3 ways to see Krishnas hand in hard times Varanasi 1 – Chaitanya Charan

This is an AI-generated transcript and it might not be fully accurate:

Hare Krishna. So today morning is the second part of our discussion. Yesterday we discussed about how to see Krishna’s hand in our life, especially in terms of, because we thought of three things we discussed.

How did Krishna guide me? How did Krishna arrange for me? And how did Krishna permit? Yes, how did Krishna permit? So we talked about that point of gap. Today morning we will discuss that when there are difficulties in our life, when we go through hard times, at that time how to see Krishna’s hand. Now, this is probably one of the strongest arguments for atheism.

That there are broadly the arguments for atheism that fall in logical, psychological and moral, three categories. Logical is, for example, that why should we believe something which is not visible? Psychological is that, oh, it’s just we need something, we long for some protective figure, that’s why we imagine some God. But the moral argument is that if there were a good God, how could such a good God allow so much suffering in our life? And that is a complex question.

Sometimes we present karma as a way of life, it’s all because of karma. See, I haven’t seen in our scriptures anywhere, karma being used to explain away an individual’s suffering. Nowhere have I seen that when a person is suffering, somebody else does it, it’s your own karma.

When Andhropathy is abducted, nobody does it. You must have done something because of which you are exonerated like this. Or for the matter of Sita.

When Brutu has his citizens coming to him and saying that, we are starving, it’s a famine, it is a sin, it’s your own karma, live with it. No, so the point is, in the first canto, when Parikshit Maharaj is talking with the bull, we ask him, what is the cause of your suffering? And the bull says, Vakyabheda Vimukta. That there are different philosophers who have different ideas about the cause of suffering.

And it’s very difficult to know what is the exact cause. Now what do I mean by this? That yes, at a philosophical level, the principle of karma does make sense. So the theme which I am going to talk about today is that, that when we are suffering, we could be karma conscious or we could be Krishna conscious.

And we could say karma conscious is one thing and Krishna conscious is another thing. Now if being karma conscious helps us to be Krishna conscious, that is good. But sometimes, what do I mean by this? That Krishna consciousness is the bigger reality.

And within that, karma is one factor that goes under. If we can see it like this, that is favorable. That is more favorable.

So this will be anupula. This is favorable for our Krishna consciousness. But sometimes what happens for us is, that karma consciousness becomes so big, that Krishna becomes very small.

We don’t want to be so karma conscious that we are not at all Krishna conscious. So I will explain what I mean by this also. Is it better now? So as far as karma consciousness, Krishna consciousness, what I mean by that is that, when somebody is going through difficult times, telling them it’s your own karma, it’s not really helpful in any way.

Why is it not helpful? Because ultimately, it is a past karma I have done. I don’t know what was the past karma. I don’t know what I should be avoiding now.

I don’t know what I can do about it now. So it is not at all practically helpful. Now we could say, is karma not a part of the philosophy of Krishna consciousness? Well yes, it is a part of the philosophy of Krishna consciousness.

But it is only a part. It is not the whole. So what do I mean by that? That actually, with respect to the problem of evil, yesterday I talked about when we move from where we are to success, that is basically from our perspective, choice and chance.

Now, I am talking about it from, as I mentioned, a purely objective perspective, without a person having philosophical presumptions. Choice means, what is in my control, and chance, I mean, beyond my control. So, I was in Dubai a couple of weeks ago, and they tell me that, generally Indians who go to the West, they go primarily in software.

Those who go in the Middle East, they go either as doctors, they go in mining, chemical engineering and all that, or they go as labour. Of course, nowadays they are going more as finance also, because Dubai has become quite an international hub now. They provide a lot of tax relief and other things.

But the point is, those who go in the mining industry, especially, it’s one thing if you are an employee, but if you own a mine, then what happens, you may dig up and you may get oil, but the price of the oil and how much money you get out of it depends on factors completely beyond your control. Because, if more oil is generated from some other part of the world, then what happens, the price of oil drops. And then, the same thing which is super profitable, no, no, it’s no longer profitable.

That’s what happened to Russia. Soviet Russia, still now it’s like a, you could say a geopolitical mystery how such a huge empire collapsed so quickly, Soviet Russia. I don’t know how many of you were born in Soviet Russia, I was still there.

1989 it was, but when I was growing up, at that time, there was cold water, sometimes it would become hot. And the war was going on. It was that, basically what happened, Soviet Russia was producing oil and that was the major source of its exports.

But then, suddenly, the American government worked with Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia has been creating, keeping its oil production minimum, at a particular level. And suddenly increased oil production. It increased oil production, by that the oil prices dropped.

Soviet Russia just became completely bankrupt. And they came to a situation where, they had huge fighter aircrafts, but they had no money to pay the pilots to run the aircrafts. So now what happens, what I am talking about is, that sometimes, just things beyond our control, which is to work in ways that cause great trouble to us.

So often, when we talk about karma, it is, we think of it as to explain this. That chance is your own doing. And there is some truth to that.

But, from what I have observed in scripture, the philosophy is, of karma, is not to explain what seems to be chance for us, but to empower what is still a choice for us. Let me explain what it means. That, ultimately, there is suffering in the world.

And we have to deal with it. And whichever philosophy you go to in the world, as far as suffering is concerned, there are only three possible explanations for suffering. What are three possible explanations? Suffering is a fact.

Everybody has suffering of some kind or the other. Even people who are very wealthy, they also have sufferings in their own way. Bhagavatam defines suffering in a very simple way.

It says, what is it? That, that which is priya, that which is viya, we want yoga with it. Then we want to get what is priya. That which is apriya, we want viyog from it.

See, we like someone, we want to spend time with them. We dislike someone, we want to avoid that person. Suppose we go for a cab.

We think, okay, I’ll have a great time in that cab. And a person whom we dislike, that person and we happen to be in the same room. So, what is this? Actually, when there is viyog from the priya, there is a yoga with the priya.

So, this is the simple definition of blissness. What we want, we don’t get. And what we don’t want, we get.

Now, the way it may happen, for different people, it will be different. For a person who is, who is not famous, that person, if you look, nobody recognizes me. For a person who is famous, everybody recognizes me.

And that’s the problem. I want her private time, I just never have any private time. So, it’s not easy.

Now, we may think that’s a different, that’s a nice problem to have. But once you have that problem, it’s not so nice. Because it’s like, you’re constantly, there’s no privacy, no sense of peace, always surrounded by people, hounded by people.

So, every situation has its own problems. The point is, suffering is unavoidable. Suffering is just a fact of life.

Now, we could say suffering has three different causes. One is, it is just chance. The other is, it is just God.

What do I mean by this? That chance is the atheistic way of looking at things. Ultimately, life is just like a lottery. Some people win, some people lose.

