On Bhagavad Gita: It takes a lot to know Krishna

Acharya Prashant
7 min readDec 21, 2020

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

यो मामजमनादिं च वेत्ति लोकमहेश्वरम् ।

असम्मूढ: स मर्त्येषु सर्वपापै: प्रमुच्यते ।। 10. 3 ।।

yo māmajam anādiṁ cha vetti loka-maheśhvaram

asammūḍhaḥ sa martyeṣhu sarva-pāpaiḥ pramuchyate

He who knows Me, birth less and beginning less, the great Lord of worlds — he, among mortals, is un-deluded, he is freed from all sins.

~ Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 10, Verse 3

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Questioner (Q): It is being said that the person who knows Him as birthless and beginningless is freed from all sins. I was under the impression that everyone is supposed to settle their bills in this human life.

Why this verse seems to be giving a clean chit to even a sinner?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Don’t be taken in by the simplicity of these words. Because we are used to complexity, simplicity can delude us, mislead us. The verse simply says, “The one who knows Me as birthless and beginningless is freed from all sins.” We say, “Wow, that’s so easy! Liberation in all of ten words.”

“The one who knows Me as birthless and beginningless is freed from all sins.”

“Done! Done!”

It is equivalent of saying, the one who jumps with a velocity of 20 km/s is freed from the gravitation of earth because the speed is higher than the escape velocity that is needed. So simple! The one who jumps up with a speed of 20 km/s is freed of all gravitation. Done! Simple!

How simple is it? How simple is it? But then, these words are disarmingly deceptive. Whenever something is said from a point of simplicity, addressed to complexity, it is usually misunderstood by complexity.

All that the verse says is, “The one who knows Me as birthless and beginningless is freed of all sins.” And we say, “Oh, it’s so easy, 2-minutes…

Acharya Prashant