CHAPTER 7, TEXT 15: 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.
CHAPTER 7, TEXT 16: O best among the Bhāratas, four kinds of pious men begin to render devotional service unto Me – the distressed, the desirer of wealth, the inquisitive, and he who is searching for knowledge of the Absolute.
One evening when I was thirteen years old in Hawaii, I smoked marijuana with a few of my friends at an abandoned hotel. We then went to the beach and laughed and played in the shimmering blue water in the setting sun.
The night set in fast. My friends went home and somehow I ended up at the beach alone. This was an age before cell phones, so I couldn't call my parents. I had no money for a payphone. Besides, I thought nervously, I didn't want my parents to catch whiff of anything I had been doing.
So... I walked home.
In the dark, along roads where headlights blinded me and whizzed by, through quiet streets up the mountain towards my house, I walked. I was coming off the high from the marijuana, and one side effect is to become paranoid. So walking in the dark my mind conjured monsters, ax-murderers, and ferocious beasts. You're just coming down from your high, Bhakti, get a grip, I told myself. But fear flooded my veins.
By the time I got home, the high (and the fear) had worn off. I walked through my front door exhausted to the core of my being - not only by the fear, but by my attempt to have fun. What a shallow, unreliable, and futile method to experience happiness. I had simply become miserable.
That night, I vowed to never smoke marijuana again, or take any other mind-altering substance.
The next morning, I opened up an old songbook, filled with prayers by the saints in the Vaishnava tradition. I wanted to know - what is real happiness? Surely these people had it figured out, and maybe their songs would show me the way.
That fateful evening when I was thirteen was so miserable for me that I decided to turn to God. I could have just as easily shrugged off the miserable experience as a one-off event and kept on smoking marijuana and stumbling in the metaphorical dark. But somehow, I made a choice.
There must be more to life than this.
Show me.
Please.
That choice set me on a lifelong path for the pursuit of truth and love.
These two verses from the Bhagavad-gita, verses 15 and 16 of Chapter 7, highlight in such piercingly clear ways the types of people who refuse to turn to Krishna and those who do turn to Krishna.
Below I arrayed my analysis of these two verses and the analogous types of people, which is based on the commentary by Baladev Vidyabhusan; I wove in Prabhupad's translation and commentary as well.
Ultimately, the greatest distinction between these types of people is those people who choose to ignore Krishna (and cultivate ignorance) and those who choose to know God (and cultivate true knowledge). I did not only make the choice to know God when I was thirteen - my relationship with God and the way I turn to Him continues to evolve over time. I am called to choose on a regular basis: turn towards or turn away?
These verses are not meant to condemn, but are meant to give us the clarity to understand our own relationship with God and to ask the question: Which one of these am I?
And then - make a choice.
Full Purports by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad here for Verse 15: https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/7/15/
and here for Verse 16: https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/7/16/
CHAPTER 7, TEXT 16: O best among the Bhāratas, four kinds of pious men begin to render devotional service unto Me – the distressed, the desirer of wealth, the inquisitive, and he who is searching for knowledge of the Absolute.
One evening when I was thirteen years old in Hawaii, I smoked marijuana with a few of my friends at an abandoned hotel. We then went to the beach and laughed and played in the shimmering blue water in the setting sun.
The night set in fast. My friends went home and somehow I ended up at the beach alone. This was an age before cell phones, so I couldn't call my parents. I had no money for a payphone. Besides, I thought nervously, I didn't want my parents to catch whiff of anything I had been doing.
So... I walked home.
In the dark, along roads where headlights blinded me and whizzed by, through quiet streets up the mountain towards my house, I walked. I was coming off the high from the marijuana, and one side effect is to become paranoid. So walking in the dark my mind conjured monsters, ax-murderers, and ferocious beasts. You're just coming down from your high, Bhakti, get a grip, I told myself. But fear flooded my veins.
By the time I got home, the high (and the fear) had worn off. I walked through my front door exhausted to the core of my being - not only by the fear, but by my attempt to have fun. What a shallow, unreliable, and futile method to experience happiness. I had simply become miserable.
That night, I vowed to never smoke marijuana again, or take any other mind-altering substance.
The next morning, I opened up an old songbook, filled with prayers by the saints in the Vaishnava tradition. I wanted to know - what is real happiness? Surely these people had it figured out, and maybe their songs would show me the way.
That fateful evening when I was thirteen was so miserable for me that I decided to turn to God. I could have just as easily shrugged off the miserable experience as a one-off event and kept on smoking marijuana and stumbling in the metaphorical dark. But somehow, I made a choice.
There must be more to life than this.
Show me.
Please.
That choice set me on a lifelong path for the pursuit of truth and love.
These two verses from the Bhagavad-gita, verses 15 and 16 of Chapter 7, highlight in such piercingly clear ways the types of people who refuse to turn to Krishna and those who do turn to Krishna.
Below I arrayed my analysis of these two verses and the analogous types of people, which is based on the commentary by Baladev Vidyabhusan; I wove in Prabhupad's translation and commentary as well.
Ultimately, the greatest distinction between these types of people is those people who choose to ignore Krishna (and cultivate ignorance) and those who choose to know God (and cultivate true knowledge). I did not only make the choice to know God when I was thirteen - my relationship with God and the way I turn to Him continues to evolve over time. I am called to choose on a regular basis: turn towards or turn away?
These verses are not meant to condemn, but are meant to give us the clarity to understand our own relationship with God and to ask the question: Which one of these am I?
And then - make a choice.
Full Purports by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad here for Verse 15: https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/7/15/
and here for Verse 16: https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/7/16/
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