And, if you lose, bad luck. That’s all there is to it. Now, this is actually a very difficult way to live.

Anything may happen, and there’s no rhyme and reason for it. How do we live life like that? It’s like, somebody saying that, whether you study or don’t study, what marks you get, it’s by chance. What is the point of studying? What is the point of doing anything? On the other side, so this is the atheistic view.

Now, atheism does offer an emotionally compelling argument against the existence of God. What kind of God would allow the kind of suffering that is present in the world? And suffering present in the world can be enormous. I won’t go into the details of suffering.

So, atheism is not just a foolish argument. There are some arguments, some things which are foolish. But at an emotional level, somebody has seen a terrible suffering in life, so where is God? It’s a reasonable question.

But then, atheism does not remove the suffering of life. It only removes the hope that the suffering may have some worth. Atheism also says that Priya and Ampriya, then Yoga be Yoga.

That is what will happen for atheists also. You say innocent children are being killed in war. And whether you believe in God or not, those children are still being killed.

So, atheism, it does not remove, what does it remove? It does not remove suffering. Suffering is still going to be there. What it removes is the hope that the suffering can have some purpose.

That there is, this whole thing is going somewhere. There is some plan, there is some point to what we are doing. Now, if we go towards the Abrahamic religions.

Abrahamic religions is Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Now they may not say exactly that God is the cause of suffering. But ultimately, what happens is, God is the supreme control.

And, say, if it is God who decides that this child be born in a poor family, let this child be born blind, or, let this, let this person be in a place where there is so much crime. So then, what happens is that, some other child is born in a place where there is a lot of peace, a lot of prosperity, a lot of power. It makes God seem discriminatory.

And not just discriminatory, arbitrary and discriminatory. So, one of the problems with the Abrahamic religions is that, in terms of the love of God, there are practitioners in any world religion who have developed a very high level of love of God. There are saints in every tradition.

At the same time, the understanding of the world that is offered, that may be less or more clear in the philosophies associated with particular traditions. So, because these religions do not accept reincarnation, so what they are left with is, this life is the only life we have. And therefore, the suffering that people face is very, very difficult.

So this leads to the idea that God himself, as I said, is discriminatory and arbitrary. And if, if we consider these are the only two options we have, either an arbitrary, discriminatory God or just blind, unthinking Charles, it is quite easy to go towards atheism. Because, if, say, we are working for a boss and that boss just fires us without any reason, no explanation, no reason, suddenly we are fired.

You think you are such a cruel person? Now, to even be, to work faithfully as a person who might fire us at any time is difficult. Or to speak of love such a person. So, to devote ourselves to a God who is completely arbitrary is extremely difficult.

It’s like going back to the exam metaphor. That, that if you study, but, there is, what marks you get is completely random. So, you study, you give your exams, but, ultimately the mark sheet is generated by a random number generator.

You see, that is outrageous. But, suppose we have the mark sheet is generated by an arbitrary examiner who doesn’t even bother about what we have written. Whatever marks they want, they give it to us.

Now, what kind of system is that? See, both systems are messed up. Now, the third system in between is a system of karma and multi-life progression. What does karma and multi-life progression mean? That, what happens in our life, that there is cause effect principle which works over a longer duration than what we see.

So, see, the problem with the chance idea or thought process is that there is a part of life which does not work like that. So, for example, normally, if somebody eats food regularly, eats food properly, they exercise, they take care of their health, normally, if somebody smokes, somebody drinks, they are more likely to get cancer and stuff like that. So, there is a connection between our actions and the results we get.

But, at the same time, there are situations where the connection is not there. There are some people who may eat very healthy and live very modestly, crudely and still they may get some cancer or something like that. And there is somebody who might smoke every day for 30-40 years and never get lung cancer.

Now, these exceptions do exist. But still, they are exceptions. So, if we say everything is by chance, then we don’t function like that.

Because to some extent, we do see that actions produce results. And that’s why, by changing our actions, we can, we can, we seek better results. So, chance doesn’t work on one side.

But we consider God as the explanation. On the other side, that makes God very unloving. So, what karma says is that there is a principle that, let’s put it this way, a principle that action leads to result.

This is true. But, quite often, there is a back story. There is a bigger picture.

That when action leads to result, it is not just there could be A1 plus A2. That means, there is some action in the past which is also contributing to the present result. And this is not difficult to understand.

So, here, what I am trying to do, I am trying to look at God’s hand but I am trying to see how karma fits in. I said we want to be karma conscious but not at the cost of being Krishna conscious. So, when I was introduced to Sri Mahadeva 30 years ago, so at that time I started, I was very inspired and I was travelling with a senior devotee.

He was, he was going, he was sending me programs. And he was very polite and very kind and could answer questions very patiently. I had gone to one place and after a class over there, one person came to ask him questions.

And he just completely neglected it. When the person was coming to ask questions, he was looking at him as if he was not looking at him. And then he called me and said, you had asked me that question earlier and I think let’s discuss the answer.

So, I found it very odd and I asked him, can I ask, that person was trying to ask a question but he completely neglected it. So, he said that I have been coming here for many years and each time I come, he has, he monopolizes all my time. Some people ask questions to gain knowledge.

Some people ask questions to show knowledge. They will ask a question that will go for 5-7 minutes. And then, after that also what happens is, if you answer, they just come up with some technicality and object to the answer and just go on and on.

He said, I have given him a lot of time but I feel it’s unproductive. He said, maybe somebody else can go through it but I have found that I cannot really help him much. So, if I start answering his questions, I have all the time for him.

So, from an indigent perspective, somebody approaching you and not responding, that seems impolite. But if you look at a bigger picture, okay, it’s not impolite. There’s a reason for it.

So, the way people behave with us is not just based on our indigent behavior. It could also be based on our past behavior. So, the idea that when a smaller frame of reference does not make sense, when things do not make sense within a smaller frame, we try to look for a bigger frame.

And we try to figure out things, okay. What is happening over here? So, this is how we also logically function. If somebody is very cold with us, so, okay, why are you so cold with me? I have not done anything wrong.

That may be true but then maybe we belong to a particular community, we come from a particular religion or a particular region and that person was maybe mistreated by somebody from that particular demographic before. And then that’s why that person is taking it out on us. You see, there’s a difference between fair and logical.

They’re not the same thing. So, that, say, for example, there’s this phenomenon called anti-Semitism where Jews are often targeted. Now, or say, a particular, as I said, if Indians go to America, Indians are among the wealthiest minority in America.

And that’s why Indians are being targeted a little bit by the current government. So, what happens is Indians, in the past, many Indians are hard-working, talented people who contribute to our economy. But now the fear is you come there and you take away all our jobs.

So, if an Indian goes to America and he is treated cold by some Americans. Indians are treated cold by them. It will not be because of what that particular Indian has done.

So, you getting angry with me because somebody else took away your job. Now, that is, it’s not fair but it’s logical. See, fair is in a moral sense.

Logical is in an intellectually understandable sense. It’s intellectually comprehensible, isn’t it? So, for example, somebody had a long, hard day, maybe we tried to talk with someone and that person just snaps at us and he said, why are you talking, why are you acting like this? And then he explained that they got some bad news from home, maybe their child is sick and they disturbed that. It’s not fair that you hit me because you are harsh with me because your child is sick.

But it’s logical, I understand where you’re coming from. So what happens is, with respect to karma, the karma philosophy is logical but it does not seem fair. There is a sense to it but emotionally it does not seem fair to us.

Although intellectually we can make sense of it. So what happens, this bigger picture, in this bigger picture, that the results that we get are a result of past and present actions both. That helps us to make sense of life.

That there is, everything is not just by chance. There is some ordinary principle, there is some God. At the same time, there is also some, there is something bigger going on.

Take another example of bank account. Now I put some money in the bank, say I put a thousand dollars in my bank account. My bank balance will increase by a thousand dollars.

If I put money over there, where did the money go? Now you could say that how much money you put in and what the bank balance will show, that’s just by random, that’s by chance. Who would want to put money in a bank like this? Or you say that, no matter how much money you put in, the bank manager or the cashier will decide how much your account will show. And that was not fair, that makes sense.

But suppose, say I had taken a debt worth thousand dollars and now I put a thousand dollars, a thousand dollars is not lost, a thousand dollars is used to make up for my debt. The loan which I had taken that is removed. So I have put a thousand, what I see is still zero.

But that does not mean that it is all vain. So what we are trying to do is, here, let’s go back over here, karma, it can be used to explain that which is beyond our control. It’s your own karma.

And that is fair now. But the philosophy of karma is much more to empower our choice. If you are earning money, if you are saving and you are putting it in your bank, the saving habit is not fruitless.

Now our actions matter even if they don’t seem to matter. I am saving money but it is not reflecting in my account. It matters.

It matters even if it doesn’t seem to matter. So, that choice which we have, if you see in the Mahabharata or the Ramayana, or for that matter Bhagavad Gita, the bad things happen to every character. Whether Lord Ram is exiled, the Pandavas are exiled, or Tarshid was given a death sentence.

Bad things happen to everyone. And the focus is not so much on karma. That, ok, what was the karma that they did? Now we can say, of course these are divine characters and whatever and go in that direction.

But overall the focus is not so much on the karma. The focus is on their choice. Isn’t it? The focus is on what Parikshit Maharaj chooses to do.

The focus is Krishna is there with Arjuna right next to him. And Arjuna has to face a situation that is like nightmarish. See, when we say bad things can happen, there are many degrees of bad things.

So, that, for example, I think I may have discussed in the previous class, there is adversity and there is atrocity. What is the difference between adversity and atrocity? It doesn’t exist.

Adversity is like cups. Okay. Adversity is the ones like, you can feel the cause, like this person is in such a way.

And I need unfavorable situations at least once. We are not able to say how this has come to my life. Yes.

Adversity is like, say it’s like, if it’s a cold weather, you have to take a bath. And the power goes off. And you take cold water bath.

That’s adversity. But, if you came to know, somebody turned off our heater. That is atrocity.

So, adversity is more, you could say, it is coming from nature. It is a part of life. But atrocity, there is some human cause for it.

Now, among these two, which is more difficult to bear? Atrocity. How could somebody do this? Now, actually, for a responsible person, what is even more difficult to bear is agony. Agony is where a good person is left with no good choice.

Like a bad thing happens to me. A bad thing is done to me. And a bad thing has to be done by me.

So, Arjuna, when he has to fight a war at Kurukshetra, he has to fight against Bhishma and Drona. And these are the elders. They are not just any random elders.

They are the elders from whom we learnt archery. These are the elders for whose pleasure we learnt archery. And these are the same elders that he has to now kill with that same archery.

So, what did I do that I had to be put in such a situation where I had to act in this way? So, now Krishna is with him and Krishna says, I know past doesn’t have future. And yet Krishna does not give Arjuna a flashback. When he says, you did this in that life and you did this in that life and that’s why you are here.

So, in general, when we say that if karma is a system of justice, then why don’t we know what did we do in the past, because of which we are dealing with, because we are in good suffering. Now we could go into various reasons for that. But the fact is we don’t.

And we can say we are finite. But even when the infinite Krishna is with Arjuna, Krishna does not focus on giving Arjuna any reason. Krishna does say, we have both gone through many lifetimes and you don’t remember, I remember.

So, if Krishna does not reveal something, what does it mean? That is not so important. The point is, Arjuna, now this is the situation you are in. You have to make the best of the situation you are in.

That means, now why hard times come in our life? That is quite difficult to figure out. To whatever extent we can, we should figure it out. I’ll explain that shortly.

But my point is, Karma should not just become a random waving of the arms, or waving of magic wand. It’s all because of Karma. That’s as I said, even if it’s logical, it doesn’t feel fair for us.

It’s not particularly helpful either emotionally or practically. What do I do right now? So, with this understanding, when distress comes in our life, what do we do? There are broadly three things. Yesterday I talked about the acronym.

Yesterday was about gaps. Today we’ll talk about peace. So, what do I mean by peace? That when bad things happen, look for the good around the bad.

So, when something bad comes in our life, how do we face the bad? How do we see the hand of God in the bad? In that particular situation, look for the good around the bad. Second is, look for the good to counter the bad. And third is, look for the good that will emerge from the bad.

So, let’s try to look at these. Look for the good around the bad. What does it mean, say, if I’m sick, and I’m in pain.

I serve as a special consultant in the 10th hospital. So, we have a special care department there, which is quite active and quite moving at one time. But still, when some patients come, they are completely frustrated.

Nobody likes to go to the hospital, especially when you’re admitted there. And there’s, of course, somebody with a hypochondria. You know hypochondria? What it is? Oh.

I appreciate how ignorant you are. No, it’s not sarcastic. Hypochondria is actually a very widespread phenomenon in the West.

It’s called a first-world problem. You’ve heard of the first-world problem? First-world problem means that life is so comfortable that people create some problems for themselves. But the idea is that people feel so lonely, people feel so neglected, that they pretend they are sick so that they will get some attention and some affection.

So, that is called hypochondria. So, what happens is that many people go to therapists. So, in the West, many of the countries in the West are welfare states or they have some welfare schemes.

What does it mean? That your basic needs, the government should provide for it. So, if you don’t have a job, then for your sustenance, the government will give some room. Government will give some support for you.

