QA on Living spiritually in today’s world

[Talk at Bhakti Center, New York, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, I am grateful to be here amongst all of you.
I thank you for coming here today afternoon. I’ll just make two quick points before we move to the question answers. Suppose this sick person who has never used a painkiller and then one day that sick person just finds a painkiller and takes the painkiller and finds, oh, you know, I am feeling so good.
And then there are doctors who are prescribing expensive medicines. He says, why do I need this any kind of curative medicine? I just take the painkiller and if the pain comes again, I’ll take a higher dosage of painkiller. And if the pain comes again, I’ll take a higher dosage of painkiller.
So, all that happens is that the painkiller covers the pain. It doesn’t cure the pain. So, the painkiller is valuable when a person is sick.
But the painkiller alone is no lasting treatment. In our life, we all have a material side and a spiritual side. And in today’s world, there has been an extraordinary level of material progress as compared to recent history.
And the comforts that we have today are far more than what were available in the recent past. So, I was just a couple of weeks ago, I was giving a talk in Intel in Phoenix and I was speaking on managing the mind. And one of the executives of Intel who had organised the programme, he told me after the programme was talking, he said the biggest problem over there is stress.
Stress in general, especially now with the economy going down, stress is a big problem. Now, if you look from the external perspective, impressive buildings, very comfortable, air conditioning is there. If I come from India, in many parts of India, the material comforts are not so easily available.
So, psychologists are saying, are calling what we are experiencing an anxiety epidemic. An anxiety epidemic. And this has a paradoxical feature.
Normally anxiety is caused because of external uncertainty. If I have to catch a flight and I’m not sure whether I’ll reach the destination, reach the airport in time or not, I feel anxious. Comparatively speaking, in the first world countries, as compared to the third world countries, the certainty of things is much more.
In many parts of India, you turn on a tap, you don’t know whether water will come or not. Most of you probably don’t have that kind of problems in America. And yet, curiously, although the levels of certainty externally are more in the first world countries and the third world countries, still, actually the anxiety levels are higher in the developed countries, in the first world countries.
So why is it? And not only that, often when people emigrate from a third world country to a first world country, their anxiety levels increase. So there is something more going on over here. Actually, anxiety is caused not just by external uncertainty, it is also caused by internal instability.
Internal instability means if our worldview is materialistic in an imbalanced way, is excessively materialistic, in a materialistic worldview, everything is changing. There is nothing that is constant. And then we all need some kind of shelter, some kind of security.
And that is just not there in the materialistic worldview because everything keeps changing. And therefore, there is no shelter left. So it just struck me after that programme I entered, you know, people are comfortable, but they are comfortably miserable.
Miserable in the sense of stressed, worried. So comfort is there for the body. Externally, there is comfort, but internally, still there is anxiety, there is distress.
So I would say worry has many reasons. But if you look at the things we worry about, worry is like the interest we pay on loans we haven’t yet taken. Often we worry about things, most of the things we worry about, they don’t even happen.
What if this happens? What if that happens? What if that happens? And in that way, actually, the point I’m making is that when we focus primarily on external comforts and external progress, that’s like a painkiller. It does provide some relief. But internally, the disease is growing.
As the disease keeps growing, then more and more doses of painkillers are required and still the pain doesn’t go away. So at an external level, we have got more and more comforts in today’s world. But these comforts, they’re good, they’re valuable.
In many cases, when a patient is in pain, a painkiller is essential. But it is alone not enough. So we need a balance of material and spiritual progress.
And that spiritual progress is what will bring stability within. That is what will provide stability and eventually serenity. Now we had this very soothing musical meditation.
We find that it just calms the mind down, calms the mind down. And ultimately, I’ll conclude with one point. In our existence, we could envision it as a two-story building.
The ground floor is the material level. The first floor is the spiritual level. So now at the material level, there is constantly uncertainty.
It’s always change. So if our consciousness is at the material level, we will experience anxiety. But if you could raise our consciousness to the spiritual level, then we will be able to experience stability, serenity.
And then, being situated at the spiritual level, we can respond to material ups and downs with greater maturity. We can be concerned but not disturbed by life’s ups and downs. If we are ourselves at the material level in our consciousness, then we will be disturbed.
Because we will feel personally threatened by what is happening. So when we raise ourselves to the spiritual level of awareness, we understand that at my core, I am an indestructible spiritual being. And we get experience of that through practises like meditation.
