Understanding how karma provides justice and Krishna provides mercy

[Congregation program at Columbus, Ohio, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank all of you for coming here today evening for this discussion on the topic of karma.
So, I’ll talk about this in three parts. First part, I’ll talk about the cause effect principle as we observe it in normal life. Then the cause effect principle as it is explained by the principle of karma.
And then how the knowledge of karma can empower us to healthy choices in our life. Last year, I was invited to Cambridge University to give a talk on science and spirituality. And while returning after the talk, my tour guide took me to the place where Newton is said to have seen the fruit falling.
So, now while I was there, that is like a pilgrimage place for scientists. So, that is the place where the first theory, the theory of gravitation was proposed and from there scientific age started. Now, it is Newton’s brilliance that when he saw the fruit falling based on that he postulated the theory of gravity.
At the same time, if we consider instead of Newton, say a monkey had been sitting there. The monkey had seen the fruit falling. What would the monkey have done? Just eaten the fruit and gone its way.
So, Newton asked, what made this fruit fall? That question implies an assumption over there. The assumption is things don’t happen by chance. There is some kind of causal connection.
So, the things don’t happen arbitrarily. If the fruit fell, it has some reason. And in fact, the whole development of modern science has been based on the assumption that whatever happens in nature has some order to it.
It has some cause effect connection in it. And if this assumption were not taken up to be true, then there would be no science. That means, whenever we observe the world around us, it is based on the cause effect principle that we understand everything about the world.
But even when scientists do some experiments, they are also, when they see a result based on the experiment, and they say, okay, these were the factors involved in the experiment. These were the causes, this were the effect. What is the correlation? That means, in the world of science, cause effect correlation is implicit.
And we see that this cause effect correlation is also implicit in our day to day life. You know, say if your child has gone out to play, and then the child comes back with say scratches on their knee. You ask, what happened? The child is too small to answer.
Ask other kids over there, maybe whoever is there, what happened? See the scratches on the body. Understand, it doesn’t happen by chance. Something happened.
The scratches are an effect. And then there must be some cause for it. So, in day to day life also, whatever happens, even if somebody comes, say, a family member comes back home in a very cross mood, irritated.
What happened? What made you irritated? So, whether it is some physical marks or whether it is some emotional moods, we implicitly assume that if there is an effect, there must be a cause for it. And there is a cause effect correlation. Without this cause effect correlation, we would not be able to function at all in life.
So, now, when this cause effect correlation is so foundational to the way we are functioning, say, if we are driving and the car stops, the car breaks down, we call a mechanic and then ask the mechanic, what’s wrong with the car? When the car is broken down, there is some cause. So, I don’t want to belabor this point, but I just want to make this clear that we, throughout our life, we assume a cause effect correlation. And yet, if we consider our life at large, sometimes for major things in our life, we cannot find a cause effect correlation.
So, for example, some people are born wealthy, some people are born poor, some people are born very good looking, some people are born mediocre looking, some people are born with outstanding memories, some people are born with outstandingly poor memories. So, now this variety is there. And this variety does affect all of us substantially now.
A student who has a mediocre memory has to struggle barely to pass through the exams. A student who has an outstanding memory just breezes through the exams. So, this makes a huge difference.
Now, when we look for a cause effect correlation here, where is the cause? Okay, this child. Now, the child was born. Why was the child born like this or another child born like that? Here, we are unable to trace any cause effect correlation.
Now, there are three possibilities. Let me try to correlate. First possibility could be that everything happens by chance.
Some people are lucky, they are born with good memory. Some people are unlucky, they are born with poor memories. Some people are lucky, they are born with wealthy families.
Others unlucky ones are born in poor families. And chance is a profoundly unsatisfactory explanation. Because firstly, it violates the cause effect connection with which we normally function.
Everything in life, we see this cause, this effect, this cause, this effect. And then suddenly we have to bring in chance over it. So, it doesn’t make sense.
Not only that, not only does it make no sense, it is also very disempowering. Because that means by chance anything can happen to anyone. And life becomes reduced to a cosmic lottery.
Some people are winners, some people are losers. And if you are a loser, bad luck. What can you do? It’s a very disempowering kind of worldview.
And this is the worldview that results from materialism. Materialism is the ideology that holds that matter is all that exists. And there is nothing beyond matter.
So, materialists, many materialists are often atheists. They say there is no higher reality, no God. In 16.8 in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that.
Some people say that there is no ultimate reality, there is no God in control, there is no foundational truth. So, now this idea that we see that at the material level, Newton saw the fruit falling and he understood it. Oh, this makes so much sense.
Now I understand why the fruit is falling. You know why the fruit falls? Because there is gravity. Why do the planets move in their orbits? Because of gravity.
Why do, when we turn on a button, how does the light start? The principle of electricity. So, we have explanation for so many things in life, but life itself becomes explanationless. What happens is we have islets of meaning.
We have small islands of meaning. This is how we explain this. This is how we explain this.
This is how we explain this. We have islands of meaning while we are drowning in an ocean of meaninglessness. Life itself is meaningless.
Within that, I have some small patches of meaning here. This is the meaning of this. This is the meaning of this.
This is the meaning of this. This is counterintuitive. The other idea or other possibility is that, why are there different starting points? God ordained.
Now this is again very challenging to accept because then it makes God a discriminator. God has built some people to be poor, some people to be wealthy, some people to be some people to be mentally, to be having poor memory, some people with great memories. You know, why does God discriminate like this? When we think of it that way, to think of God as discriminatory, again, the idea that God is good, that is implicit in the very word God and good, which are connected etymologically.
So, if God is discriminating like that, then God’s goodness comes into question. Some people will say, no, actually God is testing us. Okay, yes, God can test us, but the question is, why does God test different people differently? If in a school there is an exam after a teacher teaches, then one student gets an easy question paper and another student gets a difficult question paper.
The question would be not why there is an exam, why there are different question papers. So like that, if God is testing us, why does he discriminate in testing? Why does he put difficult test for some people and easy test for some? Actually, many people, when faced with these two alternatives, and philosophy, this problem is one variant of the problem of evil. The problem of evil is the problem that if God is good, why are there bad things in this world? So, when faced between two alternatives, one is that everything happens by chance and other thing is everything happens by God’s will, by God’s will.
So then, if we consider these two options, neither is very satisfactory. I have chosen to choose between chance and arbitrary chance and arbitrary God. Many people prefer an arbitrary chance because they feel how can I worship a God who is like this? Better I don’t believe in a God, how can I worship a God who is discriminatory like this? Therefore, this is a dilemma.
Now, if they embrace atheism, not because they don’t believe because they are attracted to atheism, it’s simply because they find theism unpalatable. Now, if these were the only two alternatives, that God is, that things are by chance or things are by God’s arbitrary will, then yes, atheism might be an acceptable option, but there is a third alternative. To explain this third alternative, let’s consider a cricket match.
Now, we go and in a cricket match, we find, we go to watch the cricket match and we see one team’s score is zero, the other team’s score is 200. Hey, what’s going on here? You know, why is this team having a starting score of zero and this having a starting score of 200? Now, there are two possibilities. One is that the scoreboard is conked off and it’s functioning arbitrarily.
So, by chance, one team gets a score zero, other team gets a score of 200. Second possibility is that the scorekeeper is biased and the scorekeeper has given the team which they like 200 runs. Now, there could be a third possibility.
That third possibility is that we have not arrived there at the start of the match. We are arrived in the middle of the match and this is the second innings going on. So, one team has already acquired a leader and that is why it has 200 runs.
Other team does not have, based on how it has performed in the previous innings, other team is starting with zero. So, now this way, we have neither an arbitrary scorecard nor an arbitrary scorekeeper. We have difference, we acknowledge the reality of the difference in the scores, but that is attributable to the performance of the teams in the past.
So, similarly, what the Bhagavad Gita explains is that when we come in this life, we are not coming at the start of the match. We are coming in the middle of the match. We have ourselves played many innings in the past.
Those innings are our previous lives. So, the Gita explains that we at our core are spiritual beings. We are souls, atma and the soul goes from one body to another to another.