In America, they call it food stamps. The government will give you some house to stay in. So, they try to avoid the problem of homelessness.

So, in some countries, they have also provided health care. That if you are sick and you don’t have money, the government will provide health care. But then, now there is physical health and there is mental health.

Now, how much mental health can the government provide? Some people go to therapists just because they have no one to talk with. And if they go to therapists, they are just taking the time with therapists. How much time will a therapist give? Isn’t it? So, it becomes a big problem over there.

So, the point is, hypochondria is when people pretend to be sick just to get some attention and affection. Now, most people are not like that. But when they are sick, when they come to a hospital, at that time, it may often happen that they are constantly complaining.

Not often, sometimes. It happens that they are complaining, they are irritated, they are just, this is wrong, that is wrong. They are just irritated.

So, one nurse was telling me over there that some patients are sick and they make us sick of us. They make us sick of them. So, it’s not bad.

Okay, you are sick, that’s no problem. But you are being treated. You are being cared for.

You have medicine. You have, look for the good around the bad. The good is, the bad is there, we don’t deny it.

So, how do we, how can we be Krishna conscious when something bad happens? You know, I did so much, you know, I practiced so much bhakti, I did so much puja, I did this, this, and still this bad thing happened to me. So, the way we do it is, look for the good around the bad. To try to make sense, to try to see good, to try to see God in the bad itself is extremely difficult.

And look at how to see the bad, but in general, shift the vision, look for the good around the bad. So, when we go through life, there are times when bad things do happen to us, if we consider our life. Situation that comes upon us, situation coming upon us, we could say that there is something good about it, and something bad about it.

Now, it’s not that simple. We could say sometimes it could be also that there is 90% bad and 10% good. That is also possible.

But still the fact is, that in whatever situation we are in, there is some good and there is some bad. So ultimately, it’s our decision. If we are going to fixate on what is bad in our life, then it’s almost impossible to ever be even accepting of God’s existence, or what to speak of loving to love God.

So, I was in Scotland a couple of months ago, for 3 May, November. So, at that time I met one devotee. He attended my class, asking very intelligent questions.

So then I asked him, what does he do? So, I noticed that his accent seems Scottish. For us, English is English. When I started going abroad, each place of English has its own accent.

The English of England is very different from the English of Glasgow, the way people speak. The English of New York is very different from the English of Texas. He didn’t seem Scottish or British.

He told me that I am from Ukraine. And I asked him, what do you do? So he said, I am a doctor, and I drive over. I said, really? So then he explained that, you look very educated, dignified kind of person.

But what happened is, when the war broke out in Ukraine, at that time, he had to leave. He left with his family, and then UK offered refuge. He was a doctor, in fact he told me that he was the head of cardiology, in a big hospital in Ukraine.

But then what happens, in the western world, their medical standards are sometimes excruciatingly high. That means that, the degrees which he had got in Ukraine, that is not organised in the UK. So he has to do some other further education, and it’s very expensive.

And only then he will be able to practice medicine. So now, for a person who was not just a doctor, but a head of cardiology department, to try and go over, it’s a terrible situation. But he said that, I’m grateful that, you know, nothing happened to my family, we all could come here, I’ve got a job, I can take care of my family, my children are going to school, and we are not very far from a devotee community.

He was a devotee there also, he was introduced to bhakti there in Ukraine, so he continued on. So now, what has happened is, it’s a terrible habit, there’s no denying that it’s terrible. But, he was telling me that, I can look at some of my other friends, some of others, they have gone to some other countries, they are refugees, but they have not yet got jobs.

So they have to depend on the government, to give them some financial support. And in the west, normally they have this humanitarian leader, if somebody comes as a political refugee, then they offer support. But there’s a lot of political turbulence going on.

And that can just be taken away anytime. When you are depending on the government, to provide money, the government can take away anytime. But then, if you have your own job, it’s much different.

At least I have a job. So, it is, we all have this capacity, to look for the good around us. You could say, I was practicing Bhakti, and why did this thing have to happen to me? Where is Krishna? Well, Krishna, you can see his hand, in the good, in the bad.

So, now, let me elaborate on this a little bit. There are different metaphors, which we may use to explain the nature of the world. And I will go into those metaphors, maybe in a later class.

But, at this point, that, if we consider, there is somebody who is sick, and they are in the hospital. They are in pain. Okay, the pain is there, but what is the good around it? You have a good doctor, you have a competent support staff.

You are being taken care of. That is the good around the bad. So, look for the good around the bad.

And we see this repeatedly. When Lord Ram, for example, is exiled to the forest, what does he say? There are citizens who come and say, this is such a terrible thing. You were virtuous, you never did anything wrong.

See, exile is a terrible, terrible punishment. Exile is just one state, one level below execution. Execution, you take away your life.

Exile, you take away everything except your life. Why? He says, you did not do anything wrong. And Lord Ram says, what is terrible about it? He said that, it is good for Ravasthas, for householders, to interact with the sages and learn wisdom from them.

But most householders don’t get time for it, till they are elderly. For me, in youth itself, I have time to grow in wisdom. He says that, every child is indebted to their parents, and they want to repay the debt.

But here, I have an opportunity to honour my father’s word. And to do some sacrifice for the one who sacrificed so much for me. A younger brother is like a son.

And every parent wants their children to be successful. I can, in my presence, become the king. So, that is our family’s success.

I see only goodness everywhere. There is a bit of a stretch. But that is Lord Ram.

He is able to see good around the bad also. So, when I got polio, I was about one. My mother took me to a polio clinic.

To get the polio vaccine. It is one of the most reliable vaccines in the world. Polio is almost eliminated from the world.

But what happened was, there was a cold storage problem. The vaccines had to be kept cold. But there was a power supply issue over there.

And because of that, the vaccines got heated up. The fridge in which they had been kept did not have power. And when the vaccine was given to me, because the germs in it had multiplied, instead of preventing polio, it ended up causing polio.

I don’t remember any of it. I was about one. And I was learning to walk, I am told.

I could never walk normally thereafter. But what I remember is, when I was about two and a half or three, one of our distant relatives had come to our home. And she was consoling my mother.

It is so sad your son got polio. And I remember my mother’s voice, very calm, clear, confident. She said, whatever he lacks physically, God will provide him intellectually.

Now I don’t know why she said that. Whether it was based on some observation of some intellectual ability I had, whether it was a hope, whether it was a prayer, whatever it is, it stayed with me. And as I grew up, I couldn’t do much physically.

But I did find that I was intellectually quite good at it. I could analyze, I could remember, I could articulate. So, I developed in that direction.

