So this ānanda potency . . . we are seeking after ānanda. Every one of us, we are seeking after pleasure. This is struggle for existence. Everyone wants to be happy, peace and pleasure. But wherefrom this idea comes? Now, Vedānta-sūtra says, janmādy asya yataḥ: it also comes from Para-brahman. So if Para-brahman has no such tendency how to enjoy, wherefrom this so-called love in this material world between young boy and young girl comes? There cannot be any existing. It is only perverted reflection of that pleasure potency of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa.
It is only perverted reflection. It is not false. It is temporary, perverted. Just like the example is sometimes given to mistake a rope as snake. The Māyāvādī philosophers, they give. They say it is māyā. But it is not māyā. When you mistake a snake as . . . huh . . . mistake a rope as a snake, that is not māyā; that is illusion. You can call it māyā, but the snake is there. You cannot say, because it is rope, therefore there is no snake. No. Snake is there. Otherwise, how it comes to the idea of snake? The snake is a fact, but you are mistaking the rope as snake. That is your mistake. But snake is not illusion; snake is a fact.
Similarly, the another example is given. Just like in the desert, the mirage. In the desert, sometimes the animals find that water, there is a vast mass of water, and they are after, when they're thirsty, they jump over and go farther, farther, farther. But because there is no water, he dies. But no sane man goes after that water. But water is not false. That water is being sought in a false place. Similarly, the pleasure, the pleasure between two sexes, man and woman, that is not false. But we are seeking that pleasure in a false place in this material world. Therefore you have done. It is a great science.
So there is the pleasure, this sex attraction. But that sex attraction is not material: Kṛṣṇa, rādhā kṛṣṇa-praṇaya-vikṛtir hlādinī śaktir asmāt, ekātmānāv api deha bhedaṁ gatau (CC Adi 1.5). Try to understand. For Brahman perception, Brahman pleasure, a great saintly person, he gives up everything material. He takes sannyāsa, he goes . . . undergoes severe penances, just to realize brahmānanda. So when Brahman . . . a person, ordinary person, to realize brahmānanda, he gives up everything material, do you think Kṛṣṇa, the Para-brahman, is enjoying something material? Just try to understand. Kṛṣṇa does not enjoy anything. He's Para-brahman. For understanding Brahman pleasure, a person is recommended to give up everything material. And when the Para-brahman wants to enjoy, does it means that He's enjoying something material?
This is our nescience only. This is our misunderstanding. When Para-brahman enjoys, He . . . but the difficulty is that this Māyāvādī philosopher, they cannot understand that in the spiritual world there is also pleasure. Their foolish brain cannot accommodate. Because here in this material world they have got very bad experience of this material . . . they want to make the spiritual world as zero, or imperson, due to less intelligence. But actually, real life, real pleasure, eternal pleasure is there in the spiritual world, not in this material world.
So from Bhagavad-gītā, if you study scrutinizingly each word and each śloka—not by malinterpretation, but actually as it is—then we can understand what is our eternal life, what is our eternal pleasure, how we can be transferred there. Everything is explained there. Everyone can go. Everyone can transfer himself in that spiritual world—simply by understanding Kṛṣṇa. That's all. And the Kṛṣṇa understanding is there. Kṛṣṇa is explaining Himself in the Bhagavad-gītā. He . . . if you do not introduce your so-called foolish scholarship, then you get actually back to home, back to Godhead, by simply studying Bhagavad-gītā. But if you add your foolish rascal scholarship, that "Kṛṣṇa means this and that means this, this means that," then you are lost.
Study Bhagavad-gītā as it is. You get all information how to realize Brahman, ahaṁ brahmāsmi, so 'ham. Don't misinterpret. (break) Don't . . . there is no . . . just like Kṛṣṇa . . . this verse is very plain. This verse says, na tv evāhaṁ jātu nāsam (BG 2.12). Where is the difficulty? "My dear Arjuna, both I, you . . . it is not that I did not exist, you did not exist, neither this soldier." Where is the difficulty to understand? Why should we misinterpret?
- dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre
- samavetā yuyutsavaḥ
- māmakāḥ pāṇḍavāś caiva
- kim akurvata sañjaya
- (BG 1.1)
No. The main meaning is very plain: that Dhṛtarāṣṭra is asking his private secretary, Sañjaya, "My dear Sañjaya, māmakāḥ, my sons, and pāṇḍavāḥ, my brother's sons, Pāṇḍavas, they assembled," dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre (BG 1.1), "in the Kurukṣetra field, which is known as dharma-kṣetra, the religious pilgrimage. After that meeting, what did they do?" Now, where is the, I mean, difficulty to understand this verse?
But unfortunately, one so-called scholar or so-called foolish man will come, he'll say, "Dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetra means this body." No. "Where you get this meaning, sir?" But he'll say, explain in this way: "The Pāṇḍava means five senses." Well, in which dictionary you'll find? This is going on. This rascaldom is going on. If you give up this rascaldom, simply read Bhagavad-gītā as it is, then you'll become successful in life. That is our preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness.