Positive Thinking 27 – Avoid mental viruses

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. Welcome back to our discussion on positive thinking. We are discussing today the principle of be resolute in the energy sutra.
We discussed E, realistic smart expectations and Nip comparing mentality. E, eyes on real success. Now we are discussing R, be resolute.
So in the previous talk we discussed about how we need to not be buffeted by worldly opinions when we are pursuing our resolutions. So the distracting forces that can pull us away from our resolutions can come externally from the world’s opinions or they can come internally from the passions within our own mind. Of course these passions may also be externally generated but still the primary focus of the distraction can be these passions also.
So passion, the word passion can be used in a good sense where somebody is very determined with a great fervor to do a particular thing while the word passion can also be used in negative sense where something becomes an infatuation. So the infatuating emotion in passions can be of three broad categories. Before we look at that there is always the infatuation with something better coming to me in the future.
Which distracts us from the present. Now the present is the way to the future. The future is not the hiding place for the present.
The future is the place that we reach by living through and going through the present. But when we are constantly craving for something in the future and not paying due attention to what is happening in the present then we deprive ourselves of both the present and the future. And infatuation is defined by this.
An obsession with the future causing a concomitant distraction with the present. So let’s look at the result that happens when we are infatuated with something. So when I was a child I was dying to go to college and be free.
When I was in college I was dying to have a job and stand on my own feet. When I was earning I was dying to get married and enjoy. When I was married I was dying to have kids and create my Xerox copies.
When I had kids I was dying to get them educated and expand the glory of a family. When my kids were educated I was dying to get them married and have grandchildren. Now I am dying and I realize I forgot to live.
I forgot to live. This is the result when we get caught in the future infatuated by passions where the opportunities of the present are lost because of an infatuation with the future. And when this infatuation with the future or basically distraction from the present which is caused by passions which undermines our resolutions that can come from various passions but we can classify them into three primarily.
The Bhagavad Gita calls these three as the gates to hell. trividham narkasyedam dvaram nashinam atmanah kaamah krodhas tatha lobhas tasmade tattrayam tejet trividham narkasyedam these are three door gates to hell dvaram nashinam atmanah they destroy the soul kaamah krodhas tatha lobhas so lust, anger and greed tasmade tattrayam tejet therefore one should give up these three. Now when Krishna talks about lust, anger and greed let’s look at these.
These are not just obstacles on the spiritual path which keep us away from spiritual consciousness. They are obstacles even in the path of sustainable material growth and success. They keep us distracted even from attaining success in a sustainable way at the material level.
So if you want to look at lust we need to look no further than a former president of the United States. He was young, he was popular, he was well and he got into an affair with an assistant in the presidential staff and the result of that was a huge scandal and it cost almost 50 million dollars of the exchequer’s money. The money that the state spent in investigation and the money that he himself spent in defending himself and he came on the verge of being impeached.
It was a disgrace not just for him but it was a disgrace for the whole of for the entire country and all that happened because of the craving for a temporary retaliation. So when lust is uncontrolled at that time it becomes a constant drain on our attention where instead of focusing on what is important for us what are the things that we can do in life the consciousness gets captivated and consumed by any and every object that might promise sexual pleasure and thus we get distracted. So lust, anger and greed we could say they are like viruses.
The body we have discussed earlier is like the hardware the soul is the user and the mind is the software. So just as a software if it is corrupted by viruses then although the hardware is good and although the user is there still the set cannot be functional. Similarly when the software of our mind gets corrupted by the virus of lust then we cannot function properly and lust is just one of the viruses that can corrupt the software of our mind.
Another is anger. Anger is actually as it is said by the Roman poet Horace he said anger is momentary insanity. In 2007 the French star in 2007 soccer finals World Cup finals the French star Zidane was playing like a maestro he was leading his team to victory in the World Cup finals in what was to be his fan song the final match of his life and as he was leading his team to a relatively comfortable victory suddenly the Italian defender he wanted to go past the Italian defender Matarazzi and when he couldn’t get across in a spur of rage he head-butted Matarazzi Matarazzi fell on the ground and Zidane was shown the red card and what was to be a crowning moment of glory in his career turned out to be an ignominious infamy.
What happened? It was just anger. Benjamin Franklin stated that whatever is begun in anger ends in shame. The scale of what happened in the World Cup finals at that time was something which was there for the whole world to see but essentially it is often a replay of what happens in our lives.
We also get angry, we speak and do things which we regret later. So anger is also a virus which distracts us from our resolutions of what we can do and what we can achieve. So similarly there is greed.
Karma, Growth and Khaal Obhais. We are not talking about any abstract historical, abstract concepts or any remote historical examples. We are talking about contemporary examples of how these mental viruses can erode and even destroy people.
So the South African captain Hansi Kronje was found guilty in match fixing. Now under him South Africa was marching in leaps and bounds towards supremacy in the cricket world and actually he was earning a lot. His team was winning and he had no reason.
But he got involved first and implicated and later on he apologized to his fans saying that I feel ashamed to confess the unfortunate affection for greed that I have nursed and that greed corrupted his intelligence and ruined his career. So these passions, these infatuations of lust, anger, greed they cause the trivial to distract us from the consequential and to the extent we cultivate a spiritual worldview to the extent we can resist these passions because we understand that whatever control or pleasure these things might give us that will be temporary. Whereas life is going to go on and we are meant for something much bigger.
So when we allow ourselves to be overcome by lust, anger or greed then we get into negativity. For example, when we have greed then we have negativity of what we don’t have. When we finally get it, the greed still continues and makes us crave for something else then we have negativity of what we still don’t have.
And when we lose what we have as we will eventually because everything is temporary then we get the negativity of I lost everything. So in this way worldly passions can corrupt our consciousness. In the Mahabharata Vidura tells Dhritarashtra you have been craving for the kingdom throughout your life.
When has this kingdom given you happiness? When you didn’t have it, you were miserable, craving for it. When you had it, you were fearful that you are going to lose it because it belongs to the Pandavas and your sons had unscrupulously grabbed it. And now that you have lost it, now you are miserable lamenting that you have lost it.
So when did it ever give you happiness? So like that our attachments which are fueled by these infatuations they simply fill us with negativity and rather than hoping and really fantasizing about some little pleasure that might come from those attachments if we instead focus on devotion to the law on devotionally making a contribution and stay fixed in our resolutions then that fixity will enable us to avoid the negativity and tap into the inner positivity that comes from a spiritual worldview. Thank you.