third world war because of this conflict, Prabhupada addressed this repeatedly in his purport but that may not be relevant now because communism is not so directly acting now, so let us look at the way Srila Prabhupada look at these four categories, these four categories will be explained by different Acharyas in different ways because they are responding to specific brands of maya. Specific sets of misconceptions those which were misleading people of their times. So mūḍhāḥ means donkey that means a person who is foolish like a Donkey, the opposite of the word mūḍhāḥ is Buddha, Buddha is a wise person and actually Buddha is related to Budhi and Buddha in Buddhistic tradition context is enlightened person so who is Muddha? Muddha is a person like a donkey now Srila Prabhupada purport in this section is quite eloquent, let us look at some section of Srila Prabhupada’s purport over here:

The swine who eat the night soil do not care to accept sweetmeats made of sugar and ghee. Similarly, the foolish worker will untiringly continue to hear of the sense-enjoyable tidings of the flickering mundane world, but will have very little time to hear about the eternal living force that moves the material world.

So in his explanation of muddha, Srila Prabhupada includes another animal Varaha is a hog, so hog eat night soil, night soil means stool, so hog eat stool and if he is given some sweet meat he says I won’t prefer that, so somebody may say that why do you blame a hog? A hog is acting simple according to nature, halwa is delicious for us but Halwa is not delicious for hog, so why should we judge hog according to our standards what is food for hog is different than what is food for us. So actually the point here is not that the hog doesn’t have its own diet the point here is that what is refuse of the human being and that which smells nasty and that which is abominable that is what the hog eats when we are giving any scriptural example we have to understand that we are giving from a particular perspective so from the point of a perspective we have to understand what is being talked, whenever the scriptures teach something the point that they are teaching is that we have to learn some lesson so here the lesson is lack of discriminating ability so if we human being are given a choice of fault smelling substance and a delicious substance naturally we will choose delicious substance the person who choses faulty substance lacks intelligence similarly we say hogs lacks intelligence over here, so here we are not talking about the way nature has made different living beings with different tastes that is the fact of nature we don’t deny that fact and animals are largely programmed to act according to nature so animals lack the discriminatory capacity so when we are looking from the point of view how nature has made different living beings we can simply see that hogs are simply acting according to nature but the point is from enlighten perspective from the perspective of intelligent human being was aligned oneself according to scripture from that perspective the hog is lacking discrimination so the point here is not specific but generic principle that the inability to discriminate what is palatable and what is unpalatable but donkey carries huge burden, now donkey or hog, what does donkey do? Donkeys works…works…works and donkeys carry bundle of cloths for little grass that grass can be gotten anywhere but donkey carries huge bundle because the donkey thinks that I have to do this so that I get some grass, so actually eating sleeping mating and defending these are the bodily pleasures and all living beings are getting that so human beings who work terribly hard just to get that they are missing out they are losing out they are depriving themselves of what can be available for them what will be far more beneficial for them what is that? They are depriving themselves of higher taste the higher fulfilment that is available through spiritual advancement and devotional connection with Sri Krishna so the point of the mudha example which Srila Prabhupada gives is actually people work hard simply for animalistic pleasures and they don’t have to work so hard but they keep working hard. And now a days people are full of stress because of overwork, most of these overwork are because of self-created duties, self-created duties means one sets up one’s own goals and one pursues those goals and one get into trouble because of that so that is mudhas
na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ
prapadyante narādhamāḥ
So muddha is a person who is caught up in working hard for sense pleasure for the same things which animals also gets, one just works hard…hard…hard and doesn’t think.

Srila Prabhupada explains narādhamāḥ, nara+adhama, adhama is lowest and nara means human being, so that person is lowest among human beings what does this refers to, this refers to those human beings who has no spiritual inclination, see what makes human being human is their spiritual potential, so human being is a particular physical form, that also characterises human beings, that is true but more than that from the scriptural perspective the human form means a particular level of consciousness and that consciousness involves the capacity for spiritual realisation so if we consider continuum, continuum is a wide spectrum of consciousness of levels of consciousness which human beings can have so the highest are those who have most evolved consciousness they are having love for Krishna then those who are lesser and lesser connection for Krishna they be in this continuum of different locations and lowest in spectrum are those who have no interest in spiritual life at all they are just not interested in spiritual life so they have sabotage / destroyed their spiritual prospects by their lack of spiritual sensibility Srila Prabhupada says that those who are socially and politically developed but who has no religious principle must be considered naradhamas. So they are socially and politically developed but they have no religious principles that means that they are not developing what makes them distinctive human so that is what makes them naradhamas so naradhama and then Srila Prabhupada makes this point Nor is religion without God religion, now a days there are religion which claim themselves religion but they don’t acknowledge God, in today’s cultural nomenclature they may be called religions but the point is  they have defied essential principle of religion the essential principle is to obey God, Dharmam to sakshat Bhagvat pranitam, what is Dharma is dharma is to follow the will of God follow the instructions of God then Srila Prabhupada talks about how the naradhama know what is the tragedy of Naradhama, actually all of us need God and when we are in womb and the pain becomes excruciating we all suffer we call out to Krishna at that time so when we call out to Krishna and we beg for His mercy and we seek His mercy at that time what happens is when we  call to Krishna to helps us we recognise Krishna realise Krishna’s presence and Krishna manifests to us but  because surrender to Krishna at that time is immature in the sense that we have not surrender because of free will we have surrendered because of force so when we surrender this way to Krishna at that time that surrender is not mature, mature surrender is we have the option to not surrender but still we surrender so later on we come out of the womb and the pleasure of this world present itself to us and we become tempted So Srila Prabhupada reminds us that there is gravest suffering in the womb and we have ourselves prayed to Krishna please help me Krishna. So those people who stay in illusion Srila Prabhupada is talking from two perspective one is human body has the capacity for spiritual enquiry and when the soul is in human embryo, human womb at that time the soul begins the spiritual call also, begins the spiritual journey by calling the Lord, but then puts it aside neglects it for the sake of worldly pleasure.