So the mantras that we chant, mantra is like an elevator, which raises our consciousness from the material level to the spiritual level. The more we chant the mantra, the more we enter into the mantra, put our consciousness into the mantra. We are entering into the elevator.
The elevator takes us up. As the elevator takes us up, we ourselves feel calmer. Our mind becomes clearer.
And then we can face life with greater maturity, greater clarity, greater effectiveness. I just spoke about how a proper medical treatment is to have painkiller and medicine both. So painkiller alone will cover but won’t cure the disease, it will become worse.
So material progress alone is like a painkiller. It’s essential, but it alone is not enough. We have a lot of material progress in today’s world.
But that has led to a phenomenon of people being comfortable but comfortably worried. Comfortably miserable. So we are creating more and more external arrangements, external certainties.
But still the anxiety is there because there is internal instability. And that internal instability comes from a materialistic worldview. So when we raise our consciousness, when we understand ourselves as spiritual beings, then we get stability and serenity within.
And then external changes we can face, we can be concerned about them. We can act competently, act responsibly. We can concern without being disturbed.
And the way to raise our consciousness from the material floor of reality to the spiritual floor, one of the most effective ways is through mantra meditation. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So we’re going to ask whoever wrote the question, send them forward. You can pull them and send them forward. And we’re just going to go through it just like that.
You can all pass it forward. Oh, you guys are still thinking of writing the questions. I understand.
We’re going to start with you. Thank you. Anybody else? Thank you.
Okay, just like the stages did before, when we all gathered here and we asked the questions, we’re going to see what kind of questions come out. Are you ready? You bless me. He’s lived his whole life to be ready for this.
Okay. Are you guys ready for this? Let’s see if this touches your heart. Chaitanya Charan.
What are the spiritual keys to manifesting, collaborating and building with others? What causes blocks in doing this? What are the spiritual keys? Manifesting, collaborating and building with others. Building what? Relationships or what is? This you’re going to have to decide. To building with others and what causes blocks in doing this? I think I’ll have to start with some guesswork about the question.
So I presume it is relationships. Broadly speaking, all of us, we start with self-centredness. When an infant is born, the first thing that the infant does is cry.
And then the expectation that I’m crying, others should come and console me. And that’s what parents do. Initially, the infant is not even aware that there is somebody called a mother who’s taking care of me.
Just feels, oh, there’s something in my mouth. Some nice stuff comes out of it. I’m just sucking it.
But as the infant starts growing, okay, understand there is a mother over here and she loves me. And as the infant starts growing, essentially the infant, the child starts understanding. I can’t just keep demanding.
I can’t just keep expecting. I also have to start doing something. Start studying, start contributing, maybe do some course in the house.
So the whole process of growing up is actually growing from expecting to contributing. Now, biologically, we grow up naturally. But sometimes in terms of psychologically or internally, that growth is not natural.
So we often go through our life, continuing with that ethos of expecting. So we form relationships. If our relationship is based primarily on expecting, what is the other person going to do for me? Then that prevents the relationship from stabilising.
Because both people are just focused on expecting from others. So if we essentially, if we grow up, it means I bring something to the relationship. I contribute.
And generally, even when they’re contributing, sometimes the other person reciprocates. Sometimes the other person doesn’t reciprocate. I was in Melbourne last year and similar question.
One person asked a question. It’s a written question. No, if someone, I’m working with someone, but that person has told me that they don’t like me.
And so when somebody has already told me they don’t like me, how can I work with them? And if they are here right now, what would you like to tell them? So I explained that actually a spiritual relationship means that we are not relating only with that person. When we are having a spiritual relationship, there is always a third person. There is the source of all of us.
It’s known in different traditions by different names, God or Krishna, as we know him in the bhakti tradition. So he is the third person involved in the relationship. And we act in the relationship, not just based on how the other person is acting.
We act based on what will please Krishna. Because what will please Krishna, it helps us grow spiritually. So an example, say, that if there is an attendant in a dress shop, clothes shop, and now some people are very fastidious about their clothes.
They come to a clothes shop, they look at 100 clothes, 100 varieties of dresses and they don’t take even one. And then the attendants have to maybe fold all the clothes, iron the clothes again, put them all in the right places. It’s a lot of work.
