This course is part of Sastra-Caksus, Year 2 and consists of 101 lectures, available on:
http://seminary.bhaktivedantaacademy.com/classes/bhagavad-gita-thematic
Given in Bhaktivedanta Academy, Sridham Mayapur, November 2011-April 2012
The following are lecture notes briefly delineating its contents.
- The material nature is working under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Lord. She is authorized to do things, but cannot do anything without His potency.
- Christians in their understanding of God are mixing up the ideas of Brahma, Maha-Vishnu, Supersoul.
- Our free will and our anxiety of it being obstructed by the Lord glancing on the material nature and ordaining it.
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The Lord sanctions what happens to us, but it is based on our deeds.
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How the Supersoul is the observer and sanctioner. Comparison of adults participating in a child's play.
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The material nature is Brahman, so it is the Lord, but He is not personally involved there.
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What defines a thing as material or spiritual is simply its use, not the external.
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To apply one's intelligence is something useless is actually foolish. Therefore a truly learned man is one who knows Krishna.
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The material is the manifestations of material energy in forms that we want to control and enjoy. It is our illusions about what the material energy is.It is the use and attitude that defines a thing as material or spiritual.
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41:30 'When the going gets tough the tough turn to the Lord.'
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There can be the same business dealing in superior and inferior goods. So for the Lord both material and spiritual energies are His energy.
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44:00 Things don't get dirty in the spiritual world, but still people are always cleaning.
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Krishna is doing everything through His energies, that's how He is doing it, but at the same time He is not personally involved. That is His mystic potency.
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61:00 The fallacies of the Big Bang theory
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70:00 Is each mode of the material nature a person?
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The reason material world is there is the living entities, but it is not that they have made it. Just like the playground is there because of the children, but the children have not made it and don't set the rules how it functions.
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Sadashiva actually does not enter the material energy.
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Nobody complains about free will when good things happen.
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Neither jiva nor material energy has an independent existence.
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Brahmavadis or Mayavadis have limited knowledge because they do not know the unlimited Supreme Lord.
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We have a natural bias that we can become a great devotee, but others cannot.
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We have oneness with the Lord to the extent that it is necessary to establish relationship. If we become one with the Lord in all respects, it destroys relationship.