Commentary on the Bhagavadgita : 34- Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday, May 13, 2022. 19:30.

Discourse 44:  The Sixteenth Chapter Begins – 

Divine and Undivine Qualities :

POST-34.

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Pāruṣyam is cruelty, a cruel nature. We feel very happy at the suffering of other people. Even if we do not actually commit an act of cruelty, we would like it to be committed by somebody else. Or if we ourselves do it, it is still better. This is called a sadistic attitude. Masochism is feeling pleasure in our own suffering, and sadism is feeling pleasure by causing suffering to others. So we should be neither a sadist nor a masochist. Pāruṣyam is cruelty. Let this quality not be in us.

Ajñānaṁ means ignorance, which is the basis of all topsy-turvy perception of things and wrong evaluation of the world—a lack of spiritual knowledge.

One who is born with these qualities may be said to be characterised as having asuric qualities. These asuric qualities and demoniacal natures that are described in this chapter are not actually characteristics of demons themselves. They are characteristics of human beings who behave like demons, and have all the qualities of a rakshasa, or a pain-giver, killer, exploiter and destroyer. The good qualities and the undivine qualities are, therefore, characteristics of human beings. They apply to everybody—to me, to you, and to everyone.

Daivī saṁpad vimokṣāya (16.5): “If these divine qualities are adopted in your daily life, they will lead you to final liberation gradually, stage by stage.” 

Nibandhāyāsurī matā: “But if you resort to the undivine qualities, you shall be bound hand and foot more and more every day, until it will be difficult for you to extricate yourself from this bondage. Arjuna! Don't be afraid. You are born of divine qualities.” Arjuna may have been wondering in which category he belonged. 

Mā śucaḥ: “Don't be afraid. Don't grieve.” 

Saṁpadaṁ daivīm abhijāto'si: “You are born with qualities that are divine. You are really good and gentlemanly in your nature. You are a divine person.”

Dvau bhūtasargau lokesmin (16.6): There are two characteristics present in this world. Living beings are classifiable into the good and the bad, the noble and the ignoble, the divine and the undivine, the saintly and the demoniacal—daiva āsura eva ca.

Daivo vistaraśaḥ prokta: “Now, I have mentioned to you something about the good qualities, saintly qualities, divine qualities, in the earlier verses.” Lord Krishna has not actually gone into detail, but yet he says, “I have gone into detail in regard to the good qualities.” But actually he goes into greater detail in the description of the demoniacal qualities. 

Daivo vistaraśaḥ prokta āsuraṁ pārtha me śṛṇu: “Now I shall tell you how demoniacal people behave.”

Actually, there is no need for reading about these demoniacal qualities because every day we are seeing them and reading about them in newspapers, etc. When we go to the marketplace, the bus stand, the railway station or other places, we find some qualities of this kind; we can see them. But we can read about them as anticipated thousands of years ago in the Bhagavadgita.

Pravṛttiṁ ca nivṛttiṁ ca janā na vidur āsurāḥ (16.7): Neither do these people with asuric qualities know what is to be done, nor do they know what is not to be done. With their whim and fancy, with the pressure of the moment, they suddenly engage themselves in doing something, and come to grief. They do not know the pros and cons of an occupation or a project or an undertaking. Knowing not what is the method to be adopted for a successful way of living, they blunder in the choice of the means and ways of doing things in the world, and come to grief later on. 

Ca janā na vidur āsurāḥ: What is pravritti, what is nivritti, what is to be done and what is not to be done is not known to them.

To be continued .....

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