Summary 10.10 and 10.11

BG 10.10 - By Vrindavan Das Prabhuji

"To those who are constantly devoted to serving Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me."

The important thing is to be constantly devoted. The more we are devoted to Krishna the more we will be purified.
example of well and rope - Constantly if you keep trying, you will come out of this material life.
example of chanting the hare krishna mantra - all are chanting the same mantra but everybody has different realizations.

just need love and service of Krishna - need to hanker for krishna just like gopis were hankering for krishna. make your desire better because Krishna is in your heart and the real desire is to serve Krishna. story of  getting the medicine of gopi chandan - dust of the lotus feet of gopis - that's why krishna has a tilak. And the gopis just love him as Krishna not as the supreme lord.

We should never think that we have achieved everything by Krishna conciousness and we feel we have become a pure devotee but does Krishna think we are a pure devotee hence we should always keep constantly devotion to Krishna. So even pure souls keep serving all the time to Krishna. ex tukaram maharaj - Krishna gives you free will to love him as much as he loves you.Don't give me anything in this world because that will give me attachment to maya and hence I'm lamenting even if you are giving me. Hence never feel you are a pure devotee and hence keep on chanting in the mood that I'm sinful.

Summary 10.11:
"To show them special mercy, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance."

Everyone who is born is born in the darkness of this material world. And to uplift ourselves from this darkness, one needs knowledge and this knowledge is ultimately provided by Krishna. This material world or maya is compared to darkness. As opposed to that, Krishna is compared to Sun. The darkness is completely dissipated. When there is Krishna, the illusory energy, darkness is simply dissipated by his presence. So Krishna makes this promise to those devotees who are constantly engaged in Krishna Consciousness, Krishna says that he personally destroys the darkness of ignorance by the lamp of shining knowledge.

Krishna is explaining it very clearly that the act of devotional service takes priority over any other practice. Here again, Krishna is clearly saying that if someone is constantly in KC, even if he's an illiterate, a shudra a lower person, still Krishna says I will give them knowledge dwelling in their hearts. From this perspective, a devotee is put in a beautiful position to get all the knowledge by Krishna's mercy. He not only gives guidance, but also destroys this darkness of ignorance. Visvanath Chakravati Thakur says this is due to our past sinful karma, it creates a cycle of wall of ignorance.This wall is a hindrance for anyone who is trying to be purified and come to the spiritual platform. It is very challenging to break this wall similar to person with disease can't taste sweet.

Krishna is saying I will personally help my devotee to break this wall who is sincere in his devotional service. One example - Sometimes we feel that we need to have qualifications to do so many things, but there is no qualification needed to be sincere in your practice of dev service.

Ex - Chaitanya mahaprabhu during his south India tour came to a brahmana who was illiterate other than the other brahamana who were very qualified. But everyday he tried to read the BG sincerely.  When Mahaprabhu saw this, he approached him and asked what are you doing here. Brahmana said my spiritual master has instructed me to read the BG everyday and I'm trying to follow his instructions. But why are you crying. He said, I'm illiterate and I can't read but everytime I open it, I get the picture of my Lord as parthasarthy who has become a charioteer of his devotee and how merciful and great my Lord his that he has become a parthasarthy of my devotee. But the Lord from the core of his heart revleaed to him the deep esoteric meaning of BG. When the devotee is sincewre, Krishna will help you. Without Krishna you can't understand anything, only by his and Guru's mercy you can.

The yogis, the munis are trying to meditate on the supreme personality of the Godhead for millions of years, but they aren't able to reach Krishna - Why? Because Krishna can't be approached like that. He can only be approached, only when Krishna reveals himself. He isn't anybody's order supplier. He isn't anybody's servant. It is only when we please Krishna that he decides to reveal himself.

Story - Sabri - She was born in a very difficult circumstance and her fam very dog eaters. She left them at a very early age and came under the guidance of matanga rishi. She did tapasya for 80 years to meet Sri Rama and then Sri Rama came as Krishna always reciprocates. She immediately could recognize Sri Rama is the Supreme Lord. Sabri living with other brahmanas couldn't recognize them even though they were learned in their shastras they didn't know who was Sri Rama, Lakshman. But Sabri by her devotional service could recognize the Supreme Lord. Transcendental knowledge is given in the hear of the devotee through Guru and Shastra only when you are sincere in your devotional service.

Even if your heart is impure and covered with dust, if you chant the Hare Krishna maha mantra your heart will be cleansed and you will then get to sincere devotional service of pure chanting and hearing then you will be helped by Krishna. For such devotee, don't worry about material life, Krishna himself will take care of you, he will destroy all the ignorance and help you come to him and everything will be arranged.