And so sometimes some customers are known as difficult customers. So then the attendants come, all the attendants go, shrink away from that person. Let somebody else attend to this person.
Now suppose there is a difficult customer like this who comes and the attendant is catering to him. The attendant may have, you know, I don’t like this, I want that, I want that, I want that. And after seeing 100 clothes, the customer says, actually, I don’t want any of this.
I’m going somewhere else. The attendant can get irritated. Why did you waste my time? But the attendant knows that there’s a camera, my boss is also watching.
And my salary is not coming from this customer. My salary is coming from the boss. Although I may, although I may not make this sale to the customer here.
But if the boss sees, OK, you handled this difficult customer very courteously. The boss will appreciate that. May not make the sale, but the boss may see that and appreciate that and the boss may give a promotion.
You know how to deal with tough people. I’ll make you, I’ll promote you. So when we have a spiritual worldview, our response is our behaviour is not just a reaction to how the other person is acting.
Our response is determined by our intention to love and serve God, to please him. And that gives a higher motivation. By which the reactionariness, you know, sometimes something, one person does something wrong, and the other person snaps back and the first person snaps back.
And then a small misunderstanding becomes like a domestic world war. So that sort of things can substantially be decreased. So the whole process of Bhakti Yoga actually involves developing a mood of loving and serving God.
When we have that mood, then we see all our relationships, not just as interacting with the other person, but as an opportunity to serve God by the way we interact with that person. And that way we can react, we can respond more naturally. And small things can be kept small.
So from the spiritual perspective, seeing the relationship as an opportunity for our spiritual growth. If we consider that, you know, I am this person, we are here for our material gratification. And if this person does not give me gratification, this person causes me irritation, then get out.
But if we see we are here together, not just for our material gratification, we are here together for our spiritual evolution. So this person, the way they are acting, that may not be right. And it’s not that I have to condone it.
But I will respond not just as a reaction to what they are doing. I will respond in a way that will help me grow. So with that perspective, if we act, we will be able to collaborate better and cooperate and function much more effectively, both individually and in our relationships.
Does that answer the question? What do you guys think? OK. Chaitanya Charan. There is three questions here.
Would you like one, two or three? I like this popcorn. I like this. It’s like pulling out a tarot card or something like one, two or three.
Three to one. Three to one. We want all three.
OK. Ready? Three to one. Let’s start with third.
OK. Chaitanya Charan. What is the purpose of depression or sadness? I’ve carried it in my heart since I’ve been born.
What purpose can it possibly serve? What is the purpose that is being served by depression if we have it right since childhood? The Bhagavad Gita is a Yoga text that describes that human psychology is affected by three different moods. That is sattva guna, rajo guna, tamo guna. I try to explain it as these are three different ways in which people function.
Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. And some people wonder what happened.
So that’s roughly people in goodness. They plan and they execute. They make things happen.
That people in the mode of passion, rajo guna, they want to do things, but they start one thing and this goes wrong, that goes wrong. What is happening? They watch things happen. And people in ignorance, they just can’t do anything.
Just wonder what’s going on. So now all of us, we, when we are born, based on our past deeds, we all have different combinations of goodness, passion, ignorance. Some of us may have more of ignorance.
Some of us may have more of passion. Some of us may have more of goodness. Some of us may be more contemplative.
Some of us may be more active. Some of us might be passive. So now this is not who we are originally.
We are spiritually, we are at our core, pure and powerful as parts of the absolute. But these are coverings which obscure that pure potency of the soul. And in some cases, if the mode of ignorance is more, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita in 18.35, vayaswapnam bhayam shokam vishadam madamevan chidam na vimuncit durmedha dhrtisaparthatamsi He says that vishadam, moroseness, which is similar to being habitually depressed, this characterises the mode of ignorance.
So sometimes it may just happen that it’s like physically we all have different looks. Some of us may look very good. Some of us may not look so good.
Just as physically we have different looks, like that psychologically also, we may have different attitudes or different moods, different dispositions. But just as we are not our looks, we are a distinct person separate from our looks. Similarly, we are not our moods.
The moods come and go. Some moods may stay for a longer time, but we are actually distinct from that. So just understanding our spiritual identity as spiritual beings, that helps us.
OK, I tend to get depressed, but this is just like my mental weather. Sometimes in some places the weather itself is gloomy, cloudy, dark. You see the weather, you don’t feel like doing anything, don’t feel like going out.