And when it comes to one particular body, whatever conditions it gets in that body are determined by its karma from the previous life. And therefore, the starting point that we all get in our life, they are determined neither by chance nor by arbitrary will of God. They are the results of whatever we have done in our past.
So, some of us have got more positive karmic credits because of which we have more favorable conditions. Some of us have less positive karmic credits. So, we may have more unfavorable starting conditions.
But all of us from wherever we are, we can move forward and we can always improve our situation So, in that sense, the Bhagavad Gita’s worldview helps us understand that we are the makers of our destiny. Whatever we are getting now, that is by what we have done in the past. And what we will get in future is based on what we are doing now.
And in that sense, the future is in our hands. This is not to say that everything is in our hands. Whatever happens in our life, when you talk about the principle of karma.
So, what we are doing is the karma is nothing but cause-effect correlation extended from the physical realm, which is where science studies it. Science says this cause, this is effect. So, we have Newton’s law to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
That is basically the cause-effect connection that is there in science that is in the physical realm. So, the karma principle extends this beyond the physical realm to the human realm, to our behavior, to our actions. So, all our actions, they are karmically accountable.
Whatever we do, then we are getting positive karmic credits or we are getting negative karmic credits. And all these get accumulated and eventually they will all come to us. Now, visualize a big water tank in which water is going in from one side and water is coming out from other side.
Suppose, somebody has stored a lot of impure water, unclean water in the past in the tank and now they are pumping in clean water. The clean water is going in from the inlet, but the impure water is stored in the tank earlier. And when they turn on the tap or the outlet, they have that unclean water coming out.
Now, why is the unclean water coming out? Although they are putting in clean water now, the unclean water is coming out because they themselves had put an unclean water earlier. This is how sometimes we do good things and still bad things happen to us. Now, we are putting in clean water, we are doing good karma now, but the past bad water that had been put in is coming out.
That’s how sometimes we may do good and still bad may come. But that does not mean that doing good is pointless, nor does it mean that bad things are always going to happen to us. Everything in life is temporal.
So, even the bad things that are happening to us, they are also temporal. And sometimes some people may be doing bad things now and still they may seem to be going scot-free. But that is because they have done some good things in the past and the results are coming to them right now.
But whatever bad water has been put in the tank, that is going to come out eventually. So, whatever bad things they are doing now, they are going to get the results of that. So, the principle of karma helps us to reconcile the cause-effect connection that we implicitly see and assume while functioning in this world.
We can reconcile the cause-effect connection with God’s goodness that God is not partial. God is not negligent. This whole system of karma operates under the supervision of God.
But he himself is neutral. Udāsīna udāsīna. Krishna says that in the 9th verse, he says that everything that happens in this world, Krishna is udāsīna.
Udāsīna is detached. Detached is because Krishna’s role is like that of the umpire in a cricket match. The umpire, yes, gives some people, declares a sixer, declares a boundary.
But the umpire is not partial. It is based on the performance of the players. Similarly, Krishna is there.
He is in charge. But his role is that of the upadrashta anumantā ca bharatā bhoktā paheśvara paramātmeti ca apyokta dehesmin puruṣhapara. In the 13th chapter, 23rd verse of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that upadrashta is the overseer, anumantā ca, he is the permitter, bharatā bhoktā maheśvara, he is the maintainer of everything, and paramātmeti ca, pure soul.
That person who is the controller, his name is Paramātmā. He is Supreme Lord. He is God.
So actually, what the Bhagavad Gita does is, if we consider from this life’s perspective alone, the cause-effect principle sometimes applies, sometimes doesn’t seem to make sense. Sometimes people have different starting points, which we can’t explain. And sometimes even during the course of life, bad things happen to good people, or bad people seem to be enjoying good things.
So what we do is, we extend this cause, the operation of this cause-effect principle from beyond this birth, or before this birth, and to beyond this life. So therefore, what the results that we get now, they are, whatever happens to us, that is the result of not just what we have done now, it is also a result of what has been done by us in the past. And what people are doing now, some of the results may come immediately, some results may come later.
We see this variation in cause-effect correlation, even in day-to-day life. We consider every action that we do to be like the sowing of a seed. When we sow a seed, different seeds fructify after different time durations.
There are weeds, or just grass, they just grow within a few days sometimes. Crops, they take a few months to grow. We have some fruit trees, they may take several years to grow.
So we see this difference, the seed is sown and harvesting, there can be different time durations between that. And even in our day-to-day life, if we put our hand in fire, the cause-effect correlation is instantaneous. As soon as I put my hand in fire, I get a burn.
On the other hand, say if on a freezing cold night, I eat ice creams, maybe a dozen ice creams. Then what happens? Next morning I wake up, I can’t even speak. I got a sore throat at that time, bad throat.
There, the effect has come maybe eight hours after the cause. Somebody may start smoking at the age of 18. And then at the age of 40, the doctor tells him, you have got lung cancer.
So there it may take over two decades. So even in this life, we see that the cause-effect connection, the journey from the cause to the effect, the time duration for that can vary. Similarly, when we, the principle of karma states us, states that, that the cause and every cause will produce an effect and every effect has a cause.
But the time duration between them can vary. And because this time duration is variable, therefore, sometimes we may feel that there is, that is there any cause-effect connection at all. But when we expand the frame, instead of looking at only one lifetime, we expand the frame to the vision of eternity, before this life and beyond this life.
Then we understand that actually, that this cause-effect connection is very much applicable. Now, apart from explaining the problem of evil, why do bad things happen to good people? What are the practical applications of understanding this principle of karma? I’ll talk in two terms. Quite often, when we do something, and we don’t succeed, at that time, we become disheartened.
And if this happens, you know, I appear for an exam, I don’t do well. I apply for a job, I don’t get the job. I go for an interview, and doesn’t click.
So it starts happening multiple times, we start thinking, is something wrong with me only? Am I good for nothing? Is it that I am, I’m just a failure? When this happens, we are doing our action, but we’re not getting the result. At that time, it is important to understand that actually, there is a, from the cause to the effect, is not a straight linear chain. It is not that our action is the cause, and whatever we are wanting to do, that is the result.
It’s not so simple. There is, there are, from the karma to the phala, from our activity to the fruit, there are two other factors involved. There is daiva, daiva is destiny, and there is kala.
Kala means time. So karma plus daiva plus kala will lead to phala. So that means, for example, if a farmer is farming, the farmer ploughs the land and sows the seeds, that is karma.
Then, after that, the rains come on time in appropriate quantity, that is the daiva. And then the season changes from the sowing to the harvesting, that kala passes. After that, there is the phala.
So karma plus daiva plus kala leads to phala. So like that, in all actions, sometimes we may do the karma, but if the daiva, the destiny is not favorable, then the phala may not come. That does not mean that there is something wrong with what we are doing right now.
We may be doing the right thing, and sometimes a daiva may be unfavorable, and that’s why we do not get the results. Sometimes the daiva is favorable, and the results come immediately. In practical life, sometimes a couple may want to have a child.
They try, sometimes they get a child immediately, sometimes they don’t get a child immediately. So, or even if they want a child, it’s not that they try and the next day they have a child. There has to be at least 9-10 months to pass.
There’s karma, daiva, kala, and then there is phala. So sometimes, if we don’t understand this principle of karma, then we start thinking that I have done the karma, why am I not getting the phala? And we start blaming ourselves, thinking that, oh, you know, I’m useless, I’m good for nothing, I’m worthless. We become depressed.
Much of modern ideology is based on the idea that whatever we want, we can do. But it is not that simple. We may want to do something, but it may not work out.
Now, when the Titanic was first made, a giant ship, they advertised the ship as the ship which even God can’t sink. Now, their idea was nobody can sink it. And what happened? Its maiden voyage, it sank.
So, when we think that our actions alone determine the results, that is arrogance. And that arrogance can lead to enormous frustration, it can lead to depression. So, we understand, if we take into account that my karma is my duty, I’ll do it.
Sometimes the results may come, sometimes the results may not come. That philosophical perspective can help us to see failure as an event, not as a person. It is not that this person is a failure.
This person may face the event of failure once, twice, thrice, four times, five times, but that doesn’t make the person bad, that doesn’t make the person a failure. Yeah, eventually that whatever that unfavorable destiny faces there, that will get over. And then the work that they do will provide the results, the results will come for that.
So, the disheartenment that comes when we face failures in our life, that can be avoided if we understand that karma is twofold, our present actions and the reactions of our past actions. So, daiva, you talk about destiny, what is destiny? Destiny is actually the results of our past work. It is the karmic stockpile that also shapes the results.
The second result, the second consequence of this, a second practical application of the principle of karma for us is that actually beyond, beyond the law of karma is God. God is the, not just the God of justice, He is the God of grace. Krishna describes in the Bhagavad Gita that, aham tvam sarva-papebhyo moksheshyami mahasuchaha, I can free you from all sinful reactions, do not fear.
So, if we become devoted to God, then whatever karmic reactions are going to come to us, Krishna can protect us from them. mat-citta-sarva-durgani mat-prasadata-rishisimu. In 18.58 in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says, if you become conscious of me, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace.
This means that Krishna is above karma, that the obstacles come by our past karma, by the daiva, but Krishna can protect us from them. Now, when we say Krishna can protect us from them, Krishna can protect in various ways. It is not that Krishna will, we have problems, we pray to Krishna, all problems will disappear.
That can happen also. But more often than not, the problems that we face are often the crucibles for our growth. It is when we face problems that we go deeper within ourselves.
We understand who we are and the problems can either bring out our worst or problems can bring out our best. Sometimes, when faced with a problem, some people just get furious, irritable. They snap at this person, they shout at this person, they hit this person.
I never thought this person would make this. For some people, problems can bring out the worst within them. For other people, when the problems come, they take it gracefully, they take it determinedly and we see the strength of their character.
Problems bring out their best. The person may seem to be like a simple, ordinary, fragile-looking person, but when the problems come and they face it with such determination, you see, actually, however they look, inside they have got a spine of steel. They can face whatever problems are coming.
So, when problems come, sometimes they can bring out our worst, sometimes they can bring out our best. Now, when we start practicing bhakti, when we start worshipping Krishna through the process of bhakti yoga, Krishna may remove the problems or Krishna may use the problems for our growth. That means, when the problem comes, that problem impels us to go deep within.
Krishna is there within our hearts. He is present at the Paramatma. We take shelter of Him.
We take guidance of Him. We become devoted to Him and that makes us stronger. That toughens us from within and with that strength, not only do we face the problem, not only do we go through the problem, but with that strength, with that strength from within which comes by connection with Krishna, we grow through the problem.
We not only go through it, but we grow through it. And I’ll conclude with one example and then we can have some question answers. The principle of karma is the principle of justice.
Krishna is not the God of justice. He is the God of justice, but more than justice, there is mercy. So, when Krishna offers mercy, it is for the person to take that mercy.
It’s like in the Mahabharata, we have the example of Krishna going as Shanti Duta. The Kauravas had done horrible atrocities against the Pandavas. They had tried to poison Bhima.
They had tried to burn the Pandavas and their mother alive. They had tried to misrobe Draupadi. They had cheated the Pandavas of their kingdom.
For each one of these crimes, the Kauravas deserve to die. To dishonor an honorable woman in public, it’s a horrible crime. To try to poison someone, it’s a terrible crime.
To burn people while they’re sleeping, again a horrendous crime. For all these, the Kauravas deserve to be punished and the punishment at that time for such aggression is capital punishment. They deserve to die.
Now, yet Krishna as the God of grace went personally to the Kauravas and he offered them peace on the most accommodating of terms. In fact, when Krishna went to the Kauravas, he actually had an elaborate talk and traditionally there are four ways of persuasion, they say. Saam, Daam, Bhed and Danda.
Saam is trying to point out to the other person, you know, our interests are common. Why are we fighting? Daam is, you want, you can take this, but let’s avoid the fight. Bhed is to show that how actually within those people itself, create dissension and then one party wants to fight, the other party doesn’t want to fight.
They keep fighting among each other and the fight doesn’t happen between us and them. Like that, Bhed. And Danda is, if you continue on this path, we will destroy you.
So, Krishna uses all of them. First, he tells that actually the Kauravas and the Pandavas, they are relatives, they are cousins and he tells Dhritarashtra that, you know, the Pandavas are ready to serve you as sons would serve their father. With them by your side, nobody will ever be able to challenge you.
You will have unrivalled prosperity. Why do you want to antagonize those who are ready to serve you? Dhritarashtra, he tells Krishna, Krishna, actually all that you say is true. But what can I do? My son does not listen to me.
Please speak to Duryodhana. If you can make him understand, then I have no objection. This is actually an abdication of responsibility.
See, Duryodhana, Dhritarashtra was sitting on the throne, but someone else was in power. Duryodhana was in power. In India, in the previous government, it was like that for 10 years.
One person was in the chair, other person was in power. So, now Krishna spoke to Duryodhana and he said, Duryodhana, you wanted a kingdom? You want a kingdom? We will give it to you. Just give the Pandavas five millions.
And Duryodhana was so adamant. Sometimes, when somebody says no to us, we don’t just see the words, we also see the mood. There is a way of saying no, in which, actually, we respect the person who is requesting or inviting and say, I would like to come, but because of this, I can’t come.
There’s a way of saying no when you say no to a particular request, but you’re not saying no to the person. But there’s another way of saying no, no, I will not come, I will never come. Get lost! This is not just no to the request, this is no to the person.
And that was what Duryodhana did. I will not give enough land even to put the tip of a needle through. This is, he is just having no interest in negotiation.
So, then Krishna tries to behave, Krishna says, Krishna turns to the other Kauravas and he says, that all of you, you have seen, you have heard time and again about the strength of the Pandavas. You know, Arjuna single-handedly defeated all of you in the Virat Yuga. What to speak of all of you, Arjuna has defeated all the Devas in the earlier battle at the Khandava.
And when he had gone to Swarga, at that time, on behalf of Indra, he went and defeated Dhanava, the Nivat Kavachas. So, Arjuna has defeated forces far more powerful than you and even your forces. What hope do you have of winning against him? And specifically turning to Duryodhana’s brother, he said, remember that Bhima has taken a vow to destroy all of you.
Do you want to invite death by provoking the furious Bhima, who is now ready to settle, to forget, to bury the hatchet, ready to settle peacefully. Krishna spoke so fearsomely that Dushasana got scared. And Dushasana said, he looked at the assembly and he says, if this foolish Duryodhana does not agree to what Krishna is saying, that we all should tie Duryodhana up and hand him as a prisoner to Krishna and we should settle for peace.
Duryodhana heard this, he was furious. He said, look at Dushasana, what happened to him? And everybody was looking, what is happening? And Duryodhana just walked out of the assembly. Now, all the 98 other brothers remained.
They looked at Dushasana, they looked at Duryodhana. Duryodhana was always their boss and Dushasana was always the second person. Suddenly, Dushasana had spoken against Duryodhana.
They didn’t know what to do. They looked and throughout they looked at Dhritarashtra. Dhritarashtra was always silent.
Yes, whenever it was time to speak, he would not speak. And when there was no need to speak, he would speak. So, Dhritarashtra remained silent.
All 98 brothers also walked out. And then, now Dushasana was left alone. Now, what to do? He looked here, looked there, everybody was silent, everybody was looking at him and he also walked out.
And then, now Duryodhana is also very intelligent. He was very cunning in a sense. He is a politician and a politician knows what to speak when to win people over.
So, now Dushasana went to Duryodhana’s palace where all the Kauravas had assembled and now he was expecting that, you know, Duryodhana will chastise me, will call me a betrayer, how will I defend myself? And as soon as Dushasana entered, Duryodhana very intelligently said, no, I have been telling all of you, Krishna is a very cunning speaker. When Krishna starts speaking, anybody can be deceived. Just see, our Dushasana was deceived by Krishna just now.
Isn’t it, Dushasana? Dushasana thought, I got to escape. Yes, yes, Krishna is very cunning. We should not trust him anymore.
So, what happened? In this way, Duryodhana won Dushasana over to his side again. So, Krishna used Bhed also. So, Saam, Dhaam, Bhed and then he used all of them.