So the difference in Mudha and naradhama is Mudha they are so busy in sensual pleasure that even if they have some spiritual inclination they don’t give time for spiritual inclination but Naradhama there spiritual inclination are so much relegated to the corner that as if it is not present only, and Srila Prabhupada said by the mercy of Krishna as it has come to the mercy to Jagai and Madhai even Naradhamas can be elevated. 

And then third category is māyayāpahṛta-jñānā, this is discussed in Śrī Īśopaniṣad

…we also discussed in 2.43-44 in BG there we have discussed in veda-vāda-ratāḥ those who follows Veda but think that goal of Vedas is to do sense gratification and then there are those who not follow the Vedas and who use their intelligence just for material improvement and purpose of knowledge is lost for them they have knowledge but the purpose of the knowledge is stolen away from them by maya, māyayāpahṛta-jñānā, so Jayana is there but it is stolen by maya māyayāpahṛta. So this refers to all kinds of intellectual they can be scientists, philosophers, authors, speakers these people may have intelligence but unfortunately the ultimate purpose of intelligence they have lost and because of that whatever they do they caught up in illusion it is like a person is in jail but he uses all his intelligence in understanding about the things in jail. Suppose the person has done a PHD about understanding about the structure done in jail, this knowledge is useful but when in jail the person think that how he can get out of jail, not necessary that I have to break out of jail but is there a process by which I reform myself and get released from the jail, the imp point is I need to come out of the jail. 

Same way when we talk about material existence the most important knowledge is about the knowledge that can free us from misery that can bring us liberation, so what is that knowledge? That knowledge is what Sri Krishna gives in the BG, and those people who are intelligent and still neglect that knowledge is unfortunate, they are in the category of māyayāpahṛta-jñānā, and Srila Prabhupada said these people may study the scripture also but they wrongly interpret scriptures, so they may study BG and write commentary on it, the purpose of BG is to surrender to Krishna, but if they reject the purpose and give some other concocted purpose they are also falling in the category of māyayāpahṛta-jñānā, and then 

āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ, 

now māyayāpahṛta-jñānā their conclusion may be misled, misleading or anti devotional but they don’t have necessarily agenda against God, it is just that they end up their interpretation going against God, they don’t know the ultimate goal but āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ, are the people who in deep of their heart are having demonic envy towards God and they make it their mission to defy, deride and demolish other people’s faith in God, so such people are outright atheists and they are not just atheists but they are fanatical atheists so āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ, the meaning of fanatical atheisms is they believe atheism is the only truth and religion is illusion, religion is the curse on the earth, religion is the source of evil, this short of people go  against God so they are very unfortunate, and they also do not surrender to Krishna if their whole purpose of life is to defy Krishna how can they surrender to Krishna. So Krishna gives us different categories of people in this way cannot surrender to Krishna. 

Now these people stay on in material existence. We should not think that only people explicitly in these category doesn’t surrender to Krishna we may ourselves have these tendencies in small ways we may have some Mudha tendencies some māyayāpahṛta-jñānā tendencies because of which we will be checked (not allowed to move) and choked (allowed to move in small size of flow) in our surrender to Krishna completely, 

Sril Prabhupada quotes Yamunacharyas verse how these kinds of people are not surrendered to Sri Krishna: 

Śrī Yāmunācārya Ālabandaru said, “O my Lord! You are unknowable to persons involved with atheistic principles, despite Your uncommon qualities, features and activities, despite Your personalities being confirmed by all the revealed scriptures in the quality of goodness, and despite You being acknowledged by the famous authorities renowned for their depth of knowledge in the transcendental science and situated in the godly qualities.”

End of transcription.