How to develop our relationship with Krishna

[Evening program at East London, UK]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, I thank all of you for coming here today evening. I’ll speak today on the concept of developing a relationship with Krishna. The Bhagavad Gita is a very philosophical book.
At the same time, it’s a very personal book. There are two persons who are speaking. And they are not persons who are just speaking in an abstract, armchair kind of discussion.
Sometimes, you’re sitting on a Sunday afternoon and suddenly power has gone off. There is no internet. There is no TV.
Nothing to do. So, you start chit-chatting just to kill time. At that time, people talk of all kinds of things.
Krishna and Arjuna are not talking like that. They are in the middle of a… Am I audible behind? Yes, yes, yes. They are in the middle of the biggest war of their lives.
And after the conch shell has been blown, that means that it’s a signal that the war is going to begin. That Arjuna takes up his bow and is about to place an arrow and starts shooting. And at that time, they start speaking to each other.
So, to get an implication of how unusual this conversation setting is, we can get an example, say, if there is a cricket World Cup final match. There are thousands of spectators who are assembled in the stadium. And the toss has been done.
The fielders are in position. The batsman, the striker, is taking guard. And the bowler is in the run-up to come.
At that time, suddenly, the striker comes in the middle of the pitch and calls the non-striker. And then the striker and non-striker start talking. And talking.
And keep talking. Everybody will get restless. What is happening? Everybody look at each other.
The spectators will get restless. Sometimes in sports, some sports players do something called gamesmanship. Not sportsmanship.
Sportsmanship is considered positive. We have a sportsmanly spirit. Gamesmanship means they try to use some kind of cunning ways by which to upset the rhythm of the other team.
So, if one team is winning and the other team tries to slow down the match, so that their winning rhythm can be broken. So now, if the striker who is talking with the non-striker, if it’s known that they are good players, they are unlikely to do any gamesmanship, then people will understand that there must be some really serious subject going on in discussion. Otherwise, they would not keep thousands of players waiting just to talk.
So now, if the opposite team’s captain is also a sportsmanly person, if they are talking, let them talk. The bowler may get restless. Let them talk.
So like that, after Krishna and Arjuna and everyone on their side as well as the opposite side has blown their conscience, then when suddenly Arjuna tells Krishna, Arjuna tells Krishna that, please take my soldier, my army between, my chariot between the two armies. And Krishna obliges him. And they start discussing.
As they are discussing at that time, Bhishma raises his hands and tells his warriors to hold back. Wait. And Krishna and Arjuna discuss at that time.
Now, what is it that they discuss? Before we go into the content, let us look at the consequence of the discussion. The consequence is seen from what happens at the beginning and what happens at the end. Say, just like, you know, say, if you have a friend who is very grief struck because of something that has happened in their life and they go to meet some counsellor, some mentor, some guide, you see them going inside the room to talk with them.
And they’re grief struck. There are tears streaking down their eyes. And when they come out, you know, they’re looking peaceful.
They’re looking confident. They’re looking composed. You say, hey, there must be something wonderful that was talked over there.
What did you talk at that time? So if we see that a conversation has had a dramatic transformation in the composure of a person, that consequence is what inspires us to know about the content. Similarly, if we look at the Bhagavad Gita, we see that at the start of the Gita, Arjuna is in tears. Arjuna, it is described, In the Gita, it is said that, Eyes are full of tears.
Now, this is an extraordinary occasion. Why? Because Arjuna is a warrior. He’s a Kshatriya.
And Kshatriyas, they are battle-hardened warriors. And in order to keep fighting in war, even amidst difficult circumstances, they are trained not to show pain even when they are in pain. Even when they are hurting, they don’t show it.
Because that way, if the opponent sees that they are in pain, that increases the opponent’s morale. They don’t show it. Even when, you know, when children are growing up, you know, if there are boys, boys, even if they are hurt, they try not to cry.
Isn’t it? So, you got the fracture. It’s painful, isn’t it? But, sometimes people say, you know, boys try to conceal their emotions. Boys don’t cry, they say.
But then, when there are emotions, they’re actually there. But, even if we are going to cry, usually, we don’t cry in public. If we feel like we are in tears, we go in private.
And there we shed our tears. So now, Arjuna is not just a boy. He’s not just a man.
He is a hero. He is one of the leading commanders, leading warriors in the army. In fact, he is the most important warrior in the army.
And he is in the middle of the two armies. That is, you could say, the point of the maximum visibility. And it is at that point of the maximum visibility that he’s in tears.
That means, he must be going through some tremendous emotional trauma. Otherwise, such a warrior would not be reduced to tears like this. And, it’s not just tears in terms of emotions, it’s also actions.
It’s described in the last verse of the first chapter of the Gita. In 1.46, it is said that, विस्रुज्य सशरम् चापम् शोक संवीग्न मानसः That, शोक संवीग्न मानसः His mind was filled with shoka, with lamentation. And what happened because of that? विस्रुज्य He put aside.
What? सशरम् चापम् His bow and arrow, he put aside. Now, Arjuna’s bow, it represents his will to fight. His determination to do his duty.
That means, when he puts aside his bow, he loses his will. And, in our life also, when problems start coming upon us, one problem comes from here, another problem comes from there, yet another problem comes from there. When too many problems start coming up, or too big problems start coming up, then we too lose our will.
I can’t do it. We put aside our Gandiva. We may not be literally fighting a war against anyone, but we all have our battles to fight.
Now, everyday, we have battles to fight internally, externally. And, Arjuna, he lost the battle before the beginning of the war. Isn’t it? Arjuna lost the battle in terms of losing his will to fight even before the war began.
And that is how we all are sometimes sabotaged. We all are sometimes sabotaged. We all sometimes, we want to do things, but even before we start doing the thing, sometimes overwhelmed.
And then we can’t. We can’t do things. And what happens at the end of the Gita? It is described in the last verse of the Gita, Yatrayogeshwara Krishna Yatraparthodhanurdara Tatrashreer Vijayobhutir Dhruvanitirmatirmama In 18.78 it is stated that Yatraparthodhanurdara where there is Arjuna, who is the bow-wielding warrior and where there is Krishna, the supreme mystic, there will be victory.
So, the important point is, Arjuna has picked up his bow now and he is ready to fight. So, that indicates, at the same Arjuna, who was earlier, at the start of the Gita, he was overwhelmed with negativity and dejection. At the same Arjuna, by the end of the Gita, has become ready to fight.
So, just like a person going to meet a counsellor, disheartened and coming back confident. Like that, at the start of the Gita, Arjuna is disheartened. And at the end of the Gita, Arjuna is confident.
So, what is it that transforms Arjuna from disheartened to confident? So, if we look at this consequence, then that inspires us to look more at the content. The Gita is not just a book of abstract philosophy. It is a book which deals with human issues in the heart of human affairs.
Externally speaking, we all are busy in our lives. We all have our jobs, we have our families, we have our various social obligations. And with all the urgency, with all the importance for our various roles and responsibilities, what can be more urgent, more demanding, more stress-inducing than a war? It’s a matter literally of life and death.
Sometimes we may say that if I lose this job, it’s a matter of life and death. It’s not that if we lose the job, tomorrow we are going to die. No, life will become more difficult.
