Bg 16.9
etāṁ dṛṣṭim avaṣṭabhya naṣṭātmāno ’lpa-buddhayaḥ
prabhavanty ugra-karmāṇaḥ kṣayāya jagato ’hitāḥ
Bg 16.10
kāmam āśritya duṣpūraṁ dambha-māna-madānvitāḥ
mohād gṛhītvāsad-grāhān pravartante ’śuci-vratāḥ
Translation
9. Holding this view, these ruined souls of small intellect and fierce deeds, come forth as the enemies of the world, for its destruction.
10. Filled with insatiable desires, full of hypocrisy, pride and arrogance, holding evil ideas through delusion, they work with impure resolves.
Commentary
HOLDING THIS VIEW --- Holding the view, as described in the previous stanza, that the world has no substratum, that there is no controlling power, and that the world continues to exist and procreate by itself, if a society were to live, giving full vent to animal nature, it will only achieve restlessness and strife, disaster and destruction for itself.
RUINED SOULS --- A balanced personality can only be for the individual who has, to begin with, a clear conception and a correct judgement of himself. Whenever an individual forgets himself, he acts in a manner unbecoming to the dignity of his birth, education, culture and social status, like a mad man or a drunken fool. When a materialist thus works in ignorance of his own divine status, he, naturally, behaves as though he is an animal --- insulting the divine status of his own evolution.
OF SMALL INTELLECT (Alpa-Buddhayah) --- Once an individual refuses to recognise the "Divine Presence of Truth," embracing and underlying life, he will function in life as a self-centred, selfish entity, endlessly striving to eke out his own personal satisfaction from the material world. Seeking complete fulfilment in the gratification of his sensual urges, he strives hard but discovers only a carping disappointment, a burning hunger and a sense of defeat in life. Krishna, in his infinite kindness, sympathises with such men and calls them "MEN OF SMALL INTELLECT."
FIERCE DEEDS --- "If a materialist does not want to believe in the Eternal Reality, and if others must believe in some Permanent Truth, why not allow equal freedom to both --- the believers and non-believers?" This is a natural question that will arise in any man, if he be truly democratic and tolerant in his point-of-view. Anticipating such a doubt in a sincere student, Krishna says, in the second line of the stanza, that when an individual loses his faith in the Higher Reality, he becomes licentious at all levels of his expression. Prompted by his selfish urges to seek and discover his fulfilment in life, he would, perhaps, ultimately bring about irremediable disasters to his era. Historically, the world to-day is going through the same predicament as declared and anticipated in the Geeta!!
Materialists, who do not recognise the Truth, seeking Its expression through life's happenings, will unconsciously bring about such a discordant note of disharmony in the community that it will plunge the world into a bloody mire of disastrous wars.
THE VIEW-POINT OF THE LIFE OF A MATERIALIST AND HIS MOTIVES IN HIS EVERY-DAY LIFE, ARE BEAUTIFULLY DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING STANZAS:
The gruesome ugliness of the inner nature of a pure materialist, as he struts about in the fields of his achievements, cannot be better expressed than what Vyasa has accomplished in this stanza. For a more vivid and thorough depiction of the mental contents of the 'Diabolically Fallen,' for a clearer description of the quality and texture of his activities in society, one has to go ransacking the entire existing literature of all the languages in the world, only to fail to find a parallel to this pregnant verse.
FILLED WITH INSATIABLE DESIRES --- Activities are not at all possible unless they are instigated by desires. Where desires have ended, the expression of dynamic life in achievements is impossible. And yet, to remain as victims of desires, is to be some horrid machines of activity, vomiting out into the world our inner poison of ego and ego-centric passions. To sustain life only for the satisfaction of desires is unintelligent; for they have a knack of multiplying themselves as we go on satisfying them one after another. They are 'hard to appease.' Filled with insatiable desires, when a man uses his intelligence, abilities and knowledge, he naturally brings about an endless stream of disturbances in and around him.
