Use goodness to practice bhakti and correct our disconnect with reality

[Bhagavatam class at ISKCON, Juhu, Mumbai]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I spoke today about the cultivating the mode of goodness as a means to facilitate our connection with Krishna. And the word dharma is multi-valued. And dharma can mean beauty, it can mean religion, it can mean nature.
So, dharma, in a spiritual sense, means that it helps us to develop love for Krishna. In a material sense, it represents that which increases Sat-Mugh-Na-Vidyas. So, the three modes represent different levels of disconnect from reality.
Like a person who is mad, then who has gone insane, who is snapped, then they may become violent if they are very disconnected from reality. So like that, in Sat-Mugh-Na, there is no perception of spiritual reality. In Raj-Mugh-Na, there is perception only of material reality.
In Tam-Mugh-Na, there is not even perception of material reality. So, desires are blinding and binding. And when binding and blinding desires are rationalization of the intelligence.
So, when people use their intelligence to rationalize the ideology, this is what is right. Even when it is not right, then they become further deeper into illusion. So, there can be religious ideology which can bind and blind.
There can be secular ideology which can bind and blind. So, the problem and the cause of violence is not religion or atheism. It is the modes, lower modes, passionate modes.
And if there is to be peace individually or socially, at the very least, there has to be the mode of goodness. We may not agree about the nature of spiritual reality. But if we at least agree that there is spiritual reality, then the conflict over material things will go away.
And while we are practicing bhakti, we have to conscientiously cultivate the mode of goodness and associate with those who help us cultivate the mode of goodness. If there are people who just criticize us or criticize everything around us and they are negative, then getting into controversies, getting into conflicts, that will simply agitate us. In Krishna’s movement, we can get Krishna.
But we can get many other things also. So, Prabhupada considered the modes of passion and ignorance as the main obstacle for western people to practice bhakti. To take up bhakti sustainably.
And the same thing applies to all of us who also have become westernized. So, by practicing, by using our intelligence to cultivate the mode of goodness, we can practice bhakti joyfully. Rather than being dissatisfied by things, seeing things wrong around us, we can consciously be satisfied that at least I have got the process by which I will become purified, I will become liberated.
And thus, we can chant Hare Krishna and be happy. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.