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Aila Gita Overview

7-8: Waste of time

9-13: Humiliation

14: 1st realization: “Lust is insatiable”

15: 2nd realization: “Only Krishna can save me”

16-17: How can I blame her?

18-21: Beauty is an illusory super-imposition

22-24: Never associate with women

9-13: Humiliation

Lust makes the wealthiest, the strongest, the cleverest into dismal beggars

Our essential choice:

Humiliation vs Humility

14: 1st realization: “Lust is insatiable”

Lose-lose game: Lust is insatiable and irresistible

(Impossible to satisfy, impossible to resist)

Ladder of abstraction:

The link from the specific to the universal takes place not by experience of material enjoyment, but by hearing and purification

15: 2nd realization: “Only Krishna can save me”

Christian idea of saving vs Vaishnava understanding of saving

Krishna saves us by giving us the opportunity to practice devotional service

16-17: How can I blame her?

Attitudes towards women:

Karmi: Sense objects

eg. All women for my enjoyment

All women except my wife - mothers

Jnani: Traps for entangling me eg. snakes

Bhakti: Fellow-servants of Krishna

Eg. Souls seeking Krishna, Vaishnavis, Gopis

18-21: Beauty is an illusory super-imposition

Worldly beauty agitates, Krishna’s beauty pacifies: Worldly beauty is limited and temporary; Krishna’s beauty, however, is eternal and eternally available for each one of us.

18-21: Beauty is an illusory super-imposition

Worldly beauty dissatisfies, Krishna’s beauty satisfies: Just as a spark doesn’t illuminate adequately, worldly beauty leaves us dissatisfied. Just as the sun provides abundant illumination, Krishna’s beauty provides us supreme satisfaction.

18-21: Beauty is an illusory super-imposition

Worldly beauty pollutes, Krishna’s beauty cleanses: Our unsatisfied thirst for worldly beauty goads us into immoral and perverse imaginations and actions. Our satisfied longing for Krishna gradually drives out all other longings from our heart.

21: How am I different from a worm?

Sex is extraordinarily ordinary:

Frequency: millions of times at every moment since creation began

Availability: in every species

Familiarity: in every lifetime till now

22-24: Never associate with women

Are my attachments holding me or am I holding my attachments?

If daydreams, hopes and plans precede indulgence, then I am holding my attachments

22-24: Never associate with women

Our goal is not to prove our sense-control but to serve Krishna.

Avoid association unless genuinely necessary

The Billy Graham rule.