Cultists Fanatics and Spiritual Shoppers – Making sense of the world’s religious scenario
I would like to focus today on seeing the current world through the eyes of the Ishopanishad I understand that most of you have studied the Ishopanishad quite systematically how many of you have been a part of the Bhakti Loksha which has been studying the Ishopanishad almost all of you so the Ishopanishad is one of the most prominent books in the Upanishadic library and the Upanishads basically offer us a more philosophical view of life the Vedic body of literature is progressive the Vedas in terms of the four Vedas they offer a more utilitarian view of religion how can religion make things better in this world Dharma Arthakama the Upanishads talk about Moksha and among the Upanishads some of them talk about Bhakti so Ishopanishad is one of the Upanishads which just talk about Bhakti now when we look at the world today we see that a lot goes on in the name of religion which gets a lot of bad press and people in general are quite sceptical of religion many of the southern states in America also are at one level they are part of the Bible where religion is quite aggressively proselytised Christianity but there is also a strong reaction to religion so I just came from a university programme so there was one student he had come with a poster on his t-shirt the poster was Oh God please save me from your preachers now actually God saves us through his preachers but sometimes the preachers have a holier than thou attitude they are hell and brimstone kind of preachers if you don't do this you are going to go to hell then people save me from this Oh God please save me from your preachers such an attitude can come among people when they feel that things are being imposed on them and that is just one attitude actually now the largest religious group or not religious group the largest group with some kind of attitude towards religion so we could say Christianity is one group Islam is another group so the group that has been going the largest in the recent years in the world is what they call as the none group none means we don't follow any religion so these people are not atheistic yes atheism is also growing but these people are what they call as apathistic apathistic means apathy is I don't care so whether God exists or not whether soul exists or not doesn't matter so they feel that religious people you fight with each other about the nature of your God the nature of your life and in that process the nature of the afterlife and that is something in the future but because of your beliefs about what the nature of the future is you create trouble in the present and they say that why are you doing this just take it off take it off is it not yeah so how many such a religious situation we see the it says those who have knowledge they enter into darkness so those who have ignorance they enter into darkness but those who have so called knowledge they enter into deeper darkness or for that matter similar thing so it says that actually those who worship the temporary they enter into darkness but those who worship some so called idea of the eternal they also enter into darkness they enter into deeper darkness in fact so here the point that is being made is something significant that there is as we say half knowledge is a dangerous thing so we could say similarly half religion can also become a dangerous thing and in some ways half religion can be good at least a person is religious rather than atheistic but some ways half religion can be bad why because sometimes religion can be rationalised to do terrible things so for example in a particular religion people believe that if they kill others then and they blow themselves up and they blow others up they believe that they are going to go to paradise by that now most people they are checked by the fear of death everyone wants to protect their life but here their religious belief distorts them and makes them think that by dying I will attain a glorious eternal life so how do you reason with such people so in this case their religious belief is actually making them not better human beings but is making them worse human beings so just as half knowledge can be dangerous half religion can also be dangerous so what determines this why is it like this and the point is not its very easy to label a particular religion as bad but that is a very incorrect understanding just now in India also there is a famous so called god man who was arrested for some sexual molestation charges and then his followers or some people who claim to be his followers there was an uprising and people ask why do so many people start following such teachers such cults so now there is a tendency say to trash oh India is so superstitious India is so prone to cult leaders but its not just India in fact if we look at the 15 worst cults in world history there is not a single Indian group in that the worst cult nightmare was actually in America there was a leader named he called himself reverend jones and he actually had a place called jones town and he claimed that he was god or jesus or whatever and he was going to deliver everyone and he had brainwashed people many terrible things were happening so the police came to arrest him so he promised his people that now the world is going to be destroyed and if you are ready to put your faith in me and kill yourself then you will be delivered and 1000 people committed mass suicide its one thing to be a feast of money but its quite another thing to be a feast of life so basically there is this sort of vulnerability its not just in any one particular religion its in the human mind and it may take any reason for that so the bhagavad gita explains that there are three modes of material nature there is sattva guna, rajo guna and tamoguna mode of goodness, mode of passion and mode of ignorance and we all adopt world views based on the mode that we are in so 10 people may practise christianity, 10 people may practise islam 10 people may practise hinduism, 10 people may practise atheism but its not to say that all 10 are the same there is some in