They say anybody who reads this chatur sloki BG and meditates on it, KRISNA will help you know him. example - Govindbhasya - commentary by Visvanatha chakravathy thakur wrote the SB commentary by the grace of Govindji who helped him. Hence, if you follow the path laid down in the BG sincerely, you are sure to attain Krishna and Krishna will destroy the ignorance in your heart.

Summary - BG 10.9 - Thursday Call with HG Shyamsundar Prabhu

"The thoughts of My pure devotees dwell in Me, their lives are fully devoted to My service, and they derive great satisfaction and bliss from always enlightening one another and conversing about Me."

This describes the characteristics of the pure devotee. When we come in contact with a great person we want to make a connection with him and try to attract him, please him. How can we do that? By offering our attention to him and by serving him. When we give our attention to somebody we care for them. Krishna loves all of us and how can we get his attention by service. There is absolutley no meaning of love if you don't do any service. Lust is you do something for my sense pleasure and love is doing service to them. So to understand Krishna's position is the most important.

This is a very nice progression of devotees when the pure devotees dwell in me and their service is devoted to his service and they get a lot of bliss by conversion with him. So serving Krishna is always such a blissful experience for everybody. When we engage in such a service to the lord, then one begins their journey to the highest platform what a living entity can reach.

Chaitanya mahaprabhu is instruction Rupa Goswami about the Bhakti-Lata seed - the living entity is traversing from one planet to another in search for joy. One rare soul begins fortunate to meet a pure devotee and gets a chance to serve him. And the pure devotee the Guru puts the seed of Bhakti-lata seed into the devotee and then the creeper starts growing and growing and it reaches Goloka Vrindavan where Krishna is residing and reaches Krishna's lotus feet. When the devotee waters the seed - it is hearing and chanting. With such regular hearing and chanting it produces the love of God.

This verse puts great emphasis on Sravanam and Kirtanam. This is the root of the 9 parts of Bhakti. Actually when we have full control of hearing and chanting then we give up the material covering.

Ex: Ghandi's 3 monkeys - don't hear anything bad, don't speak anything bad and don't see anything bad.

So one should choose one's hearing and chanting only by the pure devotee. Hearing and Chanting should be very carefully guarded and is the crux of Krishna conciousness.

In SB there is a very nice verse - "By dear Rajendra, in this material world, there are 100 and 1000s of subject matters for hearing and seeing, however, people who are blind to the ultimate truth have relish for them." This drains the life energy and is feeling suffocated by not talking about Krishna. If Krishna prem is dormant in the heart of a subject matter then they enjoy other matters other than Krishna. It is the transcendental subject matter to study about Krishna. It gives great joy to the heart - Why? Because scientifically we are part and parcels of Krishna and we are directly related to Krishna. Krishna is father and we are children. Right now only of - lust, anger, greed, power, - hence we are denying only things which aren't good for us. We are in denial.

When we hear about Krishna, we get rejunated about it. ex: When a mother is told about a child, she is all ears, same way when we talk about Krishna we get a lot of Joy. That is the power of Krishna katha. In such a state the devotee becomes purer.

Hence a pure devotee of Krishna is always conversing about Krishna. This is Vrindavan. The only talk going on 24 hrs was about Krishna. Mother yashoda - was only talking about Krishna all the time. When he wakes up at night terrified I need to give him a hug. Sometime I need to punish him, how can he be the Lord, he's my son. Gopis are talking about him. Gopas are talking about him everybody is talking about him.

Even in brhmasamhita all are talking about him. When SP was on the planet - hours and hours he was talking about Krishna.

Hence if we are talking about naything other than Krishna it is only for our sense pleasure about our lust, our pride, our anger etc - this results in pain and when the same energy is diverted to Krishna, then the same hearing and chanting will give us solace, peace, happiness and bliss and that is the only way to get to Krishna in this and the next life. Chant and be happy! The pure devotees and relishing hearing and chanting.

By chanting, reading, serving, you can start thinking about Krishna all the time and increase our talks about Krishna. ex- adopt a highway - adopt the highway to Krishna. - This is the outlook of a devotee he reads, hears, sees anything and is always thinking of Krishna and is constantly serving Krishna and engaged in him then you are seeing everything in relation to Krishna. You might be reading something ordinary yet you might have a powerful realization about Krishna. Because you have a strong sadhana. This will bring you to a powerful position of always thinking about Krishna and talking about him all the time. Hare Krishna!