But for Arjuna, if he did not win the war, just the next moment he would be dead. So, Arjuna is confused. He says, if I kill them, then my loved ones will die.
If I don’t kill them, they are going to kill me. So, what do I do in such a situation? So, for him, it was literally a life or death situation. Now, how does the Bhagavad Gita resolve Arjuna’s dilemma? How does it help him to regain his composure? The message of the Bhagavad Gita is progressively lifting upwards and then returning downwards.
Arjuna’s vision is on the battlefield. And the battlefield represents the world. In the world, we say, okay, this problem is there.
Sometimes what happens? We have problems and then we have solutions to the problems. This problem, okay, this is a solution. This problem, this is a solution.
This problem, this is a solution. And we move forward. But sometimes we come across problems where there are no solutions.
Or whatever we do, it is only going to make the things worse. In English, they say, damned if you do it, damned if you don’t. Or in management parlance, they say, a lose-lose situation.
So, that kind of problems are the most disheartening. What do I do? There is no way ahead. So, Arjuna felt he was in that kind of problem.
अजशक्नोम्यवस्थातुम् भ्रमतीवचमेमनः निवित्तानीच पश्यामी विपरीतानीकेशव He says, viparitani, unfavourable. Hostile results I see no matter what I do. So, when he sees like this, Krishna raises Arjuna’s vision from the world to the soul.
And from the soul to God. And from there, from God, he brings the vision back to the soul and then to the world. The Gita’s journey is like this.
From the world to the soul, to God, to the soul, back to the world. And he becomes spiritualised thus. Basically, Gita says that there are three tattvas, tattvatraya.
The Upanishads also talk about these tattvatraya, which are in existence. All the three tattva, there is jagat, there is jiva and there is jagdish. You can remember the three alliterative ja, ja, ja, ja.
Jagat is the world, the universe. Jiva is the soul, the living being. And jagdish is the Lord.
So, as long as we are caught simply in a jagat. Should I do this? Should I do this? But if I do this, this is the problem. If I do this, this is the problem.
What should I do? Sometimes in the world, there are problems and we feel there are solutions. But sometimes when we are at the consciousness of the world itself, you know, it says every problem has a solution, but every solution creates a problem. And that way it just goes on as a cycle.
In the Bhagavatam it is said, Dukkha ushadam tadapi dukkham. Dukkha ushada, when I solve a problem, that ushada for the dukkha, tadapi dukkham, creates a bigger misery. So what do I do in such a situation? The Bhagavata says that first raise your consciousness.
Nowadays in society we say there is a rat race. You know, people are rushing forward to get this, get that, get a better job, get a bigger house, get a better car, rise up in life. It’s a rat race.
And whoever gets first, they win. But the problem with the rat race is that even if you win the rat race, you still remain a rat. You know, essentially nothing changes.
Okay, I get a promotion, I get a better car, I get a better house, but then what happens next? Still the same grind goes on. I’m still a part of the competitive world. In fact, if we get ahead, there are more people who are trying to pull us down.
There are more people who are trying to hit out at us. So it is said that the higher you go, the easier it is to hit you. You know, if somebody wants to shoot, if somebody is in the crowd, you can’t see them very easy.
But if somebody is on a high tower somewhere, you can easily see them, isn’t it? So the higher you go, the easier it becomes to hit you. So although at one level we rise upwards in the ladder of material success, but that rising upwards does not bring increased security. It actually brings increased vulnerability.
Yes, there may be more security in terms of we may have more money, we may have better insurance, we may have better contacts, but then we also become more targeted. So in that sense, just the progress at the material level alone will not bring security or satisfaction. That’s why even if we win the rat race, we still remain rats.
The Bhagavad Gita says that first raise your consciousness. Understand who you are. And somebody may say that, you know, I have such a busy life and all this philosophy over who I am.
I don’t have time to discuss this. Yeah, it’s possible. It’s true that we have a busy life.
But it is that when we don’t have a spiritual self-understanding, then we are busy, but we are not fruitfully busy. Because we do things which we feel are important, but those things don’t lead to satisfaction. Those things don’t lead to solutions.
Things simply keep getting aggravated, keep getting complicated. And the spiritual and material are two distinct aspects of life. And sometimes we say, I have so many material responsibilities.
I don’t have time for spiritual life. Yes, it’s true we have material responsibilities. But success in one area of life doesn’t compensate for failure in another area of life.
Just as say, some people might be very good in their jobs. They are brilliant at conceiving projects, executing projects, meeting deadlines, and they rise in the corporate hierarchy. Very good at their jobs.
But if their family life is in shambles, their spouse is about to divorce them, their children have gone into drugs, and then can the success in their professional life compensate for their failure in family life? No. These two are distinct fields, and both need to be taken care of. So just as professional and family life are two distinct areas, both which need to be taken care of, success in one area can’t compensate for failure in another area.
Similarly, material and spiritual are two distinct areas of our life. Success in material life, success in executing our material responsibilities, in achieving our material goals, that won’t compensate for spiritual failure. Now what happens if you are not spiritually successful? If you are not spiritually successful, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita in 2.66, नास्ति बुद्धिर अयुक्तस्य नचा युक्तस्य भावना नचा भाव यता हर शान्तिर अशान्तस्य कुता हर सुखम He says that without a spiritual connection, we cannot have a steady intelligence, we cannot have a firm mind, we cannot have peace, and without peace, where can be happiness? Where is happiness? So without a spiritual connection, we will never have lasting satisfaction.
Spiritual connection is the basis of deep satisfaction and that is the basis of real solutions to whatever immediate problems we are facing in life from an ultimate perspective. So it is that when we are practising spirituality, so the soul is, what does it mean when I say I understand I am the soul? Say imagine that there is somebody living in a two-story building and in the two-story building, say the ground floor doesn’t have any temperature control or temperature conditioning. So then it’s outside, it’s very cold outside, it’s very hot and all that heat, there is no air conditioning, so it feels very hot on the ground floor.
But when you rise to the first floor, there is air conditioning over there. Immediately you feel relief. So our existence is also two-dimensional, material and spiritual.
And at the material level of consciousness, we all are troubled by various distresses. This problem, that person spoke like that, this is going wrong like that, that is happening, that is happening. All these distresses, troubles at the material level of consciousness.
If we practise bhakti and we raise our consciousness to the spiritual level, then at the spiritual level, there is relief. The spiritual level of consciousness is like an air-conditioned room. So at the spiritual level of consciousness, which is like an air-conditioned room, we experience relief.
mat-chitta-sarva-durgaani mat-prasadat-rishyase Krishna says in 18.58 in the Bhagavad Gita, that if you just become conscious of me, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace. So just by becoming spiritual, by cultivating spiritual consciousness, we experience relief. Not the problem disappears, but the burden created by the problem, that decreases.
And then we can more calmly deal with the problem. So bhakti can be practised as a cultural activity and bhakti can be practised as a spiritual activity. When bhakti is seen as a cultural activity, we feel it is optional.
But when we understand bhakti to be a spiritual activity, then we understand that it is essential. Why the difference? Cultural activity means, you know, yeah, our parents have done it, our grandparents have done it. It is a good thing to do.
So we should do it. It’s a part of our culture. When we see it as a cultural activity, we feel, yeah, it’s a good thing to do.
But if I have more important things, it doesn’t matter if I don’t do it. It’s not that important. So as a cultural activity, what happens? We think of bhakti as a kind of social ornament.
It’s something which makes me look good in society’s eyes. I can show my family members, I can show my relatives, I can show my acquaintances, you know, I’m also a good person. I go to the temple, I worship God.
So that level of bhakti is also good. At least it’s better than being atheistic. But when we treat God as an ornament, then we cannot have God as a shelter.
You know, if I have an umbrella, the umbrella can protect me from heat or cold. But if I think that umbrella is simply an ornament, sometimes it looks good, just showing everyone the umbrella that I have, but I’m not going under the umbrella, then still I’ll be tormented. So bhakti as a cultural activity is largely done for show.
Not show in the sense that people don’t have devotion, but it’s a small part of life. But bhakti, when it is done as a spiritual activity, when we understand that I am a soul, I’m a part of God, and my eternal relationship is with God. So what the Bhagavad Gita does is, first it raises Arjuna’s conception from the world, from the Jagat to the Jiva, that you are a soul.
And then it raises Arjuna’s vision from the soul to the whole. The whole is Krishna. Vasudeva Sarvamiti.
It tells Arjuna that you are a part of the soul. And this connection with Krishna is your most important connection. What the Bhagavad Gita tells Arjuna is that, Arjuna, you are thinking that, if your loved ones, Bhishma, dies, and if you kill Bhishma, how will you live? Grandfather’s death, the blood of his death will be in your hands.
If all the other loved ones die, what will be there for you to live for? So you’re thinking in these terms. But you should know, Arjuna, that actually all of them are related with me. You think they’re related with you, and you’re thinking, how can you kill them? But Arjuna, more than what they are dear to you, they are all dear to me.
So where Arjuna is seeing his relatives in their relationship with him first, Krishna says, see all of them in relationship with me first. In 4.35, Krishna tells Arjuna that, what is the result of becoming enlightened? What is the vision that comes when spiritual knowledge becomes internalised in a person? So he says, that, He says, having acquired the spiritual knowledge, you will not go into moha, into illusion again. As you are presently in.
And what will happen to you? Bhutanya, Sheshani, all Bhutanya, all these means, what do you see? Dakshasi, you will see. You will see them at the spiritual level and you’ll see them as mine. So as long as we see people first in relation with us, then that fuzzies our calculations.
We just can’t think clearly. But when we see people first in relationship with Krishna, see ourselves first in relationship with Krishna, then that calms us down. All of us, we live in a world where we have a vertical relationship with Krishna and we have horizontal relationship with others.
Now from a functional perspective, the horizontal relationships are important. We are husbands, we are wives, we are parents of someone, we are children of someone. So we are colleagues of someone.
All these relationships are important in a functional sense. At the same time, these relationships often can become sources of turbulence. Sometimes people just behave in unreasonable ways.
Sometimes we do something wrong and they react in far, far bigger ways than what is expected. And then basically, if we define ourselves in terms of our horizontal relationships, we will always be vulnerable. If my primary identity is that I am an engineer working in this company.
If my primary identity is that I am a husband of this person. If my primary identity is that I am the wife of this person. If my primary identity is that I am a citizen of this country.
Now all these are functional identities, they are true. But if that is how we define ourselves, then we will always be subjected to turbulence. Because none of these can ever give sustainable stability.
That doesn’t mean that they are not important. It just means that we need to put Krishna first. The Bhagavad Gita tells us when it says, Atmani Atho Mai, see all living beings as belonging to me, as connected with me.
So Arjuna, he says that see yourself not as the grandson of Bhishma first. See yourself as my part first. And see Bhishma also as my part first.
So when we have a vertical relationship with Krishna and we are connected with Krishna through bhakti practises, then that connection gives us stability. Because Krishna is always there for us. Krishna is right there in our heart.
He is there in the hearts of all living beings. And he doesn’t say that he is only He doesn’t say I am only in the hearts of devotees. He says, Sarvasya Chaham.
All living beings hearts. Not Bhaktasya Chaham. That means he is present in the heart of all living beings.
Now Krishna’s love for us is not based on who we are. How great devotees we are. Krishna’s love for us is not based on who we are.
Krishna’s love for us is based on who he is. He is the all loving, all merciful, all benevolent Lord of all living beings. And he loves every one of us.
And he is always available for us. If we pray to him, if we chant his holy names, if we strive to connect with him through the practises of bhakti, we will find that he is always there with us. He will always give us shelter.
If we just strive to remember him, we will find that in his remembrance comes calmness. In his remembrance comes clarity. And how does this happen? Because the remembrance of Krishna, I told about the ground floor and the first floor.
The first floor is where air conditioning is there. So the remembrance of Krishna is like the elevator that takes us from the ground floor to the first floor. We may conceptually understand, okay, you know, all this is material, I am spiritual, but it won’t register within us.
But when we remember Krishna, when we absorb our consciousness in Krishna, then that raises our consciousness upwards. Our consciousness goes up from the material level to the spiritual level. And we experience relief.
Now, sometimes we are practising bhakti, but we are seeing Krishna primarily as a means to a solution, not Krishna as the solution. That means we are chanting Krishna’s name, but, you know, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, is this problem gone? Ram Ram Hare Hare, is it gone? Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, not yet gone. Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Ram.
When is the problem going to go? So, when we chant like that, what is happening is that we are giving the external more importance in the internal. Yes, now, when some problem is there, we feel, when some problem is there, we feel as if, you know, this problem must be solved right now. Yes, some problems are urgent, they need to be solved.
But then we can think about, there are times in our life when our life was relatively problem-free. But does that mean that life was blissful at that time? No, even then also there are some problems, or the other at that time also. So, rather than focussing or expecting the solution to any particular problem, we can see connection with Krishna, absorption in Krishna, that itself is the first solution.
Because when we are absorbed in Krishna, we experience relief over there, we experience calmness, we experience inner security. The nature of problems is that the more we think of them, the bigger they become. The bigger they become in our mind.
Okay, you know, something is wrong somewhere, you know, maybe my boss is upset with me, maybe my spouse is upset with me, or maybe, you know, my job is in danger, maybe I have to pay my rent. Now, all these are problems, and these problems need to be dealt with. But just by thinking about them, I am not dealing with the problems.
Now, when we keep thinking about problems, all that happens is the problem in our mind starts becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. And we start feeling I am smaller and smaller and smaller. We feel powerless.
I can’t deal with this. Yes, the problem is there, and the problem needs to be dealt with. But the first step in dealing with a problem is to not let the problem overwhelm us.
If the problem overwhelms us, then being overwhelmed by the problem becomes a bigger problem than the problem itself. It’s like, you know, sometimes if we have a problem and we have a loved one who we know they are very nervous person, they are very emotionally unstable people, then if we tell them the problem, you know, they will collapse so much, they will crumble, that pacifying them will become a bigger problem. Sometimes I feel I better not tell them the problem.
So, like that. Now, when it is with someone else, we can very easily perceive it. But the same thing applies to us also at times.
That when we let the problem overwhelm us, then we just get paralysed by that. We can’t act properly. So rather than seeing Krishna as a means to the solution, we can see Krishna as the solution.
That means just by remembering Krishna, I’ll become calm. And by that, the problem will be cut down to size. The problem that has become disproportionate, it will be cut down to size.
So when we chant Hare Krishna, when we practise bhakti, it is not just a cultural activity. Oh, we should chant these names of Krishna. Chanting, if it is done properly, what it does is, it increases our awareness of Krishna’s greatness.
And as our awareness of Krishna’s greatness increases, then the problem starts becoming small in comparison. Yes, this problem is big. This problem is so big, I am so small.
What can I do with this? How can I deal with it? I am so small, the problem is so big. But when I start chanting, when I start remembering Krishna, when I understand the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, when I become absorbed in bhakti, then I understand that Krishna is bigger than the biggest problem. And yes, I am here, I am small, the problem is big, but Krishna is bigger still.
Now this, that God is the greatest being, we all intellectually understand it. But it is bhakti that experientially gives us realisation of this. So when we pray to Krishna, when we connect with Krishna through bhakti, we start, our problems, which have grown out of size, they start shrinking.
Because in our awareness, Krishna’s greatness starts manifesting. And then, as we become calm, okay, yes, this problem is big, but Krishna is bigger still. And he will help me to deal with the problem.
With that attitude, when we start functioning, then the problem doesn’t seem that overwhelming. So the Bhagavad Gita concludes by telling Arjuna, that, oh Arjuna, whatever happens, Krishna says, I am with you, I am by your side, oh Arjuna. He says, He says, You are dearly loved by me.
Dhrudha means determination. You know, Krishna uses the word dhrudha to tell us how we should practise bhakti. Dhrudha.
He says in 9.13 and 14, he talks about how With determination, devotees practise my bhakti. That is 9.14. But in the end of the Bhagavad Gita, in 18.64, Krishna says, I am determined to love you. I am determined to love you.
So, no, love can be one way. But a loving relationship has to be two ways. We can love someone, but if that person doesn’t love us back, then our love is still there, but there is no loving relationship.
So Krishna says that I am determined to love you. I am always there to give you shelter. But you have to be determined to connect with me.
And what the Bhagavad Gita’s knowledge does is, inspires within Arjuna the confidence that Krishna is there with him. That Krishna is there with him. Krishna is by his side.
So Arjuna realises that Krishna is the guide by the side. He’s the guide by the side, always there in our hearts, ready to guide us. And we just turn towards him.
We seek his guidance. We seek his support. If we seek strength from him, he will give it to us.
So Duryodhana, at the start of the Gita, starts with material vision. I’ll conclude with this point, then we can have question and answers. Duryodhana at the start of the Gita, what is his material vision? He says that actually he thinks that he is assessing the forces on both sides.
And he says, Bhima, Arjuna, Sama, Yudhi, there are many great warriors similar to Bhima and Arjuna. He lists the important warriors on the Pandavas’ side. Then he lists the important warriors on his own side.
And then he says, actually my forces are much greater than Pandavas’ forces. But while listing all these forces, he misses out on one person. Who is that? Krishna.
Now how can he miss out on Krishna? He’s seeing Krishna, isn’t it? He’s seeing Krishna on Arjuna’s chariot. How does he miss out on Krishna? Because he thinks that Krishna is a non-combatant. Krishna is not going to fight, so Krishna doesn’t count.
So similarly the materialistic vision is that actually how does God count? You go to a temple, you study Bhagavad Gita, you chant Hare Krishna, what do you get by it? How do you quantify the results? You put one hour for your job, you get this much money. You put one hour for your chanting, what do you get out of it? So actually Einstein said that all that counts is not countable. All that counts, all that really matters is not countable.
So actually Krishna never fought in the Kurukshetra war. But still Krishna guided Arjuna at all the critical points in the war. And by Krishna’s guidance, Arjuna was able to emerge victorious.
So if we are too caught in our vision at the material level, then we will not be able to see how is devotion to God going to help me. But when we see with spiritual vision, so although they were on the same battlefield, Arjuna heard the Bhagavad Gita. Duryodhana was there, but Duryodhana did not care to hear the Bhagavad Gita.
Duryodhana started with material vision and stayed with material vision. Arjuna had also started with some kind of material vision. His vision was more pious, more elevated than Duryodhana’s, but still it was material vision.
But Arjuna ended with spiritual vision. And because of that, although at the start of the Gita he was disheartened, by the end of the Gita he became confident. So similarly, when we start practising bhakti, sometimes in life we will face problems and we will feel disheartened.
We practise bhakti by the practise of bhakti. We are doing it not just as a cultural activity, but as a devotional activity. Then we will, as a spiritual activity where we are taking shelter of Krishna, then we will be sheltered, we will be empowered, we will be enlivened.
So the practise of bhakti, if we again see it from a material perspective, we may feel, you know, I have so many activities to do and bhakti is just one more activity. There are so many burdens, so many activities are burdens and this is one more burden. How can I do it? I don’t have time for it.
But actually bhakti is not a burden. Bhakti is actually a burden, but it is the burden that relieves us of other burdens. How is that? In terms of activities, yes, bhakti also takes time.
And we say, my schedule is already so packed. How can I find time for doing bhakti activities? But we have to know that our time is not just taken by activities. Our time is also taken by anxieties.
Do all of us have a daily time? 7 to 7.30 is my anxiety time. And at the time I sit and worry. No, but anxiety is like a constant background noise.
It’s constantly draining our energy. So what bhakti does is, it stops that energy drainage. Because when we practise bhakti, we understand that the anxiety is normally caused when we feel that things are out of my control.
No, this doesn’t. How will this work out? How will that work out? How will that work out? When things are out of control, we feel anxiety. But bhakti practise assures us that things that are out of my control are not out of control.
Things that are out of my control are not out of control because they are in Krishna’s control. So the material vision is only two possibilities. Things are in my control or things are out of my control.
But the spiritual vision is, things that are not in my control are not out of control. They are in Krishna’s control. So that gives us security.
I don’t know how this is going to work out, but let me do my part. So bhakti activity, bhakti practise takes away all the time, energy that is sapped away by anxiety. And at one level, sometimes, in bhakti practise also we may feel that anxiety is coming up.
You know, I have to complete my rounds, I have to go for this programme, I have to do this service. It causes anxiety. But actually this is the anxiety that takes us closer to the Lord who is the freer from all anxiety, who is the deliverer from all anxiety.
So when we chant Hare Krishna, when we practise bhakti, there is anxiety. But this anxiety ultimately takes us to the Lord who is the deliverer from all anxiety. Once, one of Shri Prabhupada’s leading disciples, Tamal Krishna Maharaj, who was helping him in building a temple in Juhu, he came to Prabhupada and told that this land dealings which they were having, there were a lot of problems over there.
The government was not giving permission, the owner was trying to backstab them and cheat them. So he said, Prabhupada, Prabhupada, he said, these land dealings are so agitating that my japa is getting disturbed. And Prabhupada said, even my japa is getting disturbed.
And I thought, what to say at that time. Overwhelmed. And then Prabhupada told him, your anxiety for serving Krishna will take you to Krishna.
You know, your anxiety for serving Krishna will take you to Krishna. That means, when we see bhakti as, yes, at one level bhakti will provide us relief, but we don’t just do bhakti as a relief from the anxiety of material life. We see bhakti primarily as a way of developing relationship with Krishna, of doing services for Krishna.
And in that services, in doing the service, sometimes there will be anxiety. You know, I have this much time, how will I manage this, this, this? I have to do this, how will I get this service done? There is anxiety. But what happens in that anxiety? There is anxiety for Krishna’s sake.
That anxiety takes us closer to Krishna. That anxiety connects us with Krishna. And gradually that anxiety becomes the source of the ultimate ecstasy.
Because as we become connected with Krishna, and Krishna is the source of the supreme happiness. So, as devotees, even if sometimes it feels like bhakti is increasing my anxiety, that is only temporary. There may be some temporary increase in anxiety, but ultimately bhakti is freeing me from the cause of all anxieties.
The cause of anxieties are our insecurity. The cause of anxieties are attachments in this world. The cause of our anxieties are ultimately our presence in this world.
Bhakti frees us from our insecurity. Bhakti frees us from our insecurity. Bhakti frees us from our attachments which cause our insecurity.
And bhakti ultimately frees us from our attachment to this world, which itself is the basis of anxiety and insecurity. Therefore, even if there is some temporary anxiety, we perceive it through that, knowing that actually we are doing this for Krishna’s sake. And we will become purified.
We will be elevated. We will be rewarded by Krishna. And we will be ultimately liberated from anxiety.
So to summarise, I spoke today on the theme of developing a relationship with Krishna. And the Bhagavad Gita is not just a philosophical book. It is a personal conversation.
And we can be inspired to understand its content when we see its consequence. So what is the consequence? That a warrior who was trained to conceal pain even when there was the greatest pain, that embodiment of masculinity and virility, that warrior was reduced to tears in the most public point, publicly visible point in the middle of the war. So he must have been under tremendous grief.
And that warrior became free from tears and became confident. The Bhagavad Gita is like a counselling session where a person goes inside in tears and comes back jubilant. So what is the transformation? What happened in between? So we discussed that.
The fact that there is a conversation itself, the setting is extraordinary. It’s like in the middle of a cricket, at the start of a cricket World Cup finals, striker and non-striker start talking. So Arjuna and Krishna are talking after the conches have been blown.
It’s a very serious conversation. And what is the conversation about? Arjuna is facing a lose-lose situation. We all have problems which we feel we can solve.
But when we come to a situation where every solution seems to be like a problem itself, then there is frustration. So at that time, how to solve? The Bhagavad Gita raises Arjuna’s vision from the Jagat, the Jiva to the Jagdish. So when our vision is caught in the Jagat, then each solution leads to another set of problems.
Even if we win the rat race, we still remain rats. Even if we get greater security at the material level, to having better possessions, greater connections, but still that greater possessions and greater connections brings greater visibility. And greater visibility means greater vulnerability.
So the solution is not just material improvement. There has to be spiritual advancement. Success in one area of life cannot compensate for failure in another area.
Professional success can’t compensate for family failure. Similarly, material success cannot compensate for spiritual failure. If we are not spiritually successful, then no matter what we achieve, we’ll never be peaceful.
We’ll never be satisfied. So how does spiritual growth bring peace? If we consider our existence to be like a two-story building, at the material level there is anxiety. That’s like a room with no air conditioning.
You feel hot over there. So spiritual consciousness is like the upper floor with air conditioning. And what takes us from the ground floor to the upper floor is the practise of spirituality.
Primarily, Bhakti Yoga. So Krishna tells Arjuna, you are not the body. You are the soul.
So this raises awareness from Jagat to Jiva. And then the Jiva is actually a part of Jagdesh. The soul is a part of the whole.
So don’t see others in relationship to yourself first. See others in relationship to Krishna first. See yourself also in relationship with Krishna.
We identify ourselves in terms of our horizontal relationships. I am this person’s husband. I am this person’s wife.
I am this professional. Whatever. All these relationships give us functional identities.
But none of them can provide us lasting security. So we need a vertical relationship with Krishna, which is the basis of our defining identity. No matter who rejects us, who neglects us, Krishna always loves us.
His love for us is not based on who we are. It is based on who He is. And He is always available for us in our heart.
And if we just turn to Him to seek His remembrance, we will experience relief. Unfortunately, while practising Bhakti, we practise it not with Krishna as the end, but Krishna as a means to the end. So instead of seeking absorption in Krishna, we chant but we expect the solution to the problem.
And when the solution doesn’t come, we feel what is the use of practising Bhakti. So when we are seeing Bhakti as a cultural practise, it seems optional. But when we see Bhakti as a spiritual practise, it becomes essential.
To see Bhakti as a spiritual practise means to see that absorption in Krishna itself is a solution. And that solution will later guide me about how to deal with other problems and find their respective solutions. So the absorption in Krishna, what it does is it decreases the size of the problem.
The more we think of problems, the bigger they become. But the more we think of Krishna, the awareness of Krishna’s greatness becomes apparent in our consciousness. And then we understand that these problems may be big, but Krishna is bigger.
In material consciousness, we think, okay, I am in control, I can solve this problem. I am not in control. What will I do with this problem? But in devotional consciousness, we understand that things that are not in my control are not out of control.
They are in Krishna’s control. So let me enter into Krishna and let me do my part right now. So sometimes Bhakti can seem to be a burden in our already existing schedule.
But Bhakti is the burden that relieves us of other burdens. Bhakti will take away the time that is sapped away in anxiety. And it will actually give us the energy to do whatever we need to do more effectively.
So when we define ourselves first and foremost as parts of Krishna, we are sheltered within. With the awareness that the all-powerful Krishna is with us, whatever life sends our way, we can deal with it confidently. So Krishna is determined to love us.
By understanding the Bhagavad Gita, we become determined to connect with Him. We become determined to love Him. And then when there is this two-way connection of our heart with Krishna, then we can face whatever life sends our way.
Just as Arjuna became transformed from disheartened to confident, we can also become disheartened to confident. In connecting with Krishna, sometimes there is anxiety. But that anxiety is what will take us closer to Krishna.
It will take us closer to the Lord who is the source of relief from all insecurity, from all anxiety, and from the uncertainty of this world itself. So by remembering Krishna, we can actually find the solution to all our problems. First of all, the overwhelming by the problem, which itself is a bigger problem, that goes away.
And then we can solve the problem. It is said that, I’ll conclude with one thought, that don’t tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big God is.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. So are there any questions or comments? Yes, Ramji.
Thanks for holding the class. You mentioned about absorption in Krishna. That’s what you call it now.
The first one, many times I feel, is always think of Krishna and do my job. Then, even though I don’t chant my rounds, I feel it, but is it necessary to chant 16 rounds? How does it make a difference in my life? Even I can see I’m absorbing, because I know Krishna is Supreme Lord. I know Krishna is going to be with me.
But this connection, this commitment, 16 rounds, is it essential to be absorbed in Krishna’s thoughts? So, can absorption in Krishna require chanting 16 rounds? Krishna is not standing up there in the spiritual world with a calculator to see how many rounds you have chanted, isn’t it? The important thing is that every relationship involves not just the emotion in the heart, it also involves some actions through which it is expressed. A husband tells his wife, I love you. The wife says, there is no food in the house.
Go and earn some money. I love you. Do something practical.
If the husband has come back from office, tired after a job, the wife says, I love you. I’m hungry. I love you.
I’m hungry. I love you. Give me some food.
So, affection is always expressed through some action. So, now, similarly, if we have devotion to Krishna, the devotion has to be expressed through some actions. And in our life, there is a part where we directly connect with Krishna.
And there is a part where we indirectly connect with Krishna. So, through our work, through our family responsibilities, these are the ways in which we indirectly connect with Krishna. Why indirectly? Because Krishna is not directly present over there.
Krishna’s awareness is not so easy to have. Some people say that Bhagavad Gita teaches work is worship. Now, what the Bhagavad Gita says specifically is Svakarmanatam abhyarachyam.
By your work, worship Him. It doesn’t say work is worship. It says, by your work, worship Him.
What is the big difference between the two? That work automatically is not worship. If work itself were worship, then the donkey would be the greatest worshipper. Isn’t it? No.
Work can be made into worship. And when will it become a worship? When it is done in a worshipful consciousness. And to get that worshipful consciousness, we need to have quality time where we directly connect with the Lord.
So, that quality time when we directly connect with the Lord is the time of our bhakti. So, the chanting of the japa that we do, the shastra that we study, the sangha that we come to, the puja that we do, all this is the time when we directly connect with Krishna. And to the extent we remember Krishna while we are directly connected with Him, to that extent Krishna will be present in our heart.
And then when we are doing activities which are not directly connected with Krishna, at that time also Krishna’s remembrance will be there. Otherwise, Krishna’s remembrance will not be there. We say, Oh! Bhagwan ka naam to 24 ghante ruday mein chalte hi rehta.
Yes, people say that. God’s name is going on 24 hours a day in my heart. But if it is going on 24 hours a day in the heart, why doesn’t it come for one minute on the lips? What is there in the heart has to be expressed on the lips.
So, actually, why is it that in every other relationship we expect the emotion to be expressed through the action and in bhakti we say there is no need to express through the action. No, it has to be expressed through actions. So, that action is just as in every relationship there is commitment.
When, say, a couple gets married, there is a commitment. When a couple has a child, there is a commitment. And commitment brings solidification to the relationship.
Now, a couple may be dating, but when they get married, level of commitment becomes a lot more. A couple may be planning to have children, but once they have a child, the commitment becomes much more. Similarly, chanting, chanting a particular quantity of rounds, that activity is a solidification of the commitment.
So, the important thing is not just to attend an official ceremony called marriage. The important thing is not just to beget a child. Actually, attending that ceremony of marriage is meant to solidify the relationship.
The act of having a child is meant to solidify the commitment. So, similarly, chanting a particular number of rounds, that is a way of solidifying our commitment to Krishna. And to the extent our commitment is solidified, we will see that our absorption in Krishna will increase.
If that commitment is not solidified, then we may think that we are absorbed in Krishna. But actually, we will just be caught in doing our own things without thinking much of Krishna. So, when Krishna is in front of us, as His deities, as His holy name, as the Shastra, as the devotees, through the devotees, then at that time there is an opportunity to directly remember Krishna.
And when you directly remember Krishna, then later on, even when Krishna is not in front of us, we will be able to remember Him indirectly. So, the commitment to Sadhana Bhakti is a commitment to directly exposing ourselves to Krishna on a regular basis. And by that, Krishna enters into our consciousness.
So, once He enters into our consciousness, then He permeates our consciousness. He becomes the purpose of our life. And then whatever we do, our family responsibilities, our job, professional responsibilities, they all become dedicated to Krishna.
Now, dedicating our material life to Krishna is not just a sentiment. Oh, I’m doing all this for Krishna. No, dedicating our material life to Krishna is an act of redirection.
It is not just emotion. Redirection means tangibly, in a visible way, our life needs to be devoted to Krishna. And the direct devotional activities create that connection.
Otherwise, we may be at the level of piety. We’ll not be at the level of spirituality. We’re good people, and it’s good to be good.
But we won’t be spiritual. God is just one part of our life. Like I said earlier, when God is like an ornament, He’s not a shelter.
So we will not experience Krishna’s shelter unless we commit ourselves to connecting with Him. So the numerical commitment is not itself. The number itself is not important.
It’s not a matter of number counting. But the number is the way we show our commitment. And that spirit of commitment is what matters.
That is what deepens our relationship with Krishna. Does this answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, Prabhuji.
Prabhuji, you mentioned, sarvasya ca aham viddhi sandhya nishto matah jnanam apohnam sa sarvasya vede aham eva detyo vedante vidhante vidhate I mean, this shloka is very simple, Prabhuji. Just like, if I don’t know anything, I will easily accept this, like Lord is living in my heart. Lord is living in everyone’s heart and all the remembrance and forgetfulness coming from Him.
So, like, if I don’t apply, like, override this, so, like, Lord is giving the guarantee, like, this is true. But as an individual soul, it overrides that. Like, that remembrance, we feel it’s coming from everything, coming from Lord.
But as an individual soul, why it’s overriding, Prabhuji? Like, most of the time, we feel it’s our mind working, not as a soul, actually. So, that connection, feeling of connection doesn’t come. Okay, yeah.
So, although we understand that Krishna is present in our heart, why does that feeling of… Yeah, that’s what I mean. Although… So, like, it’s like… I understood. Let me repeat your question.
If I have not understood it, then you can tell me. So, although we know, intellectually, based on the Bhagita, that Krishna is there in our heart, but we don’t feel that connection. We just feel as if our mind is directing us here and there, and we don’t feel the presence of Krishna or the connection with Krishna.
Why is that? Most of the time, like, we feel we are doing. Yeah, so we feel that we are doing, not that Krishna is guiding us. Yes, there is… We are individual souls who are parts of Krishna at the same time, we are individuals in our own right.
So, it is not that we are not meant to be doers. The Bhagavad Gita tells Arjuna that now you decide what you want to do. Do as you desire.
And then Krishna tells… Arjuna tells Krishna, I will do your will. I’ll do what you desire. So, the… To feel that I am the doer is not the problem.
To feel that I alone am the doer is the problem. In 18.16, the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that one who thinks that that I alone am the doer, that is durmati, that is misdirected consciousness. So, we see that I am doing things.
That’s fine. But how am I able to do things? Right now I am speaking. So, I may say, I am so clever, I am speaking so nicely.
I say, I am speaking, but if my throat gets spoiled, I can’t speak. You know, if I get a memory blackout, I can’t speak. If my health gets spoiled, I won’t be able to speak.
So, in every action that we do, there is definitely our own endeavour to do that action well. But along with our endeavour, there are many other factors that need to fall in place for that action to work. If those other factors don’t fall in place, even with our best endeavours, things won’t work.
So, that awareness that whatever I do doesn’t depend on me alone. That awareness is knowledge. There is something bigger than me which also is involved in my successfully doing things.
That awareness is spiritual knowledge. And that, understand that, that higher reality is God, is Krishna. That is Krishna awareness, that is Krishna consciousness.
So, the, rather than seeing the two as opposite, to think that I am not doing things, to think that only Krishna is doing things. Rather, we see that I am meant to do things in a mood of service to Krishna. And it’s Krishna who will guide me to be able to do these things.
So, philosophically, if we become a little more introspective, you know, look at our lives and whenever we are able to do something well, even in our professional life, in any area of life, when we are able to do something well, we can think, how was I able to do this? What all was needed for doing this? Yeah, you know, I did this, but if this could have gone wrong, and this worked out well, this worked out well, who was in control of that? I was not there. So, like that, by looking at all the things that have gone right, when we have done right and the results have come out, we can see that we alone are not the doers. And that way, we can become more aware of Krishna’s role in our life.
Not just in doing what we do, but in making sure that what we do produces the results. So, this is introspection. This is the contemplation that we can do to become aware of Krishna’s hand in our life.
And when we do this, then we won’t both be elated in success nor dejected in failure. Because when we are successful only, you know, I am so great, see, I achieved so much. Yes, I did my part, but Krishna also was very, Krishna also was kind.
When things go wrong, you know, when people face failures, at a material level, people start thinking that failure is not just an event. Failure is a person. That means, instead of thinking that, okay, I am a living being, I am a human being on a journey.
And at one particular point in my life, I met failure. Instead, I start thinking that because I failed, that means I am a failure. I am good for nothing.
But we want to understand that things are not determined by our actions alone. Our actions play a part, other things also play a part. Sometimes destiny is favourable, sometimes destiny is not favourable.
So when we understand properly our position in the scheme of things, then we don’t take undue credit for success. And then we won’t be blamed by undue blame for failure. So that way, we can just progress confidently.
Don’t become too rejected when there is failure, when there is distress. And don’t become too elated when there is happiness. Just move forward steadily.
So by philosophical contemplation, what we study in the Bhagavad Gita, we try to see how it is acting in my life. When we see that, then we become, we feel deeper the connection with Krishna. That I am not just an independent doer, but I am a connected doer.
I am connected with the whole, and there are factors bigger than me involved in doing things. That’s how we can get the, we can end that sense of fragmentation and deepen our awareness of our connection. Does that answer your question? Thank you.
Thank you. You had a question? So my question is probably might not be, like, you know, might just fell into a light as if I am trying to negate things. I do have a believer, a strong believer, but now, when a human being is born, he is born just with materialistic things, food, taste, that type of thing.
And, human being is the only being who is born with maximum number of attachments. A living being which is lower in the unity of human, they have more attachments probably with their immediate food, immediate, immediate, like, you know, kids, parents probably. But human being gets attached probably with more number of things, apart from relations, he gets attached to car, TV, job, promotion, this, that.
And that is where the anxiety comes into picture. Up till now, it’s all materialistic, everything is fine. But then when he starts getting things, he starts comparing things.
And when he starts comparing things, he develops fear of losing it, losing the position for what he has achieved, having an anxiety of not being able to achieve whatever he has. So now we are, now there is a new entity involved that is called as anxiety. Up till now, it was only human being and materialistic relationship, he was happy.
Now, he has come into anxiety and new entity has got introduced. Up till now, we don’t have Krishna, we don’t have God, we don’t have spiritualism. Now when the anxiety comes into picture, we think that how can we eliminate this anxiety? This is a problem now.
For all the living beings that we have on this planet, they don’t have this level of anxiety as a human being has now. So now, if I was, if I was to like, you know, have a debate and if I say that just to explain that to get rid of this anxiety, let me try to introduce a new entity called as God and spiritualism. Are we trying to say that that just in the absence of a solution, we are trying to introduce an entity.
So this is what, this is what was asked to me. Through a debate into one of my friends. And I did try, but then like, I have a limited knowledge into this direction.
So what was debated over there was that these anxiety, to work on anxiety, you can do other yogas. You can do this asana, you can do that asana. If you have got, if you have got, if it is there in your mind that it is anxiety which is causing you the problem, just work on anxiety.
Why are you trying to bring an entity of the creator? Why are you trying to bring an entity of spiritualism? Is God an entity that we human beings have imagined because we face greater anxieties than other species and in order to relieve ourselves of that anxiety, we think up of an entity called God who will provide us a relief. I understood the question. I got the question.
So now, there are three different ways of looking at this. First is that it is not true that we human beings alone have anxieties. All living beings have anxieties.
The forms of anxieties we human beings have are different. Say now, after this programme we’ll have some food. We’ll have some prasad? Yeah.
Obviously. Okay. Now, imagine that there’s an ice feast and then you’re eating the food and at that time suddenly you open the ice plate has disappeared.
What happened? Where did the plate go? So, we don’t face that level of insecurity. There’s a mosquito which is biting and for him it is just enjoying its food. And what do I do? I flick it off.
I just take away its plate of food. And I flick away the mosquito. I take away its food.
That is if I’m kind. Otherwise, I just crush it. So, how many of us face the anxiety that while we’re eating we’re going to be crushed to death? A bird when it’s pecking at its food on top there might be some predator bird which comes.
A deer when it is grazing it is fearful a lion may come and eat it. So, in some ways animals have also bigger anxieties than what we have. The forms of anxieties may be different but they have also enormous anxieties.
Just to be in material existence means to have anxiety. And it’s not necessary there is no anxiety metre by which we can compare. But if we compare the threat metre animals live in the threat of death at any moment.
Which is not how we human beings live constantly. So, in that sense we could say that animals actually have greater anxiety than what we have. Of course, in some forms we do have more anxieties because we have created greater arrangements for security.
Now, we have created money as a means of security. We have created national boundaries as a means of security. And each of these can also lead to anxiety.
But there is no objective parameter by which we can necessarily say that we humans have greater anxiety and that’s why we have created some greater entity called God to protect ourselves. The basic premise itself that we humans have greater anxiety that itself is debatable. Now, moving onwards second point is that rather than seeing God as the as the product of human imagination we can look at the lives of people who are devoted to God.
Yes, there are many people who practise ordinary religion where they practise religion to get freedom from anxiety. But there are many who are devoted to God and it is their devotion to God that they take up greater anxiety. So, especially saints throughout history whichever religious tradition they have been in, they have often been persecuted.
They have often been tortured. In the western tradition itself we have Jesus who was crucified for his devotion to God. So, we find that in the lives of those who were the most devoted to God they did not see God at all as a tool for anxiety relief.
They actually took up anxiety for the sake of God. That means this simplistic idea that we imagine God as a device for freeing ourselves from anxiety that just doesn’t work because there are people who take up devotion to God and not at all for the sake of freedom from anxiety. They actually take up greater anxiety because of their devotion to God.
So, that premise of the argument is also flawed. Now, moving onwards, yes, it is true that by devotion to God we do get we can get relief from anxiety. It is true that we human beings have a higher consciousness and it is true that we human beings are actually capable of looking for some higher meaning in our life.
In fact, even science is primarily a search for higher meaning. Last year I was here in London and I was invited to Cambridge University for a talk on science and spirituality. So, while returning we passed by the tree where Newton is said to have seen or felt the fruit fall on his head.
Now imagine if instead of Newton a monkey had been sitting there. The monkey would have just picked the apple eaten it and gone on its way and nobody would have blamed it for that. Most human beings would also have done the same thing.
Newton’s speciality was he asked the question what made this fruit fall? Now in science we focus on the point of Newton’s brilliance in coming up with the theory of gravity. And that’s true, that’s his brilliance. But at the same time let’s not focus only on the answer to the question which he posed but let’s look at the foundation of the question itself.
When he is asking what made this fruit fall? That means he is presuming that things don’t happen in a disorderly way. That there is some cause-effect connection in the world. Now why should there be a cause-effect connection? If we were just products of random evolution if our very existence was a product of just chance then all that it means is that the whole world has emerged from explosion or some other disordered mechanism.
Our own brains have emerged from some disordered mechanism. This disorder is just some random mechanism and why should there be a correlation between the way how our brain thinks and how the world functions? F is equal to g m 1 m 2 upon r square Newton’s law of gravity now equal to square divided by these are mathematical concepts. Mathematical concepts themselves don’t have any existence in nature.
There is no such entity called divided by. There is no entity called square existing out there. Maths helps us to do real activities in the world but math itself is a system which we have come up with in our brain.
So now why should if everything were just a product of unguided natural mechanisms then why would there be such a precise correlation between the way how our brain thinks and how the world functions? Eugene Wigner was a Nobel or a prominent scientist and he wrote a celebrated paper called On the Reason for the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics. So science can explain nature but the explainability of nature requires an explanation. Why is there such a correlation between the way my brain thinks and the way the world functions? If everything were just guided by the result of unguided natural phenomena then there should be no correlation.
What to speak of such a precise correlation of mathematical precision? So if we consider that way the search for meaning which is what has led to the scientific progress that search for meaning is founded on the assumption of a meaningful world. Science looks for patterns in nature that means it assumes that there are patterns existing in nature. What is the rationale for that assumption? The most reasonable rationale is that the world out there and the brain in here are both reflections of a higher intelligence.
I won’t use the word creator in literal sense of a higher intelligence. You know India’s famous mathematician Ramanujan he said that an equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God. Why should E is equal to mc square be true? Why? That is a thought of God.
So basically God or the absolute truth whatever you want to call it that is the explanation for the explainability of the universe. Now when we say that okay God is just a concoction then what do we have? We basically through our scientific research we end up with islands of meaning in an ocean of meaninglessness. Now why do apples fall like this? Okay it is because of the law of gravity.
Why do the planets move in their orbits? That can be explained by the laws of motion. Why are the electrons moving like this? There is a principle of electromagnetics or whatever you want to say. But what is the purpose of life itself? Why do we exist as meaningless? Now Steven Weinberg said the more the universe appears comprehensible the more it appears to be pointless.
So what happens with the materialistic worldview with the godless worldview is that we are condemned to searching for islands of meaning in an ocean of meaninglessness. Instead the way science has progressed always is that when it comes up with a theory the theory explains something. And when the theory comes up with evidence or some observations come up which are not explainable by the theory.
So Newtonian classical physics it worked for almost 300 years but for black body radiation, for fundamental particles, for universal objects, yeah quantum physics and relativity came up. Scientists didn’t say oh it doesn’t make sense. They came with a deeper theory.
So similarly when we look at the if we look at the divine intelligence as the foundational organising principle of the universe then our overall life acquires a context of meaning and purpose. So without God as the foundation of the reasoning process we have islands of meaning in an ocean of meaninglessness and we can’t even explain why those islands of meaning are there. We made this theory, we found that, we found that.
But why should that meaningfulness be there? But also we can’t explain. But on the other hand if we start with God as the foundational organising principle then we have a journey of ever deepening meaning. So life is ultimately meant for searching this deeper meaning in life.
We humans all want to do that. We don’t just want to live for some time and die. We have a side within us which longs for life eternal.
All the movies, all the novels, most of them are about romance and all these romance they talk about happily ever after. Now, if we look around us, nothing exists forever. In the biggest building, biggest mountain, nothing lasts forever.
So if nothing lasts forever, where did our desire to live forever come from? If there was a child who was born and brought up by some tribal community in the deep forest of Africa and suddenly that child says to his mother, mummy, I want a pizza. Say, where did you hear about a pizza? No, where did you hear? There’s nothing in the environment that could have triggered the desire for a pizza. Similarly, you know, just as that question would come up, there’s nothing in the environment that would give you information about a pizza.
Where did the desire come from? So like that, there’s nothing in the environment that is eternal. So where does the desire to live forever come from within us? So that is not circumstantial, that comes from our core. That core is not circumstantial, that is transcendental.
So there is a spiritual core to our being, and that spiritual core naturally aspires for a spiritual reality. So the search for God is the ultimate culmination of the search for meaning that is expressed itself in science. So why is it that Newton didn’t just eat the fruit and be satisfied? Because we human beings are capable of more than impulsive responses.
Food, eat, that’s what all animals do. We human beings also have those impulses, but we also have intelligence. By that intelligence, we just don’t respond to impulses, we look for patterns, we try to make sense of things, and as our capacity to make sense of things expands more and more and more, the culmination of that capacity to expand, capacity to make sense, when its expansion attains its culmination, that’s where we come to God.
So, we are made for God, we are made inherently to search for God. Rather than seeing God as an entity which is concocted to relieve anxiety, if we go through this reasoning process, we see God as the foundation of our very reasoning process. And we see God as the culmination of our reasoning process.
Why is the world explanation essential, explainable? The most reasonable explanation for the explainability of the world is God. So, God is the foundation of the reasoning process and as our tendency to make sense of things through reason expands and expands and expands further, then the culminating explanation that we come to is God. So, that’s why God is what helps us to make the most complete sense of things.
And in contrast, when we use the same reason to come to a conclusion of Godlessness, then we simply have eyelids of meaning, the notion of meaninglessness. Hare Krishna. Can we stop here? Okay.
See God as a spiritual, as a cultural activity. There is devotion as spiritual activity. What difference you can see when you see God as a spiritual activity or God as a spiritual activity? Okay.
Yeah, okay. So, what is the difference between seeing bhakti as a cultural activity and bhakti as a spiritual activity? The primary difference is philosophical understanding. You know, when we do bhakti as a cultural activity, it is a part of, you know, that’s what our parents have done.
That’s what people like us do. That’s why we do it. It’s good to do it that way, but then when we don’t have philosophical understanding, sometimes parents say that, oh, you should go to temple and bow down to God.
Why? Good things will happen to you. You’ll get good marks in your exam. And somebody may say that, oh, I went and bowed down to God and did not get good marks.
So what is the use of worshipping God? Or somebody may say that, you know, I didn’t go to the temple, still I got good marks. So even without going to the temple, I got good marks. So what is the use of going to the temple? So without philosophical understanding, the purpose of connecting with God remains very vague and unclear.
And that’s why our connection with God will stay very unsteady. So it is, if you consider the cultural practise and the spiritual practise, what will raise us from the cultural to the spiritual is the philosophical. So philosophy doesn’t mean that we have to have intricate understanding of philosophical technicalities, but it is the basic principles of life, if you understand them properly.
Then we can move forward steadily towards Krishna. So the more we become philosophically sound, the more it’s not that we give up the cultural, but rather our practise of the cultural becomes motivated with a spiritual consciousness, permeated spiritual consciousness. And then we become steady, we become strong in our practises.
And then we can practise it even if the culture around us is not supportive, even if the culture is hostile, still we practise it because we are not just doing it to conform with some standards, we are actually doing it to respond to our deepest calling, to our deepest aspiration of the heart. Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Prabhupada ki Jai. Gaur Bhakta Vrinda ki Jai. Gaur Prema Anandi.
Jai. Thank you so much Prabhu. Please, whenever you visit next time, please have some days for us.
We have so much clarity we got today than normal hours going on saying things