goodness so the people sometimes there may be atheists in goodness and there may be religionists in ignorance and ok in terms of ultimate belief see there are ultimate beliefs and there are functional beliefs ultimate belief is ok who am I ultimately what is the ultimate purpose of life in those terms some people may believe in god but in terms of functional beliefs it may well be that atheists may be better they may be moral, they may be gentle they may be polite they may just be broad minded so the point is that actually what a person believes is not as important it is important but it is not as important as how a person lives and in fact although ideally what we believe and how we live they are meant to be related but sometimes what happens is that by how we live we adopt we choose the part of what we believe for our purposes when people hear a talk when a speaker gives a talk the audience basically hears only 20% of the talk and only god knows which 20% people hear so what happens is based on our own understanding of things our own world view people may hear something in a scripture John Keats was a British poet he said you read the bible and I read the bible I see white you see black so basically the same thing based on people's particular mindset they will find different things attractive now of course it is possible that even within scripture even within the scriptural tradition different people may be attracted to the scriptural tradition in different ways but it's one thing to have that attraction as a starting point but it's quite another to make that as a staying point this is where I am at so for example I'll talk about this in three different ways say people nowadays are very much into yoga it's actually very curious how yoga has changed from how it was in India to how it is in America yoga was traditionally practised in India by male renunciates as a means for keeping their body sturdy so that they could focus and grow spiritually in the west yoga is very popular but it is largely practised by females and females they practise it primarily for health and looks so there is a whole debate is this a good thing or a bad thing but the point is if it is a starting point it is a good thing but if it is a staying point then it becomes a bad thing if that is all that people do then the yoga means I am doing this and that's all I need to do then what happens they think they are yogis or yoginis but they are not actually they are just using yoga for their purposes and the whole gift of yoga for higher consciousness is lost and then when we are at a particular level of consciousness we desire in a particular way we act in a particular way and then at that level we can create problems for ourselves we can create problems for others so for example even with yoga yoga can become just a licence for sensuality basically people are doing yoga but rather than rising beyond sensuality to spirituality people often go to yoga clubs just for socialising just for having some fun just for looking at each other's bodies and then there is no raising one's consciousness at all it is not only staying there it is going down so if something is a starting point that is not a problem but if that becomes a staying point then it can become a problem so for example in the middle east people have grievances they feel they have been discriminated by the western world they have their socio-cultural, socio-political grievances and these need to be addressed but when that becomes a starting point for their practise of religion that's fine but when that becomes a staying point that means that rectifying socio-political wrongs that becomes the primary goal of the religion then it becomes a serious problem so then the religion is no longer a spiritual search for God that religion becomes a political search for power and then in the political search for power people do anything and everything so that's why the Isha Upanishad says that those who are in ignorance they will go to darkness but those who think they are in knowledge they can go to deeper darkness because how do we help someone who thinks that they don't need any help they think I already know things I already am doing right things so similarly we consider basically we human beings are covered we are souls, the soul is covered by three layers soul is covered by the body and the mind soul is covered by the society and the soul is covered by the nature so now these three coverings all of them can sometimes cause us suffering and we all want relief from suffering so the sufferings that we get from these that is what is called Tapatraya the suffering from the body and the mind what is that Klesh called? no, the body and mind Adi Adhyatmik, yeah that from the society, from the people around us Adibhautik, yes so one devotee was saying what is Adibhautik Klesh? it's mosquitoes, Mujahideen and mother-in-laws so it can be wide variety but people around us, living beings around us so Adibhautik and then there is Adibhaitik so that is by the nature around us I am just coming from Florida so the hurricane Irma is just about to strike over there in a day or two, so tremendous panic over there so as I was going to the airport long queue, the kind of queue you normally see in India the queue before people wanting to get gas at the gas stations want to stock things up so that's distress, severe distress and we all need relief from that so now religion does offer us relief from these things but ultimately distress is going to keep coming and ultimately what we need to do is the Bhagavatam says that by developing attraction to Krishna we rise above material consciousness we become liberated from material existence and that is the ultimate purpose of religion so different people may come to religion for different purposes and that is fine for whatever reason they come that is good at least they are coming to Krishna but after that there should be a process for elevation so basically in religion how do people grow it is through education and it is through experience educate ourselves to understand oh there is some higher reality out there and if the