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inner spiritual strength and right understanding to comprehend the teachings of the Gita in their proper light and live in their spirit!
Some ignorant people say: "Lord Krishna was not God. He was not an Avatara or Incarnation. He was a passionate cowherd who lustfully played with the Gopis".
What was the age of Lord Krishna at that time? Was He not a boy of seven? Could there have been a tinge of passion in Him? Who can understand the secret of the Rasa Lila and Madhurya Bhava—the culmination of the highest state of devotion or total surrender to the Lord? It is only Narada, Sukadeva, Chaitanya, Mira, Ramananda and the Gopis who could understand the secret of the Rasa Lila. The Gopis only are qualified for this divine sport.
Did He not play miracles when He was a boy? Did He not show that He was the Avatara of Lord Hari? Did He not show His Cosmic Form to His mother when He was only a baby? Did He not subdue the serpent, Kaliya, by standing on its hood? Did He not multiply Himself as countless Krishnas for the satisfaction of the Gopis? Who were the Gopis? Were they not God-intoxicated beings who saw Krishna alone everywhere, even in themselves? The sound of the flute would throw them in a state of ecstasy or holy communion. They were above body-consciousness.
Just listen to the fate of such people who cavil and carp at the Lord: "The foolish think of Me, the Unmanifest, as having manifestation, knowing not My higher, immutable and most excellent form"—VII.24; "Fools disregard Me, clad in human form, not knowing My higher Being as the great Lord of all beings"; "Empty of hopes, of vain actions, of vain knowledge and senseless, they verily are possessed of the deceitful nature of demons and undivine beings"-IX.11-12; "These cruel haters—the worst among men in the world—I hurl these evil-doers into the womb of demons only"; "Entering into demoniacal wombs and deluded birth after birth, not attaining Me, they thus fall, O Arjuna, into a condition lower than that"-XVI.19-20.
Some thoughtless people begin to entertain a doubt and say: "How could the Gita have been taught to Arjuna on the battlefield in such a short time? It could not." This is wrong. It was all a revelation to Arjuna. The Lord gave Arjuna the divine eye of intuition. He can do anything. His Grace can make the dumb man eloquent and the cripple a climber of mountains.
Solutions to Conflicting Verses
A critic says: "In the Gita, III.33, it is said, 'Even a wise man acts in accordance with his own nature; beings follow their nature; what can restraint do? What then is the use of our attempt at controlling the senses and the mind when our nature is so powerful and overwhelming? How can our Sadhana overcome it?"
In the very next verse, Lord Krishna distinctly advises us to control likes and dislikes. Our nature can be subdued by Sadhana. When studying the Gita you should not confine the meaning to one verse exclusively, but see its connection with the previous and succeeding verses of the same discourse as well as of all the other discourses. You have to frequently make cross references before you get the right answer.
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