Spiritual Insights for dealing with HIV

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
will purify me and the purification will gradually increase my absorption in Krishna.
Thank you. The sheer scale of the epidemic is horrendous and despite enormous technological advances the reliable and consistent treatment and cure for this terrible disease remains elusive and we need to mobilize whatever resources we can have whatever resources we have for dealing with this so today I will talk about how spiritual wisdom specifically the spiritual wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita and the broad Gita wisdom tradition can offer insights in dealing with this terrible health needs so firstly I will talk from the perspective of the patient self then I talk from the personal perspective of the caregivers and then I talk from the perspective of the larger society one of the biggest problems when we get diseases especially crippling or terminal diseases is the emotional breakdown that happens that the sense of brokenness the sense of knowing the sense of futility can be so crippling that a person can succumb long before one needs to succumb many surveys have shown how the biological immunity also is related with the psychological determination the person loses the will to live then the body also gives up the fight to live so now this emotional breakdown is almost inevitable when we have a materialistic conception of life if people think that they are simply their physical selves and that these physical bodies are going to be destroyed by disease which is mostly incurable often terminal then they have little reason to hope and to live but if they can understand through the spiritual wisdom traditions Bhagavad Gita gives us a message that death is not the end that we are spiritual beings we are at our core indestructible souls and the body is like a shell for us so for those who are afflicted by disease if they understand that they are spiritual beings that they are at their core indestructible that can give that knowledge that realization that insight which can come from philosophical contemplation and emotional meditation that insight can help them build a fortress within themselves by which they can fight against the negative forces of depression and rejection that will otherwise afflict them so at the level of patience spiritual wisdom can empower them to fight the good fight recognizing that they are not their bodies so what has been threatened is simply a physical shell and they are at their core indestructible so by understanding and realizing one’s spiritual identity one can get shelter even amidst great adversity and even it be a adversity like a disease which comes from a child so now from the point of view of the caregivers it is important to recognize that there is no that rather than focusing simply on the body of the patient alone if there is a holistic care offered if we understand that the person is not just the body there is the body the mind and the soul then the caregivers which of course need to do whatever is possible and whatever is essential at the level of the body to take care of the patient but that alone is not enough and quite often such diseases HIV and AIDS there can be multiple causes quite often it is caused by a misdirection of the human quest for pleasure when we forget our spiritual identity then we know no pleasure other than bodily pleasures and then the quest for pleasure often makes people reckless and they code danger and disaster by indulging in behaviors which go to diseases and the distresses and the devastation that comes later on so by helping people to experience spiritual happiness through meditation through prayer through connection with god the human longing for happiness can be redirected towards the spiritual realm and in this way the the the at the basic level the unregulated behavior that causes such problems can be checked now the spiritualization the human urge for happiness which some people refer to as sublimation that is known to be a great aid in treating various kinds of diseases and disorders the oxford the oxford university press has published a classic book the handbook of religion and health and then they say that on an average believers live 11 years longer than non-believers and not only do they live longer but they live better they suffer in youth they suffer from less addictions less self-defeating behavioral patterns bad habits and even in old age they have a greater sense of well-being and life satisfaction so the point is that if caregivers had in their arsenal a weapon that could substantially help patients then they should not need it there are models the christian consciousness movement has its doctors established in the hospital and this hospital they all the has a spiritual care department where along with the competent medical care spiritual care is also offered and that helps the patients to emotionally become strong and based on the foundational spiritual wisdom get the will to live and get the will to fight against whatever adversity is there and not only that it also helps them if the disease is incurable to face the end with dignity because when they understand that they are themselves indestructible what is going to destroy only their is their body shell then they get a great sense of peace and and relief by which they can face the end without by recognizing the end is not actually the end now moving onwards one unfortunate consequence can be stigmatization that means if a culture recognizes that certain kinds of behavior are good and it approaches certain other kinds of behavior then if a patient if a person gets a disease like AIDS because of a child infection