education is systematic then there is a clearer understanding of that higher reality if that is not systematic then people just imagine what is there out there and there is experience now experience also many people nowadays especially in the western world they want spiritual experiences yes I went to this spiritual place I had a spiritual experience now it is good if we have spiritual experiences but we don't just want a spiritual experience we want a spiritual state of consciousness spiritual experiences will come and go but spiritual state of consciousness is what will endure so spiritual experiences means we just become very sporadic I do this maybe I will get a spiritual experience maybe I will do that and get a spiritual experience now when there is education and experience then through these two there is elevation of consciousness the elevation from the material level to the spiritual level when either education is lacking or experience is lacking then people think that they are rising spiritually and they are doing something but they are actually not rising spiritually they think that ok if I follow this particular baba I follow this particular guru I follow this particular leader and by that I am becoming spiritual but they may not so now here with respect to education and experience so I will talk about how Ishopanishad offers us the education and Ishopanishad prompts us towards practise of bhakti yoga which offers us the experience and people are actually looking for this they are looking for some knowledge, they are looking for some education, some experience but when they don't get it or rather they get something opposite then they not only hurt themselves but they hurt others so without proper education then everybody comes up with their own idea of spirituality so there is this non-affiliated group that is there which is growing very rapidly they call themselves as SBNR SBNR is spiritual but not religious say I want to be spiritual but I don't want to be associated with any religion so I was at an interfaith conference a few months ago in Washington so what the mentality of SBNR group is one of the Christian pastors was saying that he was on a talk show, a radio show there is a Christian, there is a Jewish and there is a Muslim and there was this Christian he says you know I am a Christian but I am not associated with any church and I have a question so then this pastor very cautiously asked can I know why you are not associated with any church he says I have not yet found any church that agrees with my philosophy so I am not going to church to learn philosophy I already have a philosophy and I want to find which church agrees with that so this is the mentality of people who are not spiritual seekers they are spiritual shoppers they are not doing spiritual seeking oh there is some higher religion I want to understand spiritual shopping means when we go for shopping I already have decided what I like, what I want I just want to see where is what available so in this spiritual shopping what is happening the starting point becomes the staying point so wherever I can get from this I can get this, from this I can get this it's good at least somebody is having some spiritual idea but then in this there is no way they raise their consciousness upwards they stay where they are so with the spiritual shopping mentality people just don't become elevated they may get some occasional experiences they may get some occasional insights oh I went to this talk and I heard a very nice point I heard some wisdom and we can hear wisdom there are many different spiritual teachers and they may also give you some good points of wisdom but the point is that education is not just about hearing a nugget of information here hearing some information there we need to get a coherent world view we need to get a proper understanding of things that doesn't come for most people so what happens without education without experience the Isha Upanishad offers us a particular world view that is a part of the broader world view that is given by the yogic texts which culminate in bhakti now without a world view we view only the things that we like and other things, it doesn't matter it's like, I will give you two examples first is that if I am sick and I am going to take a treatment and if I have been given six medicines and I taste one I take one tonic, it is nice I take another pill and if I choose based on my taste which medicine to take what will happen? I will not be cured maybe one medicine suits my taste so I take it and that may help but I will not get properly cured now if something doesn't taste good I have to use my intelligence to understand why I need to take this so basically, if we are spiritual shoppers then we just take different things based on our taste and yes, we may hear certain things, we may adopt certain practises and they may help us but ultimately that is not healing that will not lead to our spiritual growth to a higher level of consciousness and not only will it not lead to that it may also lead us down in some ways because it will make us presume that I already know that I am already practising that I am already a good person why do I need anything more? the incomplete knowledge is not necessarily a bad thing but incomplete knowledge becomes bad when it is thought to be complete when incomplete knowledge is thought to be complete then it becomes incorrect and then it becomes bad so I am taking only one medicine and I say, I am taking the treatment then that will not cure me, that will actually hurt me further the disease will go on while I am thinking I am being cured that's why this verse that so called knowledge is worse than no knowledge because the so called knowledge makes me think that I am already being treated but I am not being treated I am actually simply going further and further into illusion while thinking I am being treated now when we see so that was a few years ago I was in a conference in India and this was a conference on medicine and spirituality so there was this some guru I will mention his name, so we were all giving talks there were some