So like that, this tends to be my mental weather. But still I am not that. I am different from it.
So understanding us as spiritual helps us to distance ourselves from that depression, at least in terms of not identifying with it directly. So what purpose can it serve? Actually, there are, broadly speaking, the world itself has two purposes. There is experimentation and there is redirection.
Experimentation means we are all doing various experiments on what will make me happy in life. Maybe doing this, maybe doing that, maybe doing that. So we do experiments in various ways to find out what is it that will make me happy.
Now, we are originally spiritual beings and we can find lasting happiness only in spiritual consciousness. So the redirection means after we have done various experiments, ultimately we need to redirect our consciousness towards the spiritual level of reality. I was in Oxford last year.
So one person asked a question, if there are so many options in this world we have, why are there so many wrong options and so few right options? So I explained that’s how always it is in any multiple choice paper. Multiple choice exam means four wrong options, one right option. So like that, in this world we have many options, but most of these options that we can expect, this will make me happy, this will make me happy, this will make me happy.
We can try this and these things will provide a little pleasure. But afterwards, pleasure disappears. And again, we keep searching.
But through it all, if in the school the education is provided, then the student is not just left for guesswork. Student can choose, OK, this is the right option. That’s what I learned.
I choose the right option. The student gets marks by that. Similarly for us, there are many options which we all have.
Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can do that. Maybe I can do that.
And these options allure us. And that way they distract us. But for a person who is habitually depressed, that means from a spiritual perspective, the various options that are present in material life, they no longer have much appeal.
So that can be an advantage. If a person is spiritually minded, if a person gets a spiritual understanding, ultimately real happiness is in raising my consciousness to a spiritual level. So then the various material options that allure and distract most people, because of a person’s relative being depressed, depressed means we don’t get excited.
We don’t get excited about things. So that can work out to a positive because we won’t get excited by things that will distract us. So if we find some good spiritual association, we might meet some other spiritually minded people with whom we can get connected, then they can channel our consciousness spiritually.
They can inspire us to direct us spiritually. And once we get directed spiritually, we will be far less prone to distraction because we are not so excitable. So in Shri Prabhupada, the author of Bhagavad Gita as it is, the most prominent commentary in the Bhagavad Gita, he writes that actually a pessimistic attitude towards material life, that is a healthy starting point for spiritual life.
So if somebody has psychologically a pessimistic attitude. Now, if there’s only pessimism, that is very negative. But if there is pessimism accompanied by a proper process and there is confidence about the process, then that is very positive.
It’s like if a patient is sick and the patient is thinking that maybe this sickness will go away. Maybe I can just eat this, maybe I can try this, I try that. Now the patient doesn’t take the disease seriously.
Then there’s not much hope for treatment and cure. So if the patient is pessimistic, actually, this is a serious disease and it’s not just going to go away by itself. I have to, pessimism is not that the disease cannot be cured, but is that the disease will not go away by itself.
I have to take a proper process for this. So actually any solution to any problem begins with an awareness of the gravity of the problem. As long as the patient doesn’t realise the gravity of the problem, the patient may not take the medicine seriously.
So like that, when we feel depressed, the positive is we’ve already realised the gravity. Nothing in the world really excites us, nothing really charms us, nothing inspires us. So we can use that in a positive direction if we can channel our energy spiritually.
Ultimately, from the Bhagavanta’s perspective, the depression is because we are disconnected from the source of all happiness. So God, Krishna, the word Krishna means Sarva Akarshati Iti Krishna, one who attracts everyone, one who embodies everything attractive in the world. That is the absolute truth.
He is known by the name Krishna. So the ultimate cause of depression is disconnection from the source of all attraction. So when we start connecting with him through the process of Bhakti, then that attraction starts emerging and we find that the more we become connected with God through Bhakti, the depression will start dissipating.
And then the energy that comes up, that will not just be the material energy from our conditioning. The energy that comes up will be the spiritual energy of the soul that manifests. And that is the lasting cure to depression.
How do you know you are following your right path and following your truth? How can we know we are following the right path? Following your truth. Actually, whenever we start on any journey, at one level, it’s an act of faith. Even if I take a map, say from here, I’ll be going back to central New Jersey.
If I take a map, I’m having faith that the map is right. The map could be wrong. So we cannot do anything without a certain level of faith.