then society can become highly judgmental and condemn that person but this sort of early judgmentality is a misunderstanding of the purpose of spiritual wisdom the purpose is not our religious standards our religious convictions and ultimately God God is not meant to become a bridge God is not meant to become a wall that divides us God is meant to become a bridge that connects us so if someone is for whatever reason even it would be the reason of having huge moral standards according to certain religious traditions if whatever be the reason a person has succumbed to a disease and is now suffering the point of human compassion basic human compassion what to speak of spiritual compassion based on understanding of life’s spiritual side the understanding is that we are meant to help others we are meant to assist others if someone is in need someone is in grief then we show our spirituality by offering relief to that person we don’t show our spirituality by passing judgment on that person so where there is within the broader culture sometimes this misunderstanding and stigmatization then spiritual organizations can help in correcting that stigmatization by recognizing that and by teaching and recognizing and teaching this message of compassion not of condemnation condemnation is a perversion of the purpose of spirituality and unfortunately when people do not recognize the purpose the purpose of spirituality is to with each other to connect us with God united with each other in our connection with God when we forget that then our religious practices and even God himself unfortunately becomes a wall that divides instead of a bridge that connects and elevates so at a broader level further at one level it is stigmatization at other level there is excessive glamorization of sexuality sexual side the sexual side is a natural side of human life but when there is excessive glamorization and perpetual opposition to the sexual side then that makes people misled that creates cravings within people that are insatiable and that makes them very vulnerable to self-defeating behavior so we as a broader culture also need to take care that we don’t provoke people provoke people and we don’t have unnecessary imagery in the culture that provokes people because the point is that we as a society cannot have it both ways today for example with respect to food and obesity we have fast foods and we have aggressive advertisement and glamorization of their fast food and fast food often makes people fat fast and on the other hand on one side there is glamorization of fast food and on other side there is condemnation of obesity a person who is obese is frowned upon looked down upon and it’s almost as if obesity is considered to be like a moral deficiencies in today’s according to today’s mutable conceptions of morality and because of this for example people get various kinds of psychological disorders where people say become so obsessed with their figures that they feel that if I become a little fat then I’ll be unattractive no one will look at me no one will care for me and there are psychological disorders that come up because of this also so of bulimia and other disorders and stuff because of this so the point is we when we put pressure both ways when people are subjected to pressure both ways one way is that oh you should not be obese you should not be obese you should not be obese and the second way is that there is such attractive food such attractive food such and this food is so well heated and people become tormented tormented tormented hey in google there was an amazing experiment done that they in their show in their in the show in the cafeteria in their premises they had chocolates and sweets so which were initially kept in transparent containers and they kept in transparent containers people would come to the shop and they would come to the cafeteria or whatever before taking some snacks but they’ll also take this sweets and they would eat it and then they decided to change the containers from transparent to translucent so when people could not see what was inside those containers and they found in just six as compared to six weeks before and six weeks after this move was done from transparent to translucent there was a phenomenal draw in the intake of of those sweets why what is the reason for this the reason was whenever there is temptation then there is indulgence but when there is not temptation then the indulgence also becomes lesser so this is a good indication this is a this is a principle which the bhagavad-gita also talks about when it says that it says that withdraws within oneself similarly a wise person withdraws one’s senses within oneself so what this experiment talks about is that if the senses are not exposed to the objects that attract the senses and the eyes are not shown the sweets then the persons are not people not attracted people are less attracted to going and eating the sweets similarly we as a society need to become more culturally responsible and spiritual organizations have a vital role to communicate their wisdom in a way so that our advertising our culture in general becomes more ethically and socially responsible and it doesn’t unnecessarily and excessively glamorize imagery that triggers sexual desire and thereby triggers self-destructive behavior so spirituality can in this way offer spiritual strength to the care receiver spiritual strength to the caregiver the removal of stigmatization for the for the broader community and the countering of unnecessarily provocative depictions in the broader culture and in this way spirituality can offer insights and practical steps for effectively dealing with the release of hiv disorders thank you