scientists, I was speaking of science and spirituality and this guru was speaking in the last talk and he said everything is a play of the mind ultimately if you just make your mind strong everything will be alright so he started speaking actually he started by saying a few days ago I was in London and in London I was smoking a cigarette one person came and asked me why are you supposed to be a spiritual teacher smoking is bad everything is in the mind if your mind is strong nothing will happen to you and he said that for the last 25 years I have been smoking but I have no lung problem I have no heart problem, I am perfectly healthy why? because the mind is strong because the mind is strong so just make your mind strong and you will be perfectly alright it's interesting that about one month after that conference this guru was detected with lung cancer and he died within a few months after that so actually this is I will conclude this point I talked about how first I talked about social level social change is spiritual change if I stay only at the social level it's a problem if I stay at the physical level again it becomes a problem if I start at the mental level and again I stay at the mental level that's a problem so now we all need more strength of the mind yes problems come and there are the people who one problem comes and they just crumble under the problems crumble under the problems so I was at a psychology conference and there was one psychologist asking that why is it that people in the developed world have more mental problems than in the developing countries and he says most of the developed world problems are often relational problems he said like this, she said like that how could she have done that, why did she do that so there can be many specific reasons for this but one of the points I made is in the developing countries people have to struggle for existence so when I don't know where my next food is going to come from and I don't have time to worry why did she say like that and why did he say like that so what happens is the point is not that we should stay in poverty to avoid mental problems the point is that when we have something more important to do then other things don't seem very important but sometimes when we don't have anything the mind can make one thing very very important so the we all need greater mental strength that if we are stronger, some people say something let it go, how does it make a difference that person said like this, just get it over with and it can actually help us a lot last year I was in Washington I was giving a class and before that one devotee had written something which had made me very angry so I was thinking about it, how could he have done like this sometimes when the mind gets angry whatever we are doing, the mind is doing an auto-replay and sometimes what happens some auto-replay, the image stays the same but in some auto-replay, with each replay the image zooms up so the same thought starts becoming bigger and bigger so then I was giving this class I finished the class and after that I was going and then sometimes some people they ask questions because they want to gain knowledge and some people ask questions because they want to show their knowledge so they will ask question itself which will last for 10-15 minutes and there is no time for asking the question so over the years when we observe when we decide this person I shouldn't spend so much time with this person just try to avoid and go away so as I was trying to gracefully talk with other people and end the conversation with this person it just struck me at that time that see this person is right next to me but I am not ready to give him more time than what is appropriate and then this person is somewhere in India thousands of miles away why am I giving so much of my thought to that person when we give our thought that means we are giving our mental time to that person so why am I doing that it's just a revolution at that time just put it aside when I deal with that person I will deal with him but no need to think about it so practically speaking learning to better understand and harness our mind and mental energy is helpful it's very helpful when we practise bhakti when we chant the holy names when we focus on Krishna it does help us to do that so the process of bhakti is not just coming to a temple or chanting the holy names the point is through all these activities we should make our mind attached to Krishna when the mind is attached to Krishna then when there are problems the mind doesn't get attached to the problems thus we rise above the problems see often when we go to Krishna we want why is Krishna not solving this problem so I will come to that part in conclusion but here the thread of thought I am taking is that yes our mind can sometimes magnify problems and if we have control over the mind we won't think about the problems we won't make them bigger than what it is but the mind is not everything reality is not just mental reality is also factual so if I am sitting on this chair and suppose there is a thorn on this chair now the thorn is really there and the thorn is causing me pain I cannot say it's just mental there is a real world physically and in the real world there are problems so we have to practically deal with it so everything is not just mental there is a physical reality, there is a mental reality and there is a spiritual reality so if I smoke cigarettes it's not just mental, oh I am going to get cancer it's a physical reality that is going to happen yes if the mental is further negative things may happen faster if I think that I am going to fall sick then I may fall sick faster but if I am taking harmful substances in my body and I think I will not fall sick that alone is not going to happen so the mental affects the physical but the physical also affects the mental ultimately it's relational so if to get greater mental strength somebody comes to spirituality that's good but ultimately it's not just greater mental strength in this world somebody may say that if your mind is strong enough, if your mind is positive everything