FULL OF HYPOCRISY, PRIDE (CONCEIT) AND ARROGANCE --- Desire is but an expression of the ego when the seeker seeks a permanent satisfaction and infinite fulfilment through sense enjoyments. When he is thus deluded in the misconception of his ego-vanity, negative tendencies such as hypocrisy, pride (conceit), and arrogance will naturally rise up, and smothered by them, he ceaselessly strives to satisfy the unending demands of his own unbridled desires.
VICTIMS OF DELUSION --- Desire cannot come to the all-fulfilled. Desire can come only to him who fails to feel his own Infinitude and expresses himself as a limited ego (Jiva). Forgetting his own divine nature, in his identification with the unreal things and values of life, he develops in himself a hunger to enjoy peace and happiness. Naturally, numerous desires arise in him and seeking fulfilment of all such desires, he indulges in sense-gratification.
THEY WORK WITH IMPURE RESOLVE --- The mental biography of the 'Diabolically Fallen' (Asuras) is complete in its sequence when the stanza says that the ego, desperately struggling to gain inner peace, must necessarily forsake all consideration for others, ignore all noble values-of-life, and enter into the fields of activity, shamelessly intolerant, inconsiderate and even brutal. Drunk with passions, opiated with his own desires, he works in the world as a maniac, hurling blood and acid, death and disaster all around him in the community!
The picture, viewed microcosmically, shows a materialist, building his life upon the restless waves of his desire-tossed mind. The same world-painting, when looked at macrocosmically, portrays vividly the ugliness of materialistic communities and nations. Life's beauty depends upon the beauty of the philosophy upon which it is built. If the foundations are false, the edifice, however strongly built, will prove to be no better than a card-castle. The economic break-up, social evils, political upheavals, and general restlessness that are found all over the world are all thoroughly discussed in this stanza, if we know how to read them all into it.
It is also interesting to note how Krishna, while explaining the 'Diabolically Fallen' (Asuras), without directly saying so, is painting the picture of a materialist, who by nature, is an atheist in thought and a tireless hunter of pleasure in action. In this age of materialism, don' t we prove ourselves faithful to the type just now discussed!
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
etāṁ dṛṣṭim avaṣṭabhya naṣṭātmāno ’lpa-buddhayaḥ
prabhavanty ugra-karmāṇaḥ kṣayāya jagato ’hitāḥ
Bg 16.10
kāmam āśritya duṣpūraṁ dambha-māna-madānvitāḥ
mohād gṛhītvāsad-grāhān pravartante ’śuci-vratāḥ
Translation
9. Holding this view, these ruined souls of small intellect and fierce deeds, come forth as the enemies of the world, for its destruction.
10. Filled with insatiable desires, full of hypocrisy, pride and arrogance, holding evil ideas through delusion, they work with impure resolves.
Commentary
HOLDING THIS VIEW --- Holding the view, as described in the previous stanza, that the world has no substratum, that there is no controlling power, and that the world continues to exist and procreate by itself, if a society were to live, giving full vent to animal nature, it will only achieve restlessness and strife, disaster and destruction for itself.
RUINED SOULS --- A balanced personality can only be for the individual who has, to begin with, a clear conception and a correct judgement of himself. Whenever an individual forgets himself, he acts in a manner unbecoming to the dignity of his birth, education, culture and social status, like a mad man or a drunken fool. When a materialist thus works in ignorance of his own divine status, he, naturally, behaves as though he is an animal --- insulting the divine status of his own evolution.
OF SMALL INTELLECT (Alpa-Buddhayah) --- Once an individual refuses to recognise the "Divine Presence of Truth," embracing and underlying life, he will function in life as a self-centred, selfish entity, endlessly striving to eke out his own personal satisfaction from the material world. Seeking complete fulfilment in the gratification of his sensual urges, he strives hard but discovers only a carping disappointment, a burning hunger and a sense of defeat in life. Krishna, in his infinite kindness, sympathises with such men and calls them "MEN OF SMALL INTELLECT."