Now, what happens is that, for each one of us, there is bad in our life. Now, we can see God in the good around the bad. So, this bad thing is there, but these good things are still there in my life.

And that is the choice we have to make. Consciously shift our attention to what is good around the bad. So, what things are right in my life? At a bigger philosophical level, if you want to look at this, there are hundreds and thousands of things that can go wrong.

Our body is so fragile and vulnerable. If we consider our body, what is the nature of our body? Actually, this looks like a person, not a body. But okay, what I am trying to say, let me put it this way.

One bug from inside, or one bang from outside. Is this still a body? One tiny virus, one tiny bug, or one is a car, it’s us. So, we are so fragile.

So, the fact that we are alive, in spite of how dangerous the world is, in spite of how fragile our body is, that we are alive itself is a miracle. Most of you are still quite young. So, I see myself connecting with my friends, college school and college friends.

In school, especially, we had a batch of about 40-50 students in one class. And I am around less than 50, about 49 now. So, I found that 12 of us, my students, have died.

Because of accident, because of car, because of disease, whatever. So now, it says, whatever we are, particular age, we all probably know people who died before they attained your age. So, my point is that life itself is a gift.

And if we are alive, that is itself one big thing that is right with us. And there are so many things which could have gone wrong. So, during the course of our life, we often look for gifts in life.

And that’s where we see the hand of God. That means something good happens to us. Okay, you know, I got this, that mission is very good quality.

I got this job. This good thing happened. We look for the gifts in life.

And it’s good to look at those. But what is fundamental is the gift of life. That we are alive itself, that everyday when we wake up, our heart is still beating.

We are still breathing. That is a gift. And that we do very little to actually continue this.

Just the fact that we are alive is for a thoughtful person evidence that there is something big that is right in my life. So, look for the good around the bad. Now, after that, what is the acronym we are discussing? This is why it is so important for us if we want to be really Krishna conscious, it is that we need to cultivate gratitude.

As we say, count your blessings. Count your blessings, we say. Now, I’ll come back to this point a little later.

But count your blessings, that’s important. But what is important is, after that, make your blessings count. That means what? That in times of distress, we remember the things that are good in our life.

So, if I have never developed the habit of counting my blessings, then when something goes wrong, it is very difficult to count the blessings at that time. Because the only thing we will count is the amount of curses that want to come out of our mouth towards whoever hurt us. So, it is very difficult.

But regularly, this is right in my life, this is right in my life, that is right in my life. Now, it is very important we say count our blessings, that sometimes people try to feel grateful. But we are told you should feel grateful for this and that and that and that.

And what is this? See, anything can be taken to an extreme. So, many psychologists, their attitude is very positive emotion. But then they found that many people who write a gratitude journal tend to become more depressed than others.

Who don’t write as attitude journal. Not all, many actually find it very helpful. But what happens is, sometimes the society and the world tells us you should feel grateful for this.

And then we don’t feel grateful for it. And then we feel dreadful that we don’t feel grateful. And we end up getting depressed by that.

So, we cannot even legislate our emotions. So, when you are talking about count your blessings, it is not just what we should feel grateful for. It is what I actually feel grateful for.

So, at a philosophical level we understand that among so many kalpas, we are born in that particular kalpa where Krishna came and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came. This is so fortunate. We feel grateful for that.

Okay, EMS. Right now I am not getting a job. That’s a big worry for me.

Which kalpa I was born in doesn’t matter to me. So, if you don’t feel grateful for something, don’t beat yourself up for it. What is it that I feel grateful for? What do I actually feel is right in my life? That’s when interacting with a wide variety of people.

How much opportunity we have, it depends. But interacting with a wide variety of people helps a lot. In India, when two students come to school, they may ask you, So, where do you live? In America, especially in certain communities, the kids ask you not where do you live, with whom do you live, your mother or your father? Because mother and father practically never live together.

So, it is very difficult for a child to grow up in such an environment. So, just having a family, two-parent family together, that is a blessing. And that is not what many people have.

So, there are many things you may take for granted. And you cannot force yourself to feel grateful for this. But through our own experiences, when we see what somebody has gone through, or what people are facing, it’s easier to get a perspective, look for the good around the bad.

Now, after this, the second part is, look for the good to counter the bad. Now, we may say, Okay, all that is good. Yeah, I lost my job.

I have a family, I have this and that. Listen, I lost my job. Isn’t it? See, in America, I haven’t met a single person who says, I am jobless.

The phrase they use in America is, I am between jobs. Between jobs means, okay, I had that job, I don’t have it now, I will get another job. So, in India, there is a lot of competition.

There is not so much competition. Getting jobs is not that difficult. I am between jobs.

They are quite nonchalant about it. Sometimes too nonchalant. In India, if you are here, in your family, you lost your job.

It’s like somebody died in the family. So, the point is that, functionally there is a problem, I lost my job. So, I may say, so many other things are right in my life, but what do I do about this? So, if we consider, this is like a big circle.

There may be 10 things which are the good around the bad. Now, within that, maybe I can find 3 things that can help me to counter the bad. Okay, I have good health, I have a mind balance, I have my own home.

I don’t have a big mortgage. So, there are good things around the bad. But what I could say is that, I have a degree, I have some work experience, I have friends who can help me find a job.

Look for the good around, not just around the bad, but look for the good that can help us to counter the bad. Whereas, Parikshit Maharaj is cursed to die in 7 days. That’s blatantly unfair.

A small mistake and a completely disproportionate punishment. Now, Shringi could have cursed Parikshit Maharaj to die immediately also. You disrespect your father, die right now.

Why did he give him 7 days? Because for Shringi, what he thought was that, that Parikshit has become drunk by arrogance because of his power. He thinks that he can disrespect a sage like my father. So, what he wanted to do was subject Parikshit Maharaj to the sense of powerlessness.

You thought you are a powerful king who can do whatever you want, but you are so powerless, your death is coming, you can do nothing about it. So, he wanted to subject Parikshit to greater pain by giving him 7 days. Now, when Parikshit renounced the world and went to the forest, the sages came over there.

So, at that time, Parikshit Maharaj doesn’t waste time asking, why did this happen to me? He doesn’t respond, maybe I did something in the past life, what did I do in which life? He didn’t go there. He says that, he expresses gratitude to the sages that in this great moment of test for me, all of you have come here to offer your guidance and your blessings. And for that, I am grateful.

So, look for the good that helps us to conquer the bad. So, you can ask, why did this bad happen? It has happened now. It is here, that’s why I talk about chance and choice.

The chance, we can say it is karma, your own past karma. But the focus of the karma philosophy is not why something happened. It is that, whatever the reason something happened, what you do about it will make a difference.

That’s why it’s meant to empower our choice. Now, how much what we do will make a difference, that may be different in different situations. Say, somebody, they save money and they build a financial nest for themselves.