will be happy in your life I will think positively it's good to think positively, nothing wrong in that but ultimately it's not just positive, it's spiritual I am going to grow old, I am going to get deceased I am going to die when I am going to die I think, I will think positively so yes, I died and Yamaraj will come you are positively dead now we can't escape that so there is an objective reality which is there in this world now the subjective perception of that reality can either aggravate or it can mitigate but the subjective perception doesn't determine the reality the objective reality is there and the objective reality also has to be dealt with so what the Bhagavad Gita tells us is that the objective reality of this world is that it is a place of misery and we need to rise to higher consciousness and ultimately attain Krishnasamudra so for that it gives us education what is this world, what is the spiritual world how are they related and how can we rise from here to there it gives education and then it gives us the process of bhakti by which we get the experience by which we start slowly studying and start experiencing when we associate with devotees, when we come to temple when we go for yatras, we get some special spiritual experiences now these spiritual experiences that we get on some special occasions they are meant to be like spurs yes, they should inspire us to follow the process more diligently I answer questions on the website the spiritual scientist so one question I was asked that sometimes when we go to yatra we go to a holy place like Vrindavan or Mayapur and then we feel so blissful over there we feel that our worldly desires our agitations they have all gone away we feel so spiritual, so we make advancement then but then we come back and it is as if we have fallen back so is it that we make advancement there and then we again regress here so it is not advancing and regressing rather if I am here when I am in the association of devotees in the presence of a dham I get advance glimpses of what lies ahead of the spiritual path and those advance glimpses they inspire me to move closer to Krishna they inspire me they are meant to help us take up the process but if we don't take up that process then we get the glimpses but then we stay where we are so spiritual experiences are good if they spur us to follow a process by which we can advance spiritually but if that doesn't happen then those experiences just come and go they are just like blips on a radar they are there and they are gone don't make any substantial difference in spiritual life so there is circumstantial spirituality and there is intentional spirituality circumstantial spirituality means because of circumstances I start or because my mind is troubled so I start practising bhakti or because I have problems in my relationship that's why I start practising bhakti or because I have financial insecurity I start practising bhakti now any way we start bhakti that is good circumstantial spirituality is also good but if the spirituality is still only circumstantial then what happens so from circumstantial spirituality I start but gradually I should leave the circumstances behind and I should come to spirituality but then if that is the starting point it is good but if it is the staying point then what happens the spirituality goes off and the circumstances only stays so I don't really rise up and that's why people often get into too much of mundane things oh you know I think I'll go to this religion I'll do this, I'll go to this teacher and maybe I'll get some faith healing I got some sickness, I'll go to this teacher and be cured of this sickness I'll go to this astrologer and this problem will be solved or I'll convert my religion and I'll get so much money so that is the goal and circumstances can prompt us to become spiritual but if we think that dealing with the circumstances here is itself the ultimate goal then we step over there and spirituality is left behind so circumstantial spirituality should lead gradually to intentional spirituality intentional means that I have an intention to become spiritual that comes with the combination of education and experience so when we are educated there is a higher reality and there is a process to arise towards that higher reality then the intention becomes strong so Krishna talks about four kinds of people who are approaching he talks about 7.16 which are the four kinds of people? the distressed the inquisitive the seeker of wealth and the seeker of knowledge there are four categories of people who come to Krishna of course in Kaliyuga there are four categories of people who come the distressed, the distressed, the distressed and the distressed most people come because of that itself but for whatever reason they come, it is good we can move forward towards Krishna after that from the circumstantial towards the intentional Krishna says it may take many lifetimes it may take many lifetimes if you do not get this education, if you do not get this experience now what does bhakti do for us? there is a process of bhakti it offers us ultimately release from problems when we become liberated from material existence, when we attain Krishna there is a release from problems but along with that what bhakti offers also is not just release from problems but relief amidst problems the problems stay but my consciousness gets raised upwards when my consciousness becomes fixed in Krishna when I am sheltered in Krishna then I get relief although I face the problem but I am not overwhelmed by the problem because I have a higher reality on which I focus so for Arjuna at the start of the Bhagavad Gita there is a great difference should I fight or should I not fight what the Bhagavad Gita did was, it did not in a sense give me my escape way from the difficult duty of fighting the problem remained but it raised his consciousness now you should think not that these are my relatives, how can I kill them but these are also my relatives, if I don't fight then they will have to stay in the forest they will be deprived, they will be killed so what should I do? Krishna says