Now, when it comes especially to choosing a spiritual path, we often feel what if I take a path and it turns out to be wrong. So let me play safe. But in playing safe, we may not start anywhere at all.
So it’s like going back to the metaphor of sickness. If I’m sick, when I have to take a treatment, it’s if I got a stomach upset. It’s not that at that time I will do an exhaustive survey of all the medical systems in the world.
There is allopathy, there is Ayurveda, there is naturopathy, there is this alternative medicine, that alternative medicine. It’s not that we do an exhaustive survey of all paths and then embark on a path. We start off.
We use our intelligence. We start off and if it helps us improve, if it helps us improve, we move on. If it doesn’t help us improve, we say, OK, if my health is not improving, let me try something else.
So essentially, faith can be blind or it can be reasonable. Reasonable faith means it has two characteristics. It is sensible and it is verifiable.
So every time when I go to a doctor and the doctor gives me a medicine, actually I’m taking a leap of faith, not a leap of faith, maybe a gulp of faith. I don’t know in advance whether the medicine is going to cure me or not. But when you go to a doctor, if I have a stomach upset, the doctor says, we have to amputate your leg.
What? Amputate my leg for a stomach upset? That doesn’t make sense to me. So we evaluate whether what the doctor is saying makes sense or not. And sensible is the first part, verifiable is the second part.
So, OK, the doctor says, you take this medicine in three days, you’ll feel much better. I take the medicine for three days and see, oh, I’m feeling better. This is a good doctor.
If it doesn’t feel better, then I go to some other doctor. So same way with respect to searching for our path, we can look at it from a first is the intellectual perspective and the sensible part and the experiential perspective that is the verifiable part. So any path that we are following, it should be able to answer the fundamental questions of life.
Who am I? What is the purpose of my life? Why are we here? So the big questions of life, which often lie unanswered in a materialistic world view, a spiritual path should be able to answer those questions and the answers make sense. Then we start practising. And if you start practising, what happens? The Bhagavad Gita says, Pratyaksha Vagamam Dharmyam, that Susukham Kartumam.
In 9.2 it says that we can practically experience higher spiritual realities by the practise of yoga. And what is the tangible spiritual reality we can experience? So that is Susukham, inner happiness. We will start experiencing inner contentment just by the steady practise of yoga.
And that inner happiness is like the return to spiritual health that we are going towards. That is like the verifiable part. So while choosing any path, we can evaluate whether the faith is essential, whether our faith is reasonable.
It means whether it is sensible and it is verifiable. And beyond the specific path that we are following. Now we should know that ultimately by exploring life’s spiritual dimension, we are not just putting faith in this path or that path.
We are actually putting faith in God, in the ultimate reality. So it is that ultimate reality that we are trying to reach. And if we try to reach that ultimate reality, there are forces bigger than ours which will guide us.
If we are on the wrong path, we will come to know, this doesn’t make sense. This is not what I should be doing. If we are on the right path, we will be prompted forwards.
So the important thing is we explore. So Srila Prabhupada was in New York many, four decades ago roughly, four, five decades ago. Once he was in New York only, nobody said he was giving a talk.
And somebody came and told him after a class, Swamiji, your philosophy sounds like Buddhism, sounds like that of Buddha. So Srila Prabhupada replied, do you follow Buddha? No Swamiji, Prabhupada said, follow Buddha, follow Jesus, follow Krishna, follow someone. Don’t just talk.
So don’t just talk. The idea is we follow something. If it is wrong, we’ll come to know it.
If it is right, we’ll come to know it. But if you don’t follow anything, we’ll never come to know what it is. So that’s how if we use our intelligence and don’t not think that, OK, I’m putting faith in this path or that path.
I’m ultimately putting faith in the source who will guide me to the right path. Then we can move forward confidently in our spiritual journey. Sometimes we may take some wrong turns, but eventually we’ll come to the right path.
To tell you the truth, I have a desire to serve humanity in a way that is beyond my qualifications, my skill set and my needs. How can I endeavour to manifest our dreams of a life of service? So if you want to serve in a way that is beyond our capacity, beyond our abilities, how can we fulfil that desire to serve humanity? All of us have a certain set of abilities which we know about, and we may also have some abilities which we don’t know about. And often in society, there are certain abilities that are glamorised.