Nothing worked. And then the war took place. At that time, the Kauravas had to die.
That was their karmic due. So, Krishna, he demonstrates mercy, is ready to forgive everything. But then there has to be cooperation from Duryodhana.
Duryodhana refused to cooperate and by that rejection of Krishna’s proposal, Duryodhana sealed his path with death. So, there is the principle of justice and there is the principle of grace. Normally, when we live in this world without God being a part of our life, then we are within the realm of justice.
And in the realm of justice, there is Punya and there is Paap. When we do bad, we get bad results. When we do good, we get good results.
But Bhakti is actually beyond both. Krishna says when we practice Bhakti, he says in 9.28 in the Bhagavad Gita that actually that when we start practicing Bhakti, we are not really concerned simply about doing good things or not simply about avoiding bad things. We are concerned about doing things in a mood of service to Krishna, loving service to Krishna.
That intention of loving service takes us beyond the law of karma. That beyond the law of karma means we come in Krishna’s personal circle. So, by the principle of justice, we may act and we may carefully avoid bad things and do good things.
We will get some good results. But still, whatever bad things we have done in the past, the bad results will also come. And the way life is today in this world is often difficult to avoid bad things.
So, Bhakti inspires us to rise above this duality of good and bad. That means focus on devotional activities to Krishna. And by such devotional practice, the devotional practices involve primarily we say A, B, C, D. A is association of devotees.
When we come in a spiritual association, then we understand the importance of practicing Bhakti. B is studying of books, books. Krishna says, by Shastra, we need to understand what is to be done and what is not to be done.
C is chanting of the holy names. Before this, we probably had the kirtan of the Mahamantra. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Ram, Hare Ram, Ram Ram, Hare Hare, Hare Hare.
So, by such chanting of the holy names, our Bhakti for Krishna becomes stronger. And D is deity worship. We have a temple, we have altar in our home, and then we worship the deity, we offer our food to the deity, we take their prasad.
By these activities, we rise above the level of karma. That means we start practicing Bhakti. Some karmic reactions may still come to us, but we come in Krishna’s inner circle.
And then whatever problems come upon our life, Krishna helps us to deal with them. Krishna is always there in our heart, but when we are not interested in Him and practicing Bhakti to Him, then Krishna is there, He observes, He doesn’t intervene, because we don’t want Him to intervene. Yes, I want to do what I want to do, and you don’t interfere.
That is our attitude, I won’t interfere. But when we pray to Him, when we devote ourselves to Him, then Krishna intervenes. And when Krishna intervenes in our life, then He protects us from wrongdoings.
He protects us, He gives us the knowledge to make right choices. He gives us the strength, the inner purity to act on those right choices. So when we practice Bhakti, when we study the scriptures like Bhagavad Gita and start practicing Bhakti, not only do we understand what is the right thing to do, but we become pure.
All of us have certain certain habits which we want to give up, certain behavioral patterns which we want to change. If we start chanting Hare Krishna and start practicing Bhakti, we’ll find that giving up those undesirable habits will become much easier. How will it become easier? Because we are going at the root, at the very core of our heart we are going and we are changing the quality of our consciousness.
Now we have a lever, lever, sometimes levers are used to lift big weights. So now if we have to lift that big weight, it is very difficult. If we place it on a lever and put a little force on this side, it’s appropriately arranged, a little force on this side and that lever will move.
Big weight can be moved. Most of you must have seen levers. They are appropriately arranged.
Little force can lead to the movement of big weights. So like that when we are practicing Bhakti, what we are doing is we are getting access to an inner lever. So in Bhakti we apply a little determination.
Even to practice Bhakti requires some determination to chant the holy names, study scriptures. But when we do that, what happens is the weight of big habits that we may have. Some of us may be short-tempered.
We just get angry. Some of us may be very pessimistic, just feel negative about things. Whatever are these negative patterns of thought or patterns of behavior which we may have and which will be struggling to give up.
We may have tried and we are unable to give up. I had a TV interview in India on the occasion of New Year resolutions. So I was explaining at that time that a survey was done about people’s New Year resolutions and it was found that 95% of the New Year resolutions are not new.
And people made those resolutions last year, they couldn’t keep it and now they are making it again this year. So what happens is that we all want to become better and we all try for it. But sometimes we sustain for a little time and then again we relapse.
But if we get access to this inner lever, then a little effort in changing ourselves and practicing bhakti, that can bring rich rewards. Because when we start practicing bhakti, what is the lever? No, it is not only our willpower that is working. Our willpower is complemented by divine power.
When we start practicing bhakti, we get access to God’s supreme power. And God’s supreme power can bring about changes within us, which by our own power, it will be very difficult to change. That’s why it’s a time-honored principle.
Millions of people all over the world have found this that by practicing bhakti, by chanting the holy names, by understanding the principles of Bhagavad Gita, they have been able to change themselves dramatically at times, giving up past negative behavioral patterns, thought patterns and become much more positive and productive. And so this is the way, so when I talked about the karma, daiva, kala and phala. So what bhakti does is, it helps us to change our karma.
What I am doing right now, it helps me to know what is the right thing to do and do it. And it also gives me the strength to do it. And then what about the daiva? Some unfavorable destiny is there, some accumulation of past bad karma is there, because of which some result may be coming, some problems are going to come in our life.
What bhakti does is, by Krishna’s mercy, the problems can go away, even if the problems don’t go away. Krishna gives us an inner shelter by which we can deal with those problems. Suppose, you know that, say, many of your mothers, suppose your child is going to school, and in the school the teacher is a little strict.
So the teacher, if any child doesn’t do homework, the teacher is strict and punishes the child. Nowadays, we don’t have corporal punishment, but say in the past we had that. Say, you know, you have not done homework, come here, yes, put out your hand.
The teacher beats the stick on the hand. You should do your homework regularly to teach. Now, the mother has seen today that this child has not done homework.
The mother doesn’t want the child to be beaten. But at the same time, the mother doesn’t want the child to be irresponsible. The child should learn to do homework.
So what the mother does, in the day the child is going to school, the mother puts a nice thick glue on the child’s hand. And with that glue, the child goes to school. At that time, the teacher says, have you done your homework? No! Come here! And the child comes there.
Put out your hand. Hand is there. The stick falls and a loud noise happens.
Now this is happening. But because the glue is there, the child doesn’t feel pain. Similarly, when we start practicing bhakti, you know, Krishna is like our mother.
Material nature with its laws is like the teacher. So by some karma, we are supposed to get some reaction. Now that Krishna offers us the glow.
The glow, what is that glow? The glow is the glow of Krishna bhavana, Krishna chitna, remembrance of Krishna. When we are absorbed in that glow, in Krishna, through devotional remembrance, even when problems come upon us, we don’t get overwhelmed by them. We don’t feel the impact of the problems.
Why? Because every problem that we face, there is a problem which is out there and there is a problem that is in here. That means, say, okay, there is a problem, say, my boss troubles me in my work. There is a problem out there.
But okay, I’m with the boss, the boss gives me too much work or whatever. That problem is there. Okay, I may face it two, three times in a day whenever I’m working.
But that weighs on our mind. Constantly thinking about my boss is like this, my boss is like that, my boss is like that, my boss is like that. Or even a more simple example, sometimes we go to some assembly, some meeting, and then we greet someone.
And that person just snubs us. Doesn’t greet back at all, just looks away. We feel so angry.
How dare this person snub me like this? And then for the next one hour, we are cultivating revenge fantasies. Next time, I’ll show this person. Now, it’s just small.
Okay, that person snubbed us. That’s not a pleasant thing. But the actual problem is very small.
The mental component of the problem is very big. So quite often, if we look at our problems, the real problem is manageable. But the mental component of the problem makes it unmanageable.
Why is this happening? Why, why, why, why? That mental component makes the problem unmanageable. So when we start practicing bhakti, when we develop a habit of remembering Krishna, of cultivating remembrance of Krishna, then by that, our mind gets shelter. So instead of thinking about the problems, stewing over the problem and making it bigger and bigger in our mind, we turn our thoughts towards Krishna.
We feel shelter, we feel so nice. And then we can with that inner calm return back. Okay, this is what happened.