FIERCE DEEDS --- "If a materialist does not want to believe in the Eternal Reality, and if others must believe in some Permanent Truth, why not allow equal freedom to both --- the believers and non-believers?" This is a natural question that will arise in any man, if he be truly democratic and tolerant in his point-of-view. Anticipating such a doubt in a sincere student, Krishna says, in the second line of the stanza, that when an individual loses his faith in the Higher Reality, he becomes licentious at all levels of his expression. Prompted by his selfish urges to seek and discover his fulfilment in life, he would, perhaps, ultimately bring about irremediable disasters to his era. Historically, the world to-day is going through the same predicament as declared and anticipated in the Geeta!!
Materialists, who do not recognise the Truth, seeking Its expression through life's happenings, will unconsciously bring about such a discordant note of disharmony in the community that it will plunge the world into a bloody mire of disastrous wars.
THE VIEW-POINT OF THE LIFE OF A MATERIALIST AND HIS MOTIVES IN HIS EVERY-DAY LIFE, ARE BEAUTIFULLY DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING STANZAS:
The gruesome ugliness of the inner nature of a pure materialist, as he struts about in the fields of his achievements, cannot be better expressed than what Vyasa has accomplished in this stanza. For a more vivid and thorough depiction of the mental contents of the 'Diabolically Fallen,' for a clearer description of the quality and texture of his activities in society, one has to go ransacking the entire existing literature of all the languages in the world, only to fail to find a parallel to this pregnant verse.
FILLED WITH INSATIABLE DESIRES --- Activities are not at all possible unless they are instigated by desires. Where desires have ended, the expression of dynamic life in achievements is impossible. And yet, to remain as victims of desires, is to be some horrid machines of activity, vomiting out into the world our inner poison of ego and ego-centric passions. To sustain life only for the satisfaction of desires is unintelligent; for they have a knack of multiplying themselves as we go on satisfying them one after another. They are 'hard to appease.' Filled with insatiable desires, when a man uses his intelligence, abilities and knowledge, he naturally brings about an endless stream of disturbances in and around him.
FULL OF HYPOCRISY, PRIDE (CONCEIT) AND ARROGANCE --- Desire is but an expression of the ego when the seeker seeks a permanent satisfaction and infinite fulfilment through sense enjoyments. When he is thus deluded in the misconception of his ego-vanity, negative tendencies such as hypocrisy, pride (conceit), and arrogance will naturally rise up, and smothered by them, he ceaselessly strives to satisfy the unending demands of his own unbridled desires.
VICTIMS OF DELUSION --- Desire cannot come to the all-fulfilled. Desire can come only to him who fails to feel his own Infinitude and expresses himself as a limited ego (Jiva). Forgetting his own divine nature, in his identification with the unreal things and values of life, he develops in himself a hunger to enjoy peace and happiness. Naturally, numerous desires arise in him and seeking fulfilment of all such desires, he indulges in sense-gratification.
THEY WORK WITH IMPURE RESOLVE --- The mental biography of the 'Diabolically Fallen' (Asuras) is complete in its sequence when the stanza says that the ego, desperately struggling to gain inner peace, must necessarily forsake all consideration for others, ignore all noble values-of-life, and enter into the fields of activity, shamelessly intolerant, inconsiderate and even brutal. Drunk with passions, opiated with his own desires, he works in the world as a maniac, hurling blood and acid, death and disaster all around him in the community!
The picture, viewed microcosmically, shows a materialist, building his life upon the restless waves of his desire-tossed mind. The same world-painting, when looked at macrocosmically, portrays vividly the ugliness of materialistic communities and nations. Life's beauty depends upon the beauty of the philosophy upon which it is built. If the foundations are false, the edifice, however strongly built, will prove to be no better than a card-castle. The economic break-up, social evils, political upheavals, and general restlessness that are found all over the world are all thoroughly discussed in this stanza, if we know how to read them all into it.
It is also interesting to note how Krishna, while explaining the 'Diabolically Fallen' (Asuras), without directly saying so, is painting the picture of a materialist, who by nature, is an atheist in thought and a tireless hunter of pleasure in action. In this age of materialism, don' t we prove ourselves faithful to the type just now discussed!
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
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