If somebody looks very good, somebody speaks very well, there are certain abilities that are glamorised. So often we compare ourselves with the abilities that others have. And then based on that, we think, oh, this person did this, this person, you know, became so famous, did so much work, was applauded so much.
I want to do like that. However, for our spiritual growth, whatever we need, we haven’t given. Whatever abilities we have been given that.
And if we need more, we will be given them in future. See, the whole idea is that often in material life, we often progress by imitation. You know, this person gets more praise than me, gets more glamour than me.
I don’t get that. So we try to imitate someone else. I want to become like that.
So often when we are saying that I want to contribute more than the abilities that I have, if we look deeply, it’s possible that we might just be wanting to be like someone else who has a different set of abilities than what we have. You know, if God had wanted us to be someone else, he would have made someone else. You know, he has made you, you.
He has made me, me. So we don’t have to become a Xerox copy of someone else. No, we definitely want to improve.
We want to contribute more. But we can do that by becoming the best we. So you can become the best you, I can become the best me.
So rather than thinking so much in terms of, you know, I want to contribute and I don’t have the abilities or I want to contribute more than my abilities. We focus on contributing what we can with the abilities that we have. And we find that we will be able to do our own distinctive contribution.
And as we keep contributing, we find that our abilities also develop, our abilities expand. So the nature of the mind, one of the features of the mind is the mind always tries to take the path of least resistance. That means I want to do something big, but I don’t have what it takes to do it.
Now we do what we have, we do what we can with what we have right now. And by doing that, whatever abilities we have, they will grow. So we say that what we are is God’s gift to us.
What we become is our gift to God. So we all can become better. We can contribute better.
But we don’t have to become someone else. We can simply become the best we. And because every one of us is unique, we can make our own distinctive contributions by just trying to bring the best from within ourselves.
And when we become devoted to God, when we practise devotion, then there are forces within us that block the best within us from coming out. Now there will be short temperedness, selfishness, depression, negativity. These forces which stop our best from coming out, those forces become cleansed by the contact with the all pure absolute.
So when that happens, when we become purified internally, the best within us comes out. And then, although we may feel I don’t have any abilities, even the abilities that we have, with them also we can make a significant contribution. If we just can tap them to the fullest.
So our spirituality can give us new abilities. But more importantly, our spirituality increases our ability to tap our ability. Whatever abilities we have because of our own temper, temp negativity, self centredness, arrogance, whatever, we are not able to tap those abilities.
But these negative things go away. Our ability to tap our ability will be enhanced. So we can maximise our contribution simply by trying to bring out our best and we can bring out our best by purifying ourselves through the process of bhakti.
Thank you. I mean, this is too good, right? Anybody want to stay here forever? So you’re doing what has been done forever. We’re actually practising yoga without a mat right now.
This is amazing. This is the process of hearing from somebody who has deep realisation. So we’re very grateful to be here with you.
We’re going to ask one more question, even though it’s amazing that an hour has gone by. I feel like I’m just warming up. Now remember, 2000 articles.
I mean, how long has he been doing it? Six years. That means all of us that have started our blog, remember when we started that blog and it blew away in like two weeks. He’s only been going straight for six years.
So this is just like a warm up for him. This is like, he’s winning every gun in the fight right now. We’re just getting going.
So I just want to have us all say a little prayer. I can come back to the bhakti centre again and again and again. This has been a very nourishing session.
And I’m going to ask one more question. We’re going to try to connect to that absolute by a little kirtan. Do you want to do this again? Kirtan after the question? Yeah.
And then we’re going to have a beautiful feast. Thank you so much. I’m so grateful.
So Chaitanya Charan, you ready? Chaitanya Charan, my material life, family, friends, work and coworkers is constantly in the way of my spiritual progress. If everybody is laughing, that means everybody is feeling that way. By the way, whoever wrote this question, thank you for revealing our hearts.
I feel like I’m keeping a secret from everyone because they don’t understand the bhakti tradition. Now do I try to explain bhakti to anyone or just keep this a secret? So if our material life, material association, family, profession, they are unfavourable to bhakti, then should we keep it a secret from them or should we reveal it to them? How can we go ahead? Firstly, the word material and spiritual needs some clarification. At one level, we need to separate so that we give some solid exclusive time for our spiritual growth.
