Sharanagati

(continues from the previous issue)

If we return back to the original point that Brahma is receiving instructions to do his job better, Krishnastarts the instruction with Himself. Just like in the “Bhagavad-gita”: aham, I am. Here also: “I existed before, I exist now and I will exist later.” So the focus of attention is on Him, because He is describing Himself as the most important element of past, present and future. And meanwhile, almost immediately He expands our vision, because He describes time. He mentions past, present and future, but actually He means eternity. Because what to speak of some small little short periods of creation? Little kalpas and yugas here and there, few hundreds of millions of years up and down… He is discussing eternity. The lifetime of the universe is three hundred eleven trillion years. It is quite long. But it is said it is shorter than a blink of an eye forKrishna. And why He is instructing Brahma about time at the second step; at first step about Himself, at second – about time? Because he, and we also we have to understand – we are eternal souls.

And if you are an eternal soul, should you waste a moment from your life? You can say: “Well, if we are eternal souls, I have time. Instead of this meditation that takes a long time, today I go to the golf club.” Or some other very important engagements. We engage ourselves with so many stupid things. But what will be the result at the end? When you will face Yamaraja and he asks: “Hey, my dear boy, how did you spent your life?” “Well, I was attending the golf club.” “Bad mark.” “And also I have read all the newspapers. Plus I was a very obedient follower of the television guru. Etc. etc.” You can imagine your position at that time: “Ah, I made a mistake, o my God!” But it is too late, you have to pay the price. Better be alert now. Better to be afraid than to be frightened.

We have to understand that we are eternal souls. And if we have that consciousness – that we are eternal sparks ofKrishna, belonging to Him – then many troubles are removed from our consciousness. ThereforeKrishnaspeaks in this first verse about Himself and about time. Later on he will go on describing illusion. Because Brahma’s duty is to create the world, which is under the control of illusion. We also have to learn something about illusion. And better to learn about illusion in the temple and on the lectures, than go out and take direct experience. But this topic we shall discuss tomorrow morning. Because illusion is such a frightful topic, that it will create some bad dreams and nightmares, so we do not discuss that in the evenings. Evening topic – onlyKrishna; it will provide peaceful and beautiful spiritual dreams.