They have some security for the future. Now, they have squandered all the money and they lost all the money or they suddenly found that they had a debt which they didn’t know about. Maybe they got it from their parents or something.

And they are in big financial trouble. That’s unfair. But okay, how you spend money right now still matters.

A sudden debt may have come upon you because of no reason. But still, how you manage your money right now matters. So, karma is more about empowering our choice than explaining what seems to be chance for us.

So, empowering our choice means that look for the good around the bad so that we have a positive spirit. Now, having a positive spirit is good enough but still they have to have a practical problem. Isn’t it? What do I do with the practical problem? Look for what resources we have among those which can be used to complete this.

So look for the good that helps us to counter the bad. So you can ask why did the bad happen? It has happened now. It is here, that’s why I talk about chance and choice.

The chance, you can say it is karma, your own past karma. But the focus of the karma philosophy is not why something happened. It is that whatever the reason something happened, what you do about it will make a difference.

That’s why it’s meant to empower our choice. Now how much what we do will make a difference, that may be different in different situations. Say somebody, they save money and they build a financial nest for themselves.

They have some security for future. Now they have squandered all the money and they lost all the money. Or they suddenly found that they had a debt which they didn’t know about.

Maybe they got it from their parents or something. And they are in big financial trouble. That’s unfair.

But okay, how you spend money right now still matters. A sudden debt may have come upon you because of no reason. But still how you manage your money right now matters.

So karma is more about empowering our choice than explaining what seems to be chance. So empowering our choice means that look for the good around the bad so that we have a positive spirit. Now having a positive spirit is good enough but still we have a practical problem.

Isn’t it? What do I do with the practical problem? Look for what resources we have among those which can be used to deal with that situation. Look for the good that can help us to turn the back. When Prakopas went to America, he said, बोरो कुरुपा कोईने कृष्णा अधमेरव्रति बोरो कुरुपा कोईने कृष्णा Krishna, you will be very merciful to me.

So what is the mercy? He is old. He is elderly at least. He has no money.

He has no institutional support. He has no followers. His body is subject to heart attack.

What is good? He said, at least although I have no facility, at least I have the opportunity to carry out my spiritual master’s instruction. So he is grateful for that. Look for the good around the bad.

But from that, the thought is okay, I will do it. Then you will do it with the opportunity. So Prabhupada, his focus when he went to America, generally if you are to present yourself, you have to have some credentials.

Then spirituality, there is no, okay, you have got a PhD in spirituality. The credentials don’t come like that. The credentials have to be, in one sense, they have to be earned by one’s behavior, by one’s words, one’s actions.

But there has to be a starting point. So the starting point for Prabhupada was his Bhagavatam. He had written three volumes of the Bhagavatam.

And now with Chargipati, everybody can become an author. It has become very easy. Now, many publishing houses, when an author submits some book drafts for them, now publishing houses are considering whether we should interview the authors.

Do you actually know the subject? It happened in one case that one author wrote a book about physics. And when he was asked, what is Newton’s law, third law of motion, he wouldn’t tell that. And he wrote a book on popular physics.

Now, how did he write the book? Well, AI wrote the whole book for him. So the thing I am saying is that, actually, during those times, 1970s, there was practically no technology available. Writing a book was a huge task.

So Prabhupada, he had those Bhagavatam volumes with him. And that helped him, at least to some extent, to establish his credibility. He is an author and he has written these books.

He is not just, as one of my Prabhupada disciples said, when I met Swami, I was, who is this? When I saw the written books, he is not just somebody who woke up one day and said, I thought that I am God. Not like that. So what do I have to counter? So this is where, okay, one is the attitude.

We have to have a positive attitude. But after having a positive attitude, we have to do something practical. So look for the good around the bad.

Look for the good to counter the bad. So one is, it will make us positive. Look for the good around the bad.

Look for the good that can help us to counter the bad. That will help us to become practical. And there will always be something that we will not be able to do a huge difference, but always we can make some difference.

What can I do to counter the bad? So if I am sick, and okay, I don’t know why I am sick. At least I know, okay, I should not eat unhealthy food. I know it will increase my sickness.

I have that much knowledge. Okay, if I eat this way, I take this medicine, this will work. Look for the good to counter the bad.

And third is, look for the good that will emerge from the bad. This is what will make us patient. That sometimes when bad things happen, where do we see the hand of Krishna over there? Oh, Krishna has still kept all this right in my life and Krishna has given me this to face this.

Krishna has given me these weapons, these resources to counter it. But then sometimes Krishna’s plan is revealed with time. So something good will emerge from the bad.

So that does not mean the bad good. Bad is still the bad. And being God conscious doesn’t mean we have to try to think of the bad as good.

It’s still bad. But now for example, for Prabhupada, nobody has been in his outer region in India. Even when he went to America, nobody from India was there to help him.

Even his God brothers, all that he asked them once was that he had already got a sponsor from India who was ready to support him in building a temple in America. But because India was under socialist rule at that time, it had a very rigid control on finances. So for an exchange, they didn’t want money from India to go outside.

So sending money was very difficult. And one of Prabhupada’s God brothers was on talking terms when he knew the President of India at that time. So Prabhupada just told him, this is for a temple, please go and talk to him.

His God brother didn’t even bother to reply to his letters. Prabhupada felt naturally discouraged. But then what happened through it all, he was discouraged but he was never so discouraged that he gave up practicing.

Or gave up trying to share. Eventually what happened, it was with no assistance from India that with people from the West who he had cultivated, it was that Prabhupada built Krishna consciousness. So for so many years, things didn’t work out in India.

And when they worked out in America, the very unlikeliness of his success made it even more glorious. So if Prabhupada had a big following in India, they had gone and helped him, it would have been easy for Prabhupada. But the way Krishna worked it out, it was so much more glorious.

It glorified Prabhupada so much. So look for the good that will emerge from the bad. Now how long will it take for the good to emerge from the bad? Again, that we don’t know.

For the Pandavas, their exile, for Lord Rama, their exile was 14 years. For the Pandavas it was 12 plus 1. We don’t know 12 plus 1 multiplied by 12 plus 1 many times. Because when they discovered the incognito exile, they would have to go back again.

And Duryodhana was confident that the Pandavas would never be able to hide. Because Yudhishthira was the world emperor. And Bhima was such a heavily built person.

And if somebody was 7 foot and maybe 150 kg weight, he can, you know, be invisible. He keeps a low profile. He just can’t keep a low profile.

She was confident that the Pandavas will never be able to hide. See, Kaikeyi had no ill feelings towards Rama. She just wanted Rama to be out of the picture so that Bharata would become the king.