This is how I can deal with it. There’s a problem and there’s a practical solution to the problem. But instead of the problem and the practical solution, we let ourselves stew mentally.
And we make things far more problematic than what they need to be. Even when there are big problems facing us, if we have an inner shelter, if our thoughts are not obsessed with the problems, if our thoughts are sheltered in something that is calming, in something that is strengthening, then we can face the problems much better. So this is what happens to us when we start practicing bhakti.
The practice of bhakti means that we habituate our mind to thinking about Krishna. And Krishna is like a shelter for our consciousness. So when we are facing problems, the external problem creates a mental corresponding problem.
And that blows up. But when we are sheltered in Krishna, okay, the problem is there, it needs a solution. We don’t let it blow up in our mind.
We take shelter of Krishna that calms us down. And then we maturely deal with the problem. In this way, even when the daiva is unfavorable and some problems do come in our life, by remembering Krishna, that remembrance of Krishna becomes like the glow.
The external problem is there and to the world it appears this person is going through problems. But internally, although the noise is happening, the child is not feeling the pain because the glow is there. So like that when we are remembering Krishna, externally the problem is there.
But internally, we won’t be that troubled by the problem. We’ll be sheltered internally and we will do the necessary to deal with the problem. In this way, by the practice of bhakti, we can grow through whatever situation we are in.
And thus, we can attain the fullest destiny that we are meant to attain. Now we can bring out the best within us and by God’s grace, we can attain the best. The ultimate best is that we are souls and the soul has an eternal relationship with God in His eternal kingdom.
And returning to His kingdom for a life of eternal happiness, that is the ultimate best that we can achieve. And that we can achieve if we cultivate bhakti in this life. So our aspiration for life eternal, love eternal, joy eternal, all that can be fulfilled when we learn to practice bhakti.
And I’ll summarize. So I spoke about the principle of karma today and initially I talked about how in all our day, science has progressed by assuming a cause-effect correlation and then finding out the pattern of that cause-effect correlation. Even in our day-to-day life, if we see a scratch on our child, if we see somebody in a bad mood, we ask what happened.
So we all function based on a cause-effect correlation in our life. And yet, sometimes for very foundational things, there seems to be no cause-effect correlation. Let’s say some people are born wealthy, some are born poor.
That seems to be arbitrary. The what is the cause of that? We can’t see any cause. But we can see if we extend our vision.
So the starting point, why do different people have different? Three possible explanations. It’s like in a cricket match, if some one team is starting with zero, the other is starting with 200. So one explanation could be that the scoreboard itself is conker off.
It’s working by chance. So like that, everything in life happens by chance. That’s one explanation.
The other is the scorekeeper is biased. Like that God is arbitrary, God is biased. And God gives good things to some people, bad things to some people.
The third possibility is that, what is it? So in the middle of the game, it is second innings. And the score that we are seeing is based on what the teams have scored in the past. So like that, we are not in the first innings in life.
We are in the middle. So whatever starting points we get in our life, they are based on what we have done in the past. Some of us who may have good starting point, that’s because of our positive karmic score from the past.
Some of us who have not so good starting point, that is because of our less than positive score from the past. Now then we discuss, in this way, seeing life as a continuation from multiple lifetimes, we can reconcile the cause effect principle in this world with cause goodness. And why do we need to extend cause effect principle like this? Because different actions, they fructify after different durations.
Just like different seeds fructify after different durations. So like that, our actions are like seeds. And we see that in day to day life also.
If I put my hand in fire, or if I take ice cream on a cold night, or if someone starts smoking, these results will come after different time durations. So like that, our karma is also a seed which will give results after different time durations. And so by this understanding of karma, we can make sense of both the starting points in our life, and also of sometimes suddenly bad things happen to us.
You know, why do bad things happen to good people? Because our karma is like a tank. We are putting in good water in it, but the bad water that was there, that is coming out now. Therefore, the good water will also come out eventually.
But right now, we may not, we were putting good water, we may not get good water right now. So from the action to the result is not a straight line. It is karma, what are the other two factors? Daiva, kala.
Yes, then it is the phala. So farmer sows the seed and ploughs the land, that is the karma. The rains come in time, that is the daiva.
And the seasons change, that is the kala. Then the phala will come, that is the harvest. So like that, in our life also, sometimes we may do the karma, but if the daiva is not favorable, the phala will not come.
So rather than getting disheartened, rather than thinking I am good for nothing, just understand that I am going through bad things in my life. Let me just be patient and persevere. And then we discussed that, so rather than taking failure personally, we can see first failure philosophically and persevere.
And we discussed about this principle of the practice of bhakti yoga. How does that help us? Bhakti yoga has four components, A, B, C, D. Do you remember what is A? Association of devotees. B is? Books.
Studying books like Bhagavad Gita. C is? Chanting the holy names. And D is? Deity worship.
So by this practice of bhakti, two things happen. One is, if we consider karma, daiva, kala, phala. Karma, we get the knowledge of the right things to do.
And also, we get the inner determination to do the right things. Bhakti gives access to an inner lever by which, you know, our habits which we wanted to change, but we are not able to change. There is too much of a wait for us to change.
We apply force at the right point. That is, we apply our determination for practicing bhakti. And then that gives us access to God’s almighty power.
And that can bring about dramatic changes within us. So our karma becomes much better when we start practicing bhakti. In fact, it not just become from bad to good, but it becomes spiritual.
It takes us beyond the principle of justice to the principle of grace. I discussed how when Duryodhana, Krishna offered Duryodhana grace, tried to persuade him to samdha, bhed, danda. But when he rejected that, then he had to get justice.
He was punished for his wrongdoings. So we can also accept, rise to the level of grace by accepting Krishna’s proposal that he offered in the Bhagavad Gita that we practice bhakti to him. Ma me kam saranam bhajans.
Surrender to me. And so our actions can become spiritual by the practice of bhakti. And daiva, when some bad things are happening to us, then Krishna bhakti gives us the shelter.
Just like the child who is supposed to be beaten for the punishment. Child, mother gives a glow. Krishna is like the mother who gives us the glow of his remembrance.
When we are absorbed in him, then the external problem does not snowball into an inner bigger problem. Because we don’t keep stewing on it. Okay, external problem is there.
We turn our thoughts towards Krishna, pray to him, take shelter of him. We become calm and calmly we respond to the external problem. In this way, when we bring Krishna into the center of our life, become devoted to Krishna, then in our life journey, we can not only go through whatever problems we face, but we can grow through them.
And our life journey can become supremely auspicious. Instead of problems bringing out our worst, whatever problems we face, they bring out our best. And we will grow through life as happily as possible in the shelter of Krishna.
Ultimately, we will attain the destination of eternal happiness. When we become devoted to Krishna, then he takes us beyond this world to his abode, where there is eternal happiness. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? So people are crying for material happiness, but distress is coming without happiness. Yeah, good question.
So the Bhagavatam says that just as distress comes without our endeavoring, so happiness will also come without endeavoring. Therefore, there is no need to endeavor in material life. We can endeavor only for spiritual life, for spiritual growth.
So how do we understand the statement? Yes, this is true in the sense that one, our focus of endeavor should be for spiritual growth. At the same time, there is also the principle which Prabhupada would quote, that nahi suptasya silmasya prabhishanti mukhendru gaha, that the lion will just keep sleeping or lying down on one place, the deer is not going to come in its mouth. The lion has to go and chase the deer.
So similarly, we get results not just by sitting and dreaming, we have to put the mind, we have to endeavor for it. So there is the principle of endeavor and there is the principle of over endeavor. So we see in the Bhagavatam, Parikshit Maharaj, as soon as he heard that there were signs of irreligion in his kingdom, immediately he went on his chariot and started searching and he started countering it.
He did what he could to counter it. That was his duty. So you are not thinking that whatever destiny is going to happen, it will happen.
We see that even Vasudev and Devaki, when Kamsa caught Devaki by the neck, he said, I was about to cut off her head. One of the arguments that Vasudev uses is to stop Kamsa, now if you are destined to die, that can’t be avoided. So what will you gain by killing your own sister? You will get only bad karma and your destiny is still going to come.
Now he could have turned that argument around and thought that if Devaki is going to die, anyway she is going to die. So why should I spend so much time arguing with Kamsa? No, he did not do that. Why? Because it was his duty to protect his wife.
So from the perspective of Kamsa, when he was trying to kill Devaki, he was giving up his duty. And then when a person is about to give up his duty, at that time you tell him, I didn’t know. By giving up duty, if you think that you can avoid problems, you won’t be able to avoid problems because your destiny is there.
So the important point is not destiny, the important point is duty. We all should stick to our duty. If some problem makes us feel that I should give up my duty and do something irreligious, then no, don’t do it.
Stick to your duty. That’s what Kamsa is, Vasudev is telling Kamsa. But if one starts thinking about destiny, I will not do my duty only.
If Ram and Sita is abducted, will Ram think, oh it must have been Sita’s destiny that he was abducted. If we start becoming too destiny-centered, in fact, that is one of the criticisms of Indian culture by Western civilization. We are too destiny-centered.
So if we become too destiny-centered, you know, where will we stop? That say, if a baby is crying, should the mother think the baby is crying because of her destiny? We’ll become totally cold-hearted by that. So the Bhagavatam’s thrust is that we have to do our duties. There are material duties, there are spiritual duties.
Material duties also need to be done. But we don’t have to over-endeavor for them. So our focus should be on spiritual growth.
But that doesn’t mean the material life has to be neglected. So just like at one level we could say that, because when we talk about destiny, you know, the destiny determines what happens to us. So when the Bhagavatam says happiness will come, it basically means that just as distress comes, happiness will come.
It means that just as distressful circumstances come in our life, similarly joyful circumstances will also come. Let’s say sometimes some doors close in our life, some doors will open also. But even when the door is open, we have to walk through it.
So that means that by our past karma, we may get food to eat, but still I have to eat the food. If I don’t open my mouth and eat the food, then the food will not come to me. So the point is that our, by not doing our duty, that is also a bad karma.
That is also adding to the destiny. That is also compounding the negative destiny. So for example, if I’m driving a car on a stormy night and so the road is slippery, maybe the lights are not there.
This kind of circumstance that is happening, that is my destiny. The distress has come. Now, if at that time, if I am also reckless in driving, then the likelihood of accident increases.
So like I said, that again going back to the point of karma plus daiva plus kala needs to follow. So what the Bhagavatam is saying is that by our past destiny, by our past karma, sometimes some unfavorable circumstances will come. Sometimes favorable circumstances will come.
Sometimes the daiva will work out positively for us. Sometimes the daiva will work out negatively for us. So don’t bother too much about it.
Keep doing your karma and don’t get worked up about it. The focus can be on spiritual growth, but that doesn’t mean material life has to be neglected. Material life also has to be integrated with our spiritual life.
So destiny may come on its own, but when destiny comes on its own, it simply means that the circumstances come. Joyful circumstances come. Painful circumstances come.
But our response is also important. And further, the Bhagavatam is spoken to a person who is about to die. At one level, we can say we all are about to die.
At another level, we also understand that the way Parikshit Maharaj devoted himself to hearing Bhagavatam seven days, seven days, now exclusively, not doing anything else. He was a great devotee, but still, he did not do that throughout his life. Before that, he was doing his royal duties.
He was hearing Bhagavatam, he was hearing spiritual wisdom also, but he was not hearing it, giving up everything else and hearing it. So even in Parikshit Maharaj’s life, there’s a difference in the way he conducted himself in the normal course of life and the way he conducted himself when he was about to die. So that way, Shri Prabhupada himself, he travelled all over the world for preaching.
He taught us also that we can die at any moment. But at the same time, he travelled all over the world. And when it became clear to him that now, now my life is about to end, that’s what Krishna wants for me, then he stopped and he came back to Vrindavan.
And he taught by his example, how we can absorb ourselves in Krishna wholeheartedly. Prabhupada did not do that. He could have done that all his life.
He could have been absorbed in hearing about Krishna in Vrindavan, never go out of India. He did not do that. So what am I trying to say by this is that the principle of destiny has to be acknowledged so that we don’t give up our duty.
The principle of destiny is not a rationalization for giving up our duty. Two different things. You know, if I am tempted to give up duty to get some pleasure or to avoid some problem, don’t do that because by destiny that is going to happen.
But in the name of destiny, I give up my duty itself. Then that is going to create further bad karma. So the Vedic culture is always duty centered.
And by being duty centered, we create the best possible future for us, no matter whatever destiny is there in our life. Does that address your question? That’s a good point. So when Krishna says that even if you decide to not fight, still you will be forced to fight by the modes.
That is your nature. The sabha is that a Kshatriya fight. We’ll have to fight.
So what does that mean? Actually, yes, here two things are there that our sabha will make us act. But in what consciousness we act, at what level we act, that is something which is up to us. So if we are, if we are, Arjuna as a Kshatriya will fight.
But whether he will fight dharmically or he will fight adharmically, that will depend on his consciousness. So in that 18.59 and 16, when Krishna says that you will be forced to fight by your nature, Vishwanath Chakradhakur explains in his commentary over there, Arjuna, now there is a dharma yuddha for you. Here you are saying you will not fight.
But later on, you think that you will live like a beggar. You just live by getting alms from people. But you are a Kshatriya.
If somebody refuses to give you alms, you will become angry and you will take out your sword to fight with them. So that kind of attacking people who do not give you alms, that is adharmic. If you are a mendicant, you cannot do that.
So that time when you do it, it will be adharma. So again, the point of the Bhagavad Gita is that we can’t give up our nature. So better use our nature to do our duty.
If we give up our duty thinking that, oh, this is troublesome, why do all this, then our nature will make us do something similar. But then we will do it in adharmic way. And that will cause us further bad karma.
So yes, our endeavor is that not that we act according to our nature. We will anyway act according to our nature. But our endeavor is to act according to dharma according to our nature.
Act dharmically according to our nature. That requires endeavor. Does it address you? It’s a complicated subject.
How about any other questions? Guruji, in the current scenario, if you see, many wars happen in the current world, wars like this is happening. In the past, it used to be more than the current situation. But it has been compensated by some other things like mutilation and all these things.
So take an example where the child is born and he has died. Now, he has not started his karma anymore. But he has died because of his past life and what he is telling.
But here, he has not got the third part of it. That is the time. So there is a, the karma is also not done, time is also not done.
But he has not followed that in his life. So there are two things he could not do. And we see a lot of wars happening in the Middle East and all countries.
So how do we… So how are you connecting war with child? You are talking about children dying in the wars? Yeah. So sometimes, say, if a child is born and the child dies without getting an opportunity to do anything, it doesn’t… So what is the point of such a life? How does this work out? See, whatever we get in our life, we get means what happens in our life, that can happen by destiny. So for example, some of us may go through a phase in our life and whatever we do, it just works outright.
You know, we work at a project and just do it so well. We try to form a relationship and it just blossoms. We do this, it just works.
Whatever we touch turns into gold. And sometimes we go through phases in our life when even if we touch gold, it turns into stone. Whatever we do, good things start coming back.
Now this is just phases in our life. So now, just as we can get phases in our life when things can be, all things seem to be going wonderful and there can be phases in our life and all things seem to be going dreadful. So like that, if we consider from the perspective of eternity, the perspective of many many lifetimes, then we’ll see that one lifetime of a soul, of a child who was born, it’s not that big.
From this life’s perspective, see one thing is, if we take the philosophy of karma from this life’s perspective, it can seem very heartless. If we keep a material bodily concept of life and think about karma, it seems very heartless. If a child is born, a child is born with a congenital disease, a child is born with a physical deficiency.
What could this child have done? How can this be child’s fault? So it can seem very heartless. And the important thing is that when we are dealing with people, we are never meant to judge them by what they have done in the past. We are meant to interact with them based on their present situation only.
So yes, it is the law of karma will come based on past life also. But in this life, we are meant to judge based on, we are meant to interact based on what they are doing now. If a thief steals from somebody’s house and then that person goes to the king, he says, okay, this thief has stolen from my house.
The king says, it was by your past karma it is stolen. Where will justice be then? The king is not to consider people’s past karma. From this life’s karma, what happened was bad.
I’ll find the thief and I’ll punish him and I’ll get them back. That’s justice. So similarly, when if a child is born and child is for a short time and the child dies, from this life’s perspective, it is very sad, it is tragic.
And we should do whatever is there in our power to prevent such things. Sometimes there are big political complications and big egos involved because of which we may not have any power to do anything in that situation. So we understand that from the perspective of multiple lifetimes, for that soul, this life itself was like on bad phase.
It’s like during our life, we may go through some bad phases. So like that, for that soul, this life itself is a bad phase. And sometimes in the bad phase, we just can’t do anything.
Now for that child who is just born, lives for a short time and dies, that means this life is simply a time for exhausting past karma. This life is not a time for doing anything more. It’s like sometimes when we fall sick, sometimes some people get a paralytic attack and just paralyzed.
Till they get cured, they can’t do anything. So that phase is simply a phase of exhausting past karma. After that karma gets exhausted, then they get recovered and they can do things after that.
Similarly, sometimes during some phases in our life, we are put in situations where we can’t do anything except exhaust the past karma. We don’t have much scope to do anything positive at that time. So similarly for the child in this whole lifetime of a few years or a few months or whatever it was, that is like a phase for exhausting past karma.
And then the soul will go to the next destination where its circumstances will be more conducive and will continue its journey. Is the answer clear? Any other questions? So Parikshit Maharaj and Prahlad Prabhupada, they got signals that their life is going to end and they devoted themselves wholeheartedly to Krishna. So what do we do in our lives? Because we may not get a signal like that.
See the point is not that we postpone bhakti till the moment of death. Rather, there is the practice of bhakti in a way we are doing our worldly duties and we are practicing bhakti. And there is a practice of exclusive bhakti.
So even Bhishma Pitamah, it is said when he starts his prayers to Krishna in that ninth chapter of the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, he says, My thoughts are going in many different directions till now. Now I’m going to withdraw all those thoughts and focus them only on you, O Lord. So for us in the routine course of our life, what we need to do is we need to every day have some time when we focus exclusively on Krishna.
That is our sadhana. We have our puja, we have our japa, we have our svadhyaya. That is the time we try to exclusively focus on Krishna.
Other times we do our duties, we try to remember Krishna as much as possible. And by this, by steadily focusing on Krishna, in some part of the day, Krishna becomes more and more focused in our consciousness. And as Krishna becomes more and more focused in our consciousness, because more of a presence in our consciousness, then we come to the foreground.
We can remember him more and more, even when we are not directly focusing on him. So once one devotee, he heard a class, how we can die at any moment. And he came and after that, the class was given by somebody else, he came and asked, if I start thinking that I’m going to die today, I’ll not feel like going to office only.
Should I stop going to office? What should I do now? He said, actually, bhakti, the bhakti philosophy, the philosophy that we are going to die, the point of it is not to make us paranoid. No, I may die any moment, I may die any moment. It’s not that I have to live in constant fear.
Is this room going to fall down? Am I going to get a heart attack? No, that’s not the point. The point is to direct our consciousness from the material to the spiritual. The point is not to just constantly live in fear of death.
The point is to recognize that death is not just a possibility, it is an inevitability. It’s going to come and I need to direct my consciousness from the material to spiritual level. And there is a process for directing that consciousness from the material to the spiritual level.
So, I should practice that process determinately. And that process involves a balance of material and spiritual life. Vidyam cha vidyam cha yas tad vedo bhayamsara avidyaya mrtyam tirtha vidyaya mrtyam asnitya.
The Isha Upanishad says that material knowledge, spiritual knowledge, both we need. So, avidyaya mrtyam tirtha, when functioning in this world, while navigating this world, we need material knowledge. So, material knowledge means knowledge of how to earn a living, knowledge of how to deal with people, knowledge of how to manage our finances, knowledge of how to manage our health, all this material knowledge.
Isha Upanishad says avidyaya mrtyam tirtha, that this material existence, which is a place of death, we will cross over this by material knowledge. We will know how to navigate in this. And then vidyaya mrtyam asnitya, and by spiritual knowledge, we will attain eternal existence.
Therefore, vidyam cha vidyam cha, both we need. So, during the normal course of our life, we remember that death can come at any time, but that is not meant to make us paranoid. We understand that because death is an inevitability, therefore, let me focus on the process that will take my consciousness from the material level to the spiritual, and I practice that process wholeheartedly.
Does that answer your question? Any other questions? How do we know what past karma we have done, which will reflect in our present? Okay, how do we know what past karma we have done, which will reflect in our present? Every life that we have, it is an opportunity for a fresh beginning. And that is why, by nature’s arrangement, we are usually not burdened with the remembrance of our past karma. Actually speaking, you know, if at every moment, we started having a flashback of everything connected with that moment, it should not be able to function at all.
So, right now, I am speaking. Now, when I am speaking, I am using the English language. I am following the rules of grammar.
I am using my knowledge of vocabulary. Now, there was some time, maybe 40 years ago, when I, 35, 40 years ago, whatever, when I learned the alphabets, when I learned the rules of grammar, when I learned my vocabulary. Now, if while speaking, I started remembering all that, my brain will get overloaded, and I would not be able to do anything.
So, we are given the memory that is necessary for us to function right now. The very fact that I am speaking means that I have learned all this. But that learning is at the background.
It is somewhere there, and that learning is guiding me. But that learning is not what I remember right now. It is the effect of that learning that I use.
So, similarly, when we function in this world, say, if I slip and fall. Now, when I slip and fell, why did I fall? Was it because there was some water spilled, and I just was careless? Or was that water spilled because it was a reaction to some karma which I had done in the past? What was that karma? Was it this karma or that karma? Or, you know, was it that some person wanted me to fall and just put the water over there directly at that time? You know, if for every action, we start thinking of all these things, we would just not be able to function. We would just live in a, our mind would be caught in a perpetual flashback mode.
You are just thinking about the past, thinking about the past, thinking about the past. You would not be able to function. So, the important thing for us, while living, the whole purpose of understanding the principle of karma is not post-mortem.
It is prognosis. See, post-mortem, when a patient has already died, then we do the post-mortem to find out why they died. But if the patient is living, the doctor does not do a post-mortem.
The doctor does a prognosis. Prognosis means, okay, this is your condition. If you do this, this will happen.
If you do this, this will happen. Now, you have got diabetes. If you still keep eating sugar and sweet substances, this will happen.
If you avoid this, this will happen. So, for us, the principle of karma, we understand it primarily to understand what choices we should take now. It is not for analyzing what I had done in the past.
That kind of analysis, it will just get us caught in a perpetual flashback mode. So, for us, it is not to bother whether we have done past good karma or bad karma. Our focus should be on making wise choices right now.
And if we are taking shelter of Krishna and whatever past karmic implication might have been there, we will get the intelligence, get the strength to pass through them. Does it answer your question? Any other questions? How many questions are these? These are the things we hear. People talk about karma at the same time.
So, they have a different conception of the karma. So, when we hear this one, which I can only explain, but we don t have any concise comprising all of this. Okay, I can at least see three questions over here.
I will try to answer all of them quickly. So, the first question is that, I would say, if people know about karma, but still they think that this is not applied to me. Well, that is the nature of the ego.
Ego makes us think that, that, you know, this won t happen to me. You know, whenever a person becomes alcoholic, nobody starts drinking alcohol thinking, I am going to become an addict. Think, I will drink, but I won t become drunk.
People think like that. Generally, the way maya, the way illusion tempts us to do wrong things is by making us think that we will be the exception. Yes, normally this leads to this, but in your case, it won t lead to this.
So, that idea that we will be the exception, that is the illusion. So, the law of karma is universal. It is inexorable.
It is impartial. It doesn t discriminate. You know, if, you know, I may be a very intelligent person, but if I step off this building, the law of gravity is not going to discriminate what was my IQ.
If you didn t have IQ enough to step out, you are going to get consequences. So, like that, actually, no one is an exception. Just think that this does not apply to me, this principle does not apply to me, is itself an indication that it has already applied to us.
That idea itself, that this doesn t apply to me, that means already illusion is applied to us. We already caught an illusion. That s why we are thinking like this.
So, the principle of karma is universal. And the earlier we understand its universality, the better it is for us to create a positive future for ourselves. The second is that when we invite people to come to a temple, they say our home is also a temple.
What do we need to come to a temple? See, yes, the home can also be a temple, but the home is not only a temple. The home is a place where we can do many other things apart from worshipping God. And that is why even if we have altar at our home, even if we are worshipping at home, at home, how much do we remember God? We are remembering our family members, we are remembering our children, we are remembering our financial situation, we are remembering so many other complications.
So, even if there is a small part of our house which is a temple, we can t focus on God over there. We are caught in so many other things. And if God is everywhere, He is there in the temple, He is there at our home, then He is there in the temple also.
So, why not come to the temple? It s like if God is everywhere, so I don t need to go to temple. That s like saying, you know, actually, when I am thirsty, water vapor is everywhere. You know, can I just hang out and get water? I can t do that.
You know, although the water vapor is everywhere, I can t access it everywhere. I need to go to a place where that water vapor through the clouds has come down as water, has accumulated, I go to a tap and there I get the water. So, like that God is everywhere, but He is not accessible to us everywhere.
We do not feel His presence everywhere. And that s why temples are there. When we go to the temple, we start feeling the presence of God.
Even materialistic people, even atheistic people, if they come to a temple, they feel some difference over there. They may not attribute it to God, but they feel this atmosphere is something different over here. I feel some peace.
I feel some special vibes over here. So, actually, we all can experience peace when we come to a place, not just where the deities are, but where the Lord is also glorified, where His kirtan is performed, His Katha is broadcast. So, that way we can tune ourselves to the presence of God.
So, there are three stages. First, we go to a temple and there we tune our heart to God. There we become more and we become conscious of God.
We become, we access His presence, we access His grace. Then when we come to our home, then we will also feel the presence of God in our home temple. We don’t go to a temple, then even if there is a temple at our home, we won’t feel the presence of God much.
Because the home is a place where so many other things are happening. The first stage is we go to a temple. Second stage is we make our home into a temple.
And the third stage is by this consistent practice of bhakti, our heart becomes a temple. That is a very advanced stage. So, we need to go progressively till we reach that stage.
And that progress begins by regularly going to the temple, by regularly going to a place where Krishna’s presence is readily manifest. So, third question was that, you know, why should we go to a temple? We can serve poor people. You know, we can contribute to hospitals.
Yes, definitely we can serve poor people or contribute to or open hospitals. But, you know, why do we have to put the two in competition? Why should God and devotion to God be seen as a competitor to serving poor people or open hospitals? If at all we want to see it in competition, well, why not see it in competition with so many other things? You know, when we go to watch a cricket match, when we go to watch a movie. Now, if we are thinking that way, well, if, you know, all the money that is used by people to watch movies was used to feed the poor people, 25 generations of poor people from now to the future will be fed.
25 generations. That is the revenue of the entertainment industry. So, the point is that we do so many activities in life.
Why is it? And we don’t think about it that way. You know, I’ll not go to this movie, I’ll go and feed the poor. So, whenever people put a choice like this, why do you do this? Why don’t you do this? That choice is often simply an attempt at emotional manipulation.
It’s emotional manipulation. Why emotional manipulation? I mean, we are putting this in front of this. No, you should not do this, you should do this.
But if the two are not compatible choices, two are not comparable actually. Devotion is one part of our life. Social service is another part of our life.
The two are two different categorical activities. Both have their place in our life. Just as we don’t compare entertainment with social service, we shouldn’t compare social service with devotional service.
They all have their place in our life. And they all cannot be put in competition. Now, along with that, and more importantly, I would say that as far as social service is concerned, actually social service can be served the best by doing devotional service.
Because why is social service necessary ultimately? Now, why are people poor? The poverty in this world is not because of shortage of resources. It is because of mismanagement of resources. It is because according to WHO statistics, there are 800 million people in the world who are undernourished.
And there are a thousand, there are a million people who are actually obese. That means more number of people who are suffering because of having too little food are the number of people who are suffering because of having too much food. What this means is, not only that actually, it’s another statistic I read, I don’t remember the exact statistic, but it is actually the amount of money that only Americans spend on losing weight.
That money is enough to feed all the hungry people of the whole world. So the problem here is that the problem is not of shortage. The problem is of the uncontrolled mind and senses.
The problem is of greed. So when we start practicing bhakti, we purify ourselves of greed. This is from the point of view of people, they become more charitable.
They themselves become more self-controlled, they become more charitable. They will help the needy. As long as people are greedy, possessive, they will just want to enjoy things themselves and will not share things with others.
That’s one aspect of it. So this is from the point of view of givers. So spiritual practices will make people more charitable, more they want them to give.
Similarly, spiritual practices will also make people more capable of receiving. Many times, if we give food to a beggar, they don’t want food. They want money, cars, they want to smoke, they want to drink, they want drugs.
So before I was introduced to bhakti, I was into social service. I used to go to, while I was an engineering student, I used to go to nearby slums and I used to teach, offer free tuitions as a part of an organization to the children of the slums. I had a lot of faith in the power of education, in opening new doors for people.
And I noticed that many of these children, their parents were alcoholics, their fathers, especially alcoholics, and domestic violence, and their families, their family life was dysfunctional. So at that time, this was a common plight, so our organization decided to work towards campaigning against alcohol. So we arranged for some talks for their parents and offered some support systems.
And one village, one small village, which we had adopted, actually it became free from alcohol. It was like a big victory for our movement. But then, one of my friends, he used to go to that village.
One day, one evening he came back and he looked shattered. He told me that actually the previous weekend there had been elections and the local panchayat candidate, the local political candidate, in order to get elected, had brought three truckloads of free alcohol for all the villagers. And not only the fathers, but even their children had taken alcohol.
So at that time, it struck me that, you know, what people need is not just more options open for them. They also need the inner power to choose the right options. So material education can open more options for them.
But I could see when I was in the hostel, I was in another top engineering colleges, but there also I could see that there are so many students who used to get into alcoholism, who would get into drugs, and they were talented, but their talent was going waste because of that. So here, through education, so many doors had been opened for them, but they were still, they were not walking through those doors because they did not have the inner power to make right choices. So when I started practicing bhakti, I started sharing the principles of bhakti with others, I could see several of my friends, they were getting into bad habits and just gave it all up.
So actually, if people who are deprived, they become spiritual, then they will be able to better use the resources that they have. They have little money, they will be able to use it. They have a lot of money, they will be able to use it better.
So that way, it is not that when we are doing devotional service, we are neglecting social service. Rather, we are doing social service in the most foundational way, by purifying people of impurities. The wealthy become purified of greed, they become more charitable.
The poor become purified of self-destructive habits, by which they can use what they are given in a more positive way. Without a spiritual foundation, you know, much of social service, unfortunately, becomes like pouring water in a leaking tank. I’m pouring water, but it’s all leaking out.
Sometimes the social service can work out to be counterproductive also. There are countries or welfare states, and people are unemployed, and they go to the government and get the dole from the government, and they use it to go high on drugs. So the taxpayer’s money is used, not to feed the hungry, it gets used to perpetuate the addictions of the addicted.
So without a spiritual vision for life, material social work can often not only not achieve the positive result, it can actually lead to a more harmful result. So that’s why when we are practicing bhakti, what we are doing is addressing the problem at the root. One of America’s prominent thinkers, Henry David Thoreau, said that one hacking at the root of the tree of evil is superior to a thousand hackings at the shoots of that tree.
You can cut a thousand branches, they will all come again. But if you uproot the tree, it will go away. So like that, the tree of evil, the problems that are there in life.
Now if somebody is hungry, we give them food. Somebody is sick, we give them medicine. These are good activities, but this will keep recurring.
But if we can empower people to bring out their better side, to become more self-controlled, to become more charitable, then that is like hacking at the root of the tree. That is the most sustainable solution. That is the transformational solution.
So in that sense, sharing the bhakti wisdom is actually the most transformational form of social service. And when we ourselves start practicing bhakti, then we are also actually doing social service because we are being a part of the positive