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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
Last night in the satsang we had a discussion on the very cruel unimaginably offensive behavior of the people. You should understand that the world is always a very appalling admixture everywhere. You look at the creatures and animals of the world, on this earth. You will find very gentle and harmful beings. You will equally find very cruel and dangerous beings. Both of them are equally there. We have to find out or we have to look for ourselves as to what is the best way of living in such a world. When you come to the human beings, in them are assorted, combined, conjuncted all the tendencies you find otherwise in the subhuman kingdoms. This is what makes the world full.
Suppose the world is only gentle and good, then the cruel people will come and say, “We also must be able to live in this world. Let us get the punishment for our cruelty. But we have the freedom for it." This is something that you have to understand. So ultimately what is the truth? In the third chapter of Bhagavad Gita Krishna says,
प्रकृतिं यान्ति भूतानि निग्रहः किं करिष्यति ।।
sadṛśaṁ ceṣṭate svasyāḥ prakṛter-jñānavān-api
prakṛtiṁ yānti bhūtāni nigrahaḥ kiṁ kariṣyati
Everyone is born with a certain nature, a natural combination. He has no option in the matter of inheriting whatever tendencies he has. Each person has to be born from a set of parents. And each of the parents was born from his or her respective parents. And like that, we have an endless hierarchy preceding us. Every child will be inheriting from many generations the tendencies in them. So can you imagine anybody in this world not getting born without some tendencies? And these tendencies, right at the time of birth differ widely and they would differ from the super best to the super worst. And everybody is following his or her own nature. In this process, nigrahaḥ kiṁ kariṣyati? What can external restraint from anybody do?
Ratnākara was given to robbing. How was it restrained? He tried to rob the sapta-rishis. They very benignly and gracefully looked at him and he was transformed. There ensued a dialogue between them. And in the dialogue, they enlightened him about the sinfulness of what he was doing. Suppose he was not prepared to listen to, he did not stop, then he would have continued. So, when they suggested to him that there is an examination to be done about your conduct, he was sensitive enough to listen to them and understand. The result was that his entire life changed.
So what Bhagavad Gita or Krishna or Veda Vyasa says is that everybody is following his or her nature, inherited tendencies. But we also have an intellectual faculty in us which is given to questioning, examining, evaluating everything. So before the intelligence, this inheritance can become a subject of questioning or evaluation. And by evaluation, you can think of improving whatever you have. That is why the educational process should continue in every generation. But our education process is primarily aimed at academics - how to live in this world with more conveniences and more resources. But the education should also cover character, behavior and interaction.
Then after getting the exposure as it happened in the case of Valmiki or Ratnākara, people will be changing. But don’t think that all will change. We have the instance of Duryodhana who has repeatedly been admonished, cautioned, corrected, improved by a set of people like Bhishma, Drona, Kripa, Krishna and others. But Duryodhana said, “I will not mend my ways.” So such people also will be there. When somebody says so, maybe a whole country will have to prepare itself in order to meet such an individual. What happened in the case of Veerappan of Mysore, Karnataka? How many police and security people he killed before he was killed? It was not easy. That is what we are facing now in the hands of terrorists.
So human life is meant to employ paurusha and face paurusha also. Then Krishna follows it stating
तयोर्न वशमागच्छेत्तौ ह्यस्य परिपन्थिनौ ।।
indriyasyendriyasyārthe rāga-dveṣau vyavasthitau
tayor-na vaśam-āgacchet-tau hy-asya paripanthinau
Understand that we have a body. This body is a seat for the senses and upon every sensory object, attraction and repulsion are capped. Do not come under their sway, they are your stark enemies. Here is the writing on the wall. Don’t think that we will have a non-body life. We will have a body. When the body is there, it has five senses. When the senses are there, they will create attractions and repulsions. Now, what are we to do? If we allow the sensory attractions to grow, they will overpower you and whatever happened to Duryodhana, worse things like whatever we are hearing about raping etc. will continue to happen. If the individual is not prepared to restrain himself, the society will have to interfere and bring about the necessary control and regulation by laws implementation and otherwise. This is the structure of human being and the society. There is no escaping this fact. Let us know it and learn to deal with it.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.