So spiritual activities means we have meditation, we have discussion on philosophy, we have sessions of direct spiritual nourishment, that’s spiritual life. And material life can refer to our profession and our family responsibilities. So in this way we separate so that we give some time for our spiritual life.
But after that, we don’t have to constantly keep differentiating. Is this material? Is this spiritual? Ultimately, the essence of spiritual is a mood of service. So actually we can infuse that mood of service even into our material life.
And if that mood of service is infused into our spiritual life, then the material life becomes spiritual. So say if we are hearing a spiritual talk and then there is some humour over there. And we laugh at the humour.
Is that laughter material or is it spiritual? We don’t have to bother that much. We don’t have to go into paralysis by analysis. So actually, if we have that mood of service, then even the material can become spiritualised.
In fact, the mood of the Bhagavad Gita is that, that by your work, worship that absolute truth. So not just by direct acts of worship, but direct acts of worship are important. But along with that, by your work also worship.
So if we cultivate, what does it mean? Worship that absolute truth through your work. That means do the work in a mood of devotional service. So if we have that mood of service, then even our material life can be spiritualised.
So that means that whether specifically we reveal to our family members or colleagues that we are practising spirituality, that will vary according to time, place, circumstance. But there are certain attributes, basic human attributes, courtesy, kindness, sensitivity. These are some good things which everyone appreciates.
So if people see that by our spiritual practise, we are becoming a better human being, then they will themselves ask, you know, OK, what’s happening? If our spirituality is making us more judgemental, this is wrong, that is wrong, that is wrong, then they will become alienated. Now, one of the advantages of the postmodern ethos is that if you want to do something, people give you the space to do that. As long as you don’t force it on us, you do what you want.
So if we are practising our spiritual life in a non-intrusive, non-imposing way, then people will give us our space. And if that makes us better, makes us a better human being, then they will see that. Oh, what’s happening? What is making this person change like this? How would they become a better person? Everybody wants to become better.
One of my services as a writer. So in the nonfiction genre, the books that sell among the biggest are the self-help books. The idea is that everybody wants to become better, whether they are materialist, whether they are spiritualist, whether they are agnostics, whatever.
So if people see that by our spiritual practises, we are becoming a better human being, then they will themselves ask. And not only will they ask, they will hear when we tell them because they will be really interested in knowing. So whether we reveal or share our spiritual practises in a hostile environment or in a non-unfavourable environment, that is more of a tactical decision.
It’s a matter of tact. OK, we may do this, we may not do that. The more important thing is we practise our spirituality in a way that it has effect on us.
It transforms us. It makes us a better person. And then they themselves will want to know.
So then in that case, while we are living, sometimes we just separate. OK, my spiritual life is this and everything else is unimportant. I don’t care for anything else.
No, but if you have a holistic understanding of spiritual life, we understand that even my family responsibilities can be spiritualised. Even my job can be spiritualised. I was in an Indian university recently.
And one student asked, how can I inspire my friends also to become spiritual? So I told him, by studying nicely. In India, there is tremendous academic pressure, huge amount of competitiveness and pressure to perform. I told him, even if you study well, there may be no guarantee that others will become spiritual.
But if you study poorly, there is guarantee no one will become spiritual. Because what people say, your spirituality has made you like this. I never want to become like this.
So what we should see is that our proper behaviour, our proper conduct in the apparently non-spiritual side of our life, that will also shape other spirituality and our spirituality. If we are behaving responsibly in the apparently non-spiritual side of our life, then that is we are infusing the spiritual service attitude even in that. So we will be growing spiritually.
And when people see that we are becoming better, we are becoming a better human being, a better person, then they will be attracted. So that way, by having a more holistic understanding of spiritual life, we will be able to find out how best to connect our direct spiritual life with our material life, which is also actually an indirect form of a spiritual life, which you can spiritualise. So how to spiritualise our material life? We can learn that by having that understanding, that even material life is meant to be spiritualised.
It’s not meant to be permanently segregated. So even if there is difficulty in material life, we can see that difficulty as an opportunity for greater service. These people have some misconceptions.
That means ultimately if we are spiritual, our goal is to help others also to become spiritual. One of our values. So if somebody has greater difficulties in becoming spiritual, then that means there is a greater opportunity to do service.
And there is greater spiritual growth for us because we are doing more service over there. So we can see even the spiritually unfavourable circumstance as a special opportunity for spiritual growth. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna.