Link to purport by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada

Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya Charan

Now Krishna explains those who deride Him what happens to them?

Bg 9.12

moghāśā mogha-karmāṇo
mogha-jñānā vicetasaḥ
rākṣasīm āsurīṁ caiva
prakṛtiṁ mohinīṁ śritāḥ

Word for word: 

mogha–āśāḥ — baffled in their hopes; mogha–karmāṇaḥ — baffled in fruitive activities; mogha–jñānāḥ — baffled in knowledge; vicetasaḥ — bewildered; rākṣasīm — demonic; āsurīm — atheistic; ca — and; eva — certainly;prakṛtim — nature; mohinīm — bewildering; śritāḥ — taking shelter of.

Translation: 

Those who are thus bewildered are attracted by demonic and atheistic views. In that deluded condition, their hopes for liberation, their fruitive activities, and their culture of knowledge are all defeated.

 

So moghāśā, moghā means waste, Krishna has used moghā earlier in 3.16 in BG where He has said aghāyur indriyārāmo, moghaṁ pārtha sa jīvati, those who will not participate in the cycle of Yajna, they will leads a life full of sin and moghaṁ pārtha sa jīvati, Living only for the satisfaction of the senses, such a person lives in vain. 

So Krishna is using word moghā, waste, failure SP uses word baffled and they are frustrated, deluded, defeated. So mogha asa, 

So Krishan has mentioned three things here Asha, Karmana and Gyana, all three of them become Mogha, so how does this happen? So Asha here refers to hopes, what kinds of hopes they may have? They may be doing the path of Karma, and they may be desiring advancement on that path they will be frustrated in that and they may be striving on the Path of Gyana, and hoping of advancement of that, but in both cases they will be deluded and bewildered, why? Because of vicetasaḥ, because their consciousness is misdirected, which means directed away from Krishan towards imaginary truth beyond Krishna, so Krishna is right in front of them but instead of looking at Krishna they turn away and try to see something beyond Krishna, this is vicetasaḥ, and Krishna is quite strong in continuation of this mentality and says what happens to such people rākṣasīm āsurīṁ caiva, prakṛtiṁ mohinīṁ śritāḥ, the mohini Prakriti the deluding nature which is Rakshahi and Asuri, which is demoniac, they take shelter of that, that means they already have misconceptions, and because of entertaining their misconceptions whatever they practice they won’t get success in that on the contrary they also go deeper into illusion they fall into worst suffering, worst entanglement, and what is the entanglement, which is not just Karmic bondage, they fall into deeper illusion.

The bondage comes in two ways one is we take birth and exhaust our bad Karma and other we get sinful desires, and when this kinds of desires comes one after another the soul becomes helpless. They are caught away and carried away by misconceptions and misdirected desires which comes from those misconceptions, so they take shelter of that Prakriti which is Rakshi and Asuri, demoniac.

SP Translation: rākṣasīm — demonic; āsurīm — atheistic

So because of this misunderstanding of Krishna they suffer.

So this verse is clearly referring to Mayavadis, later on in 12th chapter Arjuna ask a question and in response to that Krishna says, Yes those who worship impersonal they will attain Me but the path is kleśo ’dhika-taras, that will be talked about in 12.5 and in 12.6 and 12.7 Krishna says about devotional service soon they will come back to Me.

So essentially the point is Krishna contrasts these two paths, the personal path and impersonal path but in impersonal path Brahmavad is not offensive to the absolute truth, Brahmavad is attraction to impersonal manifestation of Absolute Truth. But here it is not just attraction to absolute truth in impersonal manifestation along with that there is a derision there is a minimisation and offence towards the personal aspect of Absolute Truth, and that leads to very detrimental results, people go deeper and deeper into illusion and they suffer there off, 

SP Purport:

The Bṛhad-viṣṇu-smṛti clearly states:

yo vetti bhautikaṁ dehaṁ
kṛṣṇasya paramātmanaḥ
sa sarvasmād bahiṣ-kāryaḥ
śrauta-smārta-vidhānataḥ
mukhaṁ tasyāvalokyāpi
sa-celaṁ snānam ācaret

“One who considers the body of Kṛṣṇa to be material should be driven out from all rituals and activities of the śruti and the smṛti. And if one by chance sees his face, one should at once take bath in the Ganges to rid himself of infection.”

yo vetti bhautikaṁ dehaṁ, bhautikaṁ dehaṁ, material body.

kṛṣṇasya paramātmanaḥ, so that Krishna who is paramatma, super soul, 

yo vetti, those people who think that bhautikaṁ dehaṁ, Krishn’s body is material 

sa sarvasmād bahiṣ-kāryaḥ, bahiṣ-kāryaḥ means boycott, so such a person should be boycotted, exiled should be driven away 

śrauta-smārta-vidhānataḥ, from the activities of Sruthi and Smirthi and mukhaṁ tasyāvalokyāpi, so such a person should not be allowed to participate in religious rituals but even by chance we see such a person what we should do?  sa-celaṁ snānam ācaret, one has to bath in Ganges to purify oneself.

So it seems extreme that if such a person is having some exception about the AT, so if the person have different conception what devotees have, is it that this person is so dangerous that the person has to be boycotted and one has to take bath? We need to understand the principle over here, material world is like a deceased place it is like a hospital and we have come here to be cured, and different people have different infections, some person externally might look very healthy but internally might have deadly infection and if other person comes in contact with that person that person might get deadly infection, and that infection might be killing, so an ordinary person might understand the infection but the doctor understands that this person got the infection and many time what they do is when the person is having infection he is quarantined means kept separately and any interaction for food etc. people should be very careful so quarantined is required not because that person is hated or derided but the point is such a person’s decease should not spread to others so just as there is physical deceases which are not visible to our eyes but those with eyes of knowledge can see and they will warn us to protect ourselves, and they may even impose certain things which are extreme e.g. TB patients are told to put mask around their face and then talk. So the impersonalist especially not the Brahmavadis but Mayavadis they are very seriously infected by misconceptions that kills Bhakti because if Bhakta and Bhagavan are one then there is no meaning to Bhakti. So Bhakti is chocked and killed by the Mayavadis misconception and for that to happen for the soul is greatest disaster, to some extent if someone practices material life and engages in too much sense gratification that also adversely effects Bhakti but that adverse effect doesn’t mask itself from spiritual, one understand that this is spiritual and this is material and I have given up spiritual and I am towards material, a person who understand spirituality can understand that material person is a deceased person, a spiritual person is a healthy person. Materialism is largely like an infection which is visible to the perceptive eye, this person is too much caught up with wealth, sex, power etc. he is infected by material infection, and we will not mistake that person to be a spiritually advanced person or spiritually healthy person. But when a person is Mayavadi externally the person might be quoting verses, wearing saffron, may appear very saintly in some ways, but internally there is infection. So we have to be careful. 

So the principle here is there is an infection and the infection can come to us and that is why we have to be cautious. 

Now if we are going to interact with impersonalists, as we have discussed today most people they have some kind of impersonal conception but they may not be mayavadi but may be under mayavadi influence so suppose some old friend comes to meet and if he talks some impersonalist concept we need not have to do bahiṣkar, drive him away, we don’t have to do like that. The principle is if there is infection we have to protect ourselves from infection. So how may vary from time place and circumstances. On cultural level we can be polite, Srila Prabhupada also when he meet Mayavadis at cultural level he will be polite with them. In 1968 when SP was fall sick in America and a mayavadi sanyasi came to meet him he was very polite with him he told his disciples to get up so that the sanyasi gets a chair and when he himself was living SP got up and tried to walk up to door and he said no-no swami ji take rest, so both of them were polite with each other. So if we have philosophical differences that doesn’t meant that we have to abandon our culture. By these instruction from scriptures we can understand how grave the misconception is how serious the decease is. So we have to learn to be alert and protect ourselves. But cultural level how we have to deal with vary with time place and circumstances. Ultimately we should not behave in an uncultured manner. We should see that ultimately Mayavadis are souls who need shelter of Krishna we may not be having adhikar to give Krishna to them, they may give mayavad to us so we may not have philosophical discussion with them, but culturally we can be polite, we don’t get intimate with them too much. So this way one can protect oneself.

End of transcription.