And in 14 years, Bharata would show his ability. He would win the people over and then when Rama comes back, there’s no threat. But what Duryodhana wanted to do was give the Pandavas hope and smash them.

In 14 years after that, you’ll get the kingdom. But you don’t get the kingdom. 13 more years.

12 plus 1. And like that he wanted to keep them suffering for life. So, it was particularly sadistic that one year incognito condition. Sadistic means one who gives joy causing suffering to others.

But the point was that when the Pandavas went to the forest, they had 12 plus 1. It was less definite, but there was some time span. But for all of us, when we go through sufferings, we may not know what is the time span exactly. How long this will go on.

But that does not mean that it’s going to go on forever. To every one of our beings, it is that Krishna brings us to a deeper understanding of life. So often, what happens for us, if I am here, I have a world view around me that protects me.

Whatever be the particular world view. And sometimes, that world view gets cracked. And sometimes, it is through the cracks in the things that protect us, it is through our wounds that God’s light comes into our life.

If the wounds were not there, then you would just say, I know everything, my life is fine. Why do I need anything else? So, that, if we look at our life, right now, something might seem very terrible. But rather than thinking, Oh, I am trying to practice what is a terrible thing, where is God? Instead of thinking in those terms, Okay, I may not be able to see God’s hand right now.

In why this particular bad thing happened. So, look for the good around the bad. Look for the good that helps us counter the bad.

But still the bad remains. So, why did that bad happen? That we may learn over time. It may take time to learn that.

It’s like, if I am here, at this point, it may feel this bad happened to me. Why did this happen to me? It just makes no sense. But, maybe, if we are, we wait, we wait for things to emerge.

Then, in hindsight, we may realize, it happened not to me, it happened for me. Now, what do I mean by happened for me? I’ll conclude with the last example of this. That, in the Ramayan, Vali and Sugriyu, were not his brother, they were the best of friends and allies.

And, both of them had fought many wars together. And, Vali, Sugriyu accepted Vali as a killer. But then there was a tragic misunderstanding.

Sugriyu thought that Vali had been killed. And thinking that his killer was very dangerous, he trapped him in that. Then, Vali had survived.

Vali came out, and he saw Sugriyu sitting on the throne. And he thought, Sugriyu tried to trap me to take away my killer. He felt so angry, he tried to beat up Sugriyu.

And Sugriyu had to run away from there to save his life. And poor Vali, he thought that, if he had not been guilty, why would he run away? It confirmed his guilt. And then, others tried to explain to him, actually, he thought that you had died.

He just got angry with anyone who told this. Sugriyu told the story, and you all believed it? You thought, I can die by some ordinary demon? You didn’t see his plan? So, anybody who tried to give Sugriyu’s side of the story, Vali just, dispels themselves from him. And now, people stopped speaking.

And Vali decided, I have to… Sugriyu tried to kill me, I will have to kill him first. Before he tries again. And this whole thing was a horrendous misunderstanding.

But Sugriyu’s life became like a living nightmare. Constantly he had to worry, where, wherever, where is somebody going to come to assassinate me? He had to run all over the earth to try to find some hiding place. Now, why was this happening to him? He didn’t know.

But later, when Sita was abducted, Lord Rama and Sugriyu formed an alliance. And Sugriyu had to assist Lord Rama. So, when he had brought Vanaras from all over the world to help him, he told them, if you go across this, you have to go in the south, you go in the east, you go in the west.

And he gave them a guide. If you go in this and come to this river, don’t try to cross this river over here, it’s very stormy over here. Go down, the current is all the way, and go from here.

There is this huge mountain, now there is this cave which is safe. This cave is not safe. This mountain can be crossed over here, but not over there.

So, Lord Rama was hearing all that, and after that, he came and said, what’s the geography of your favorite subject in school? He didn’t say that exactly, but he said, you have a lot of knowledge of the world. And that’s when Sugriyu realized that all the running away that he had to do, all the hiding he had to do, it was not just pointless. It was all preparing him so that he could do this service for Lord Rama.

So what happened to him, happened for him. So, for us also, even the bad things that have happened, something good will come out of it. Sometimes we may realize it after one year, sometimes after five years, sometimes after ten years, sometimes we may not realize it in this lifetime, it’s only at the end of our lifetime.

But the point is, we see Krishna’s hand by waiting for the good to emerge. And that way, through whatever we are facing in life, we can remain Krishna conscious. So I’ll summarize what I discussed today, that seeing Krishna’s hand in hard times, in pain, how to see Krishna’s hand in pain.

The first point of that, it took a lot of time in that. That was about, we want to be Krishna conscious, that’s more important than the karma conscious. Karma is not a magic wand we can use to explain away all suffering.

Karma has two different aspects. Our karma can be used to explain that there is the element of choice in what happens, and there is the element of chance. So, while often the focus is on karma is to explain that it’s not chance, it’s your own thing.

And that’s true, but what is more important is that karma is meant to empower choice. And our actions matter, even when they don’t seem to matter. I talked about the difference between logical and fair, or illogical and unfair, they are not the same thing.

So, karma may be logical, but still, it does not seem fair many times. So, if we don’t see God as fair, then how can we even love God? So, that’s why I discussed about three possible explanations for the evil in the world. One is it’s all chance, that how much money you put in your bank account, and how much your bank account shows, there is no correlation.

It doesn’t make sense. Or we can say it’s arbitrary God, and that the cashier will decide how much value your bank account shows. That also does not make sense.

The third is karma with multi-life progression. That means we understand that this tells that when I get A leads to R, action leads to result, but it can be A1 plus A2 leads to R. And similarly, A can lead to R1 plus R2 also. So, sometimes I may do some action, and I may not get the result.

But that does not mean my action does not matter. My action still matters. So, we discussed about with this understanding, how do we focus on being Krishna conscious amid distress or that kind? A’s.

A was look for the good around the bad. So, this will help us to have a positive attitude at least. So, that is there is bad in my life, there is good in my life.

So, I will choose to focus not on the bad, but on the good. So, that is what will help us to see that yes, Krishna is still there. We focus on the good in our life.

We talked about the gifts in life versus the gift of life. Sometimes gifts in life may come or may not come. They may come intermittently, but the fact we are alive, that itself is a huge blessing, gift of life.

Then C was to counter. Look for the good that helps us to counter the bad. That will help us to be practical.

So, among the things that are right in my life, these may be what is good around, what is the good that helps me to counter the bad. So, we have some practical resources which we use for dealing with the problems and we see those I don’t know why this problem has come, but these resources that I have to deal with the problem, that is Krishna’s gift to me. The last was image.

We can look at our own life in the past and something which seemed terrible for us, how something good has come out of it. So, what happened to me, I may realize in future that it happened for me. So, we discussed the example of Sukri over here.

This way, through whatever situation we go through in life, we can learn to be Krishna conscious. All this is very easy to say and when difficult times come, it’s still not easy, but at least we have some framework and we can act on that framework to whatever capacity we can. Thank you very much.

Hare Hare Krishna. Hare Hare Krishna. Very good question and comment.

We’ll have more questions in the future class if we have time. Tell me. See, there are certain risks.

So, if somebody is a psychiatric patient, then what do we do? How do we see them? we all have, each of us is a soul and we all have a Kshetra around us. Kshetra is our area of influence. So, my Kshetra right now is this classroom.

I can set the terms. It’s not that if some of you want to speak, I can say, you have Krishna in the classroom. I have some control over here.

Now, our Kshetra can increase, it can decrease. Sometimes I may have five people, sometimes I may have five hundred people. Now, sometimes if I’m a student in a class, I’m giving a class, then my Kshetra is that, okay, I’m here at the end, I can make a point, or I can ask a question.

So, our Kshetra changes. So, sometimes the Kshetra that we have can become very less. Like, somebody might be an athlete, but they get an injury, and they’re bedridden.

That person could run marathons of many, many miles, and now they can’t get out of bed. Kshetra has decreased. So, like that, the Kshetra can decrease not only at the physical level, it can also decrease at the mental or intellectual level.

So, like, as we grow older and less, we start forgetting things. So, sometimes some people get into a coma. Coma means what? They’re alive, but they’re almost as if not alive.

That’s a phase. So, from this life’s perspective, it can seem very big, and very unfair, or unbearable also, but we are eternal souls. And from that bigger perspective, this decrease in Kshetra is not that consequential.

So, it’s just something. Karma works in different ways. Karma can decrease the Kshetra in different ways to different degrees.

Some ways the karma can decrease the Kshetra is very, very, it can be very difficult. So, what do we do? We just have to learn to live with it. We just understand this is some karma coming up.

There’s a disease, medical condition called incontinence. Incontinence means, you know, the person just cannot control their bladder. It’s very embarrassing.

You have to basically have a carrier bag around with you, or whatever. Life sometimes, we can look at what is not in my control and become frustrated. It’s embarrassing.

But that’s what life is. So, whatever is in my Kshetra to control, I use that and move forward. And sometimes, if a person is in that situation, then really, their capacity for choice, it’s gone away for some time.

So then, it is society’s responsibility to keep them under constraint so that they don’t harm themselves or harm others too much. And maybe that will change in this lifetime. Maybe it will be some treatment.

Or maybe it will not be in this lifetime. Maybe in the future lifetime. Another question? Last question.

I have a question. Okay. My question is that, if someone is facing deep rooted condition, so, one time, we move ahead, and we keep going until you get where you want to be.

Keep moving. So, but second time happens, I still move ahead. But when it comes to fourth and fifth, it takes some time.

It takes some time to answer the question. I will let you know. What is the next topic that I am going to speak on this? To this audience, basically.

Next topic. The topic was how to cultivate more of goodness. Okay.

So, we will talk about that tomorrow. It’s an elaborate subject that, you know, it’s persistent conditioning what to do about them. How to avoid being discouraged.

We will talk about it elaborately. Thank you so much for sharing wisdom. It’s best to hear life from you after lockdown.

I was having a question like, when things go bad in life, many times, when I have seen the devotees also, they go for astrology. So, can you share your view like how to… Can we go for astrology? See, I would say that it’s a matter of two things. Practical and philosophical.

At a practical level, it is one tool to try to make sense of life and to deal with it. And like, if we have already seen, we go to a doctor. If we have financial problems, we consult a financial expert to see where should I invest, how should I manage my finances.

Like that, we could consider this is also one field. Now, of course, you have to consider astrology is reliable and whatever. But let’s assume it is.

I am not going to the merits of astrology right now. So, practical perspective, if somebody wants to use that resource, it’s just another resource in the world. From a philosophical, from a practical perspective, we don’t say that, if you have a fracture and you go to a doctor, that shows you don’t have faith in Krishna.

No, Krishna can act through doctor also. Why can’t Krishna act through astrology also? Philosophical level, the problem is that when we consider astrology, at that time, we may start worshipping some other devatas. They may recommend, you do this puja, you do that.

Now, even doing such a puja is not a problem. Arjuna wanted to fight a Kurukshetra war. He did the first try to get celestial weapons from particular deities.

But, when a particular devata gave him some weapon, he did not start thinking, you have such a powerful weapon, you are better than Krishna. No, he was clear that within Krishna’s jurisdiction, this devata has this power and he gave it to him. So, for us, the big problem comes in astrology is that when something starts working for us, we start believing that more then Krishna worships us.

And, I have seen sometimes devotees, they go to the extent that if their preaching is not successful, they say, you know, it’s because our temple is not as vast. Okay. But then, what happens is, you spend a thousand dollars or a million dollars to demolish the temple and reconstruct it again according to Vastu principles.

That’s going too far. Isn’t it? So, when Prabhupada started a storefront, he did not bother about Vastu. So, my point is that, again, if somebody wants to construct a temple according to Vastu, there is nothing wrong in it.

But my point is, thinking that the preaching is not happening because the temple is not even Vastu, that is a problem. So, sometimes, the only problem, the key problem with astrology is that if it starts working for us, then it’s not working for us, it starts working on us. This can happen with anything also.

You know, some devotees, can devotees read some self-help books? Some devotees may read some book about good public speaking. Some devotees may read some book about maybe a positive mental attitude or whatever. You read that and you start thinking that those authors are better gurus than our gurus.

And then it becomes a problem. So, as long as we are very clear about the sadhya and the sadhana. My sadhya is Krishna and sadhana.

There can be different sadhanas I can use. So, if I am clear that astrology is complete, one means that I may use it in a particular direction. So, what happens? The more explicitly material the field, the less that will challenge or threaten our devotion.

If I have to build a temple or I have to build a house, I have a temple inside, and I consult an architect or a random architecture, that is not going to make me question my faith in Krishna. So, the more gross the field is, the less likely it is to overlap or threaten our faith. But the more subtle the field becomes, the more likely it is that it may threaten or jeopardize our faith.

So, that is the main caution. Astrology itself is a problem. Astrology is a valid branch of knowledge.

Now, can we say that Krishna will take care of everything? We don’t need to consult astrologers? That’s one way of looking at it. But, if a devotee has a persistent problem, he doesn’t need to consult astrology. It’s not that we should guilt that devotee into saying that you lack faith in Krishna.

That’s why you are going to astrology. If the problem is persistent, if that’s what helps, nothing wrong in going there. But, don’t think that that is a bigger solution than Krishna consciousness.

Thank you very much.