don't just think they are your relatives see that all of us are relatives of Krishna Krishna is the greatest well-wisher of everyone so if you do what is Krishna's will that will be the best for everyone so Arjuna concludes the Bhagavad Gita not by saying that Krishna I will fight that is not the specific conclusion that Arjuna says Arjuna's conclusion is I will do your will so it is, the Bhagavad Gita is not a call for violence the Bhagavad Gita is a call for transcendence for surrender to Krishna, for harmony with Krishna so when we do that, when we fix our vision on Krishna then whatever be the particular problems that we face we can rise beyond them so if I identify myself oh I am a poor person yes, then that poverty becomes my defining identity if I identify myself oh I am Indian, Indian becomes my defining identity if I identify myself by my relationship oh I am the husband of this person, I am the wife of this person I am the child of this person, I am the son of this person, I am the father of this person that becomes my defining identity so if I define it, I told you the soul is surrounded by three circles so the body-mind complex the society and the natural world so if our defining sense of identity comes from any of these if I think, oh you know, I am a very pessimistic person I am very introvert, I am a very short tempered person now they will be realities but that is not my defining identity my defining identity is that I am a soul, I am a part of Krishna if it comes from my circumstances or from my family relationships I am part of this family, this person's husband, this person's relative then that becomes my defining identity now because the material world is a place of instability of uncertainty ultimately of misery so if any of these is our defining identity that will cause us distress if I identify myself as the mother of this child, yes I am the mother of this child but if that becomes my defining identity then if my child starts going on the bad track I start thinking my life is a failure no, my life is not a failure yes, I would definitely like my child to go on the good track but the child is a separate soul, I am a separate soul and I have to do my part so if I think that I am an Indian and something bad comes in the news about India then I start feeling, oh I am embarrassed, why am I Indian why am I Indian if I start thinking that I belong to a particular caste I identify with that and then there is discrimination against the lower caste and nowadays there is discrimination against the higher caste also they feel that there is so much reservation for the lower caste so the higher caste don't get any opportunity so either way, what happens is that is a part of my identity but if that becomes my defining identity then my whole world view gets restricted so fundamentally when I said that the starting point should not become the staying point how will that not happen if our sense of identity changes if our sense of identity doesn't change if I still think I am a body I still think I am a relative of this person I am a resident of this country then there is always going to be agitation so now when some people in the name of religion they blow up others and they blow up themselves and they think I will go to heaven and I will enjoy with so many virgins over there they may say that they have so much I have so much faith in God that I am ready to kill myself for the sake of God but actually their religion has not changed their sense of identity they are still thinking I am the body and they are thinking that bodily pleasure is the goal of life and they are thinking I will go to heaven and I will enjoy with so many virgins so if our religious education if our religious experience if whatever we call as religion it doesn't change our defining identity if that doesn't happen then our religion won't benefit as much and sometimes it may harm us, it may harm others depending on whether we are in goodness, passion or ignorance so the whole process Prabhupada would emphasise so much not the body or the soul why would that be? Because that is the foundation so only when our sense of defining identity what defines my identity that changes me if I have a close relationship in that relationship somebody rejects me then that rejection is very painful I gave a college seminar on top 10 fears of people's lives so in different phases of people's lives there are different fears that they have in youth one of the greatest fears people have is rejection so when they have that fear so if I think I am the boyfriend of this person I am the girlfriend of this person and then if that person breaks up with me it's not just that the relationship is broken up I feel as if I am unworthy of being loved I feel that there is something wrong with me and I feel rejected so now in all these cases what is happening we are identifying ourselves primarily with something in our circumstances so we need to our identity cannot be circumstantial it has to be transcendental so the whole process of bhakti both the education and the experience to the extent they infuse within us the conviction that I am a servant of Krishna that I am a part of Krishna no matter what happens in this world Krishna always loves me Krishna always cares for me and Krishna will always bring the good in my life even if right now there is bad then we will be able to act appropriately in our circumstances that means if I understand that my primary identity is I am a servant of Krishna and as a servant of Krishna yes I am the mother of this child I am the husband of this woman I am the resident of this country I am a member of this caste I am a person living in this particular place whatever it is all those identities are valid and we do have to function in those identities but we see them as services we don't see them as our self definitions our self definition is I am a servant of Krishna and as a servant of Krishna yes being a parent, being a citizen being a whatever it is, being an activist in whatever field it is all these are services that I do and sometimes in this world some services work sometimes they don't work but our relationship with Krishna is not affected by this we do that in the mood of service if it works well fine, if it doesn't work well we move on we move on and we do something else not that we are uncaring but we recognise that we are finite beings we have finite control over things we have done our part and now we move on to something else we move on to our next service in life that way we can have that stability so Arjuna's conflict so the Isopanishad how does it conclude it concludes by saying that O absolute truth that O Lord you please guide me there are so many sins which have created obstacles in my path now the obstacles that are created they can be specific oh I get this disease, I get this financial problem, I get this relational problem those are reactions but ultimately the biggest obstacle is our own sense of misidentification so the conclusion is please help me identify myself as your servant that actually please remove the obstacles in my path the fundamental obstacle is misidentifying ourselves in terms of our circumstances so Arjuna he had this conflict, he had two dharmas at the start of the Bhagavad Gita the Kula Dharma and the Kshatriya Dharma Kshatriya Dharma says that you have to fight against your enemies and you have to kill them, whoever is an aggressor you have to kill them, the Kula Dharma says that I have to protect my members of my Kula how can I fight against them we all have our families if some of our family members are in trouble we want to help them that's Kula Dharma, so Arjuna's conflict was what should I do if I have to follow Kula Dharma I should not fight if I have to follow Kshatriya Dharma I should fight so what should I do, that's why his question is I am confused about Dharma please tell me what is Dharma and Krishna's conclusion is what there can be many dharmas in this world but there is a supreme dharma that is Adharma or Bhakti so when Krishna says sarva dharman parityajya he is not telling become adharmic I was at a Bhagavad Gita recitation programme conducted by some Hindus, so they were reciting important verses from the Bhagavad Gita so they came here, this is 18.66 and they recited sarva adharman parityajya mame kamsharnam vraja so after the programme I asked them why are you reciting sarva adharman parityajya they said no actually Krishna came to establish Dharma so how can he tell Arjuna to give Dharma so they quoted some scholar, he said probably as the Bhagavad Gita was written down over many generations some person was writing the Bhagavad Gita forgot to put the A over there so we have added the O now for Arjuna there was no confusion for Arjuna Adharma was not an option his confusion was whether this dharma or that dharma whether Kula dharma or Kshatriya dharma so Krishna's answer is when he says sarva dharman parityajya he is not telling Arjuna to become adharmic Prabhupada says in a lecture that even the hippies had done sarva dharman parityajya they had given up their family duty, their educational duty their social duties but he says the essence of the Bhagavad Gita is mame kamsharnam vraja surrender to me now if we see after Arjuna surrendered that does not mean he gave up dharma he fought, you could say he did his Kshatriya dharma but he was not just doing his Kshatriya dharma he was doing his Bhakti dharma his dharma to Krishna was at that time as a Kshatriya so he did that so basically what Krishna did to Arjuna is that he raised, so Arjuna was thinking this activity or this activity Krishna says you can't resolve the question of activity without resolving the question of identity so first understand who you are you are a soul, you are a servant of Krishna so doing kula dharma is your duty, service doing Kshatriya dharma is your service at this point how can you serve Krishna best it is through Kshatriya dharma, so do that so therefore if we identify ourselves as servants of Krishna if that change in identity happens then whatever perplexities come in our life we will find a way ahead if I think that I am I am an NRI and my purpose of life is to become an American citizen and if that doesn't work out I have to go back to America, I have a new space I came back from America, what is going to happen no, if I identify myself as an Indian who wants to become an American and if a problem comes then I will feel a great sense of defeat but if I say ok, I came here Krishna made some arrangement, I did something over here what I am doing here is a service if it doesn't work out over here, I will go somewhere else so that way if we see whatever is causing us perplexities whatever is causing us misery if we go back and look back what is it that I am identifying with because of which it is causing misery then when we distance ourselves from that then the misery will decrease substantially that's why it is said in the Aishwarya Puja also tatrako mahakashoka what is that, yasmin sarvani bhutani atmevamu dvijanata tatrako mahakashoka ekatmanupashyata, we see oneness not in the sense that everything is one but oneness in the sense that ultimately everything is meant for the service of Krishna so if this doesn't work, I will try this so with that vision we can always be confident in our service to Krishna if not this, then this so the perplexity and the misery that we experience in our life can be substantially resolved if our spiritual practises can change our sense of identity that is what the Bhagavad Gita is meant to do and that is what the Bhagavad Gita is meant to do and that is what by our spiritual practises, by our education and our experience, if our sense of identity changes then the question of activity what should I do, how should I deal with this person, how should I solve this problem all that, we will get the guidance from vrindadhami buddhiyo kantam eruma upayantite Krishna will give us the guidance by which we can deal with this I spoke today about seeing the contemporary world from Shastra Chakshu, from the Ishopanishad from the Bhagavad Gita's perspective and I talked about how there is half knowledge can be more dangerous than no knowledge so the Ishopanishad says that those who have so called knowledge, they will enter into darker hell greater darkness that is because of course little religion can be a good thing if the people who are following that little religion are in goodness but if they are in passion or in ignorance that little religion can be a bad thing because they will act passionately and ignorantly in the name of religion and because most people today are in passion and ignorance so they act passionately and they create trouble and being fed up by such trouble many people become or they think they will become spiritual but not really because people when they come to religion whatever reason they come that is fine but the starting point should not become the stinging point in the starting point there is so much injustice against us by the bad cruel west and we want to destroy the west then that is the level of their consciousness if I think my body is not healthy so I will do some yogic exercises but I think those exercises alone are yoga then that becomes bad if I think this fall of religion since religion is no longer a spiritual search for God it becomes a political thing I think that mental relief is the goal then I think there is no ultimate objective reality I think I just have to adjust and I don't fall so the reality there is a mental subjective component to our perception of reality but it is also objective we have to harmonise so why do people fall prey to cult leaders it happens all over the world because people do not have proper relationship people do not have proper relationship anybody who promises them some subjective for their circumstances what they are doing seems completely irrational why would somebody commit suicide why would somebody give so much money to somebody like that in their circumstances they get relief that is why they do it but the circumstantial is only temporary so we progress spiritually from the starting point we move towards a higher level so it happens through education and experience social education to shoppers and we can't benefit ourselves much it's like a doctor gives a prescription and a patient takes only a medicine that is good so we can get some experience not just spiritual experience spiritual experience that is a process in the process of experiences when we are in association in spiritual prompted to follow the process further ultimately this spiritual experience the elevation is essentially in if our sense of identity is simply coming from our circumstances this family, this community, this nationality then whenever the circumstances changes we will feel agitated so essentially the change has to be my first identity, my defining identity is I am a servant of Krishna as a servant I will function in this family in this nationality and if the service works out, good if the service doesn't work out, yes I will go on and do some other service so Arjuna had this confusion based on circumstances that should I do my Kshatriya Dharma or my Kula Dharma should I protect my family members or should I attack and punish those who are wrong doers and Krishna changed his sense of identity you are not their family member, they are not your family members we all are Krishna's family members our primary identity is service of Krishna so see how best you can serve Krishna and when that person so thank you very much Hare Krishna any questions or comments so sometimes we may say that whatever is happening is God's will or sometimes we may feel that oh I could have done better in this situation so how do we reconcile that see certainly the whole purpose of Bhagavad Gita is that's ok I don't think we need the mic I will just repeat the question so we are definitely meant to choose more wisely so if we consider this is the present this is the past this is the future so what has happened in the past is it all for the good not necessarily that everything is good there are two different things everything that happens is good and everything that happens is for good the two are different things everything that happens is not good sometimes bad things happen in life when Draupadi is dishonoured nobody tells her jo hua accha hua it is a terrible thing that happened and the Pandavas take action instead so if some bad things have happened then we can analyse maybe I could have done like this but what is damaging is just going over it again and again and living in the past lamenting about the past and living in the past ok I made that mistake it is over now but Krishna is so expert that he can bring some good even out of the bad so we could say at one level Yudhisthira's decision to gamble was bad at least his decision to gamble so much was bad at that time Bhishma's silence was bad but through it all Krishna brought out a good what is it? that Krishna demonstrated how he protects his devotees now that Krishna protected his devotees does not mean that Yudhisthira's gambling was good or that Bhishma's silence was good that is still bad so Yudhisthira he laments later he says I just got carried away at that time so the point is that in the past by looking at the past if you can learn ok I could have done like this I could have done like that and we learn from it then that is positive but we keep lamenting about it it is bad so it is not that everything that we have done is God's will we have committed mistakes and they are not God's will they are God's sanction we wanted to do it and Krishna allowed us to do it but whatever has happened in the past Krishna can bring good out of it also so therefore we don't lament too much about it Mahabharata says that lamentation achieves nothing except to sap the energy of the lamenter so we can acknowledge that in the past I made some mistakes but move on learn from it what I can do to avoid mistakes in the future but move on it is not that everything that happens is Krishna's will some of it is Krishna's sanction it is not his will Krishna himself sent a Shanti Duta to avoid war Duryodhana still rejected him so Duryodhana's rejection was not Krishna's will Duryodhana was adamant about doing it and Krishna said ok I will sanction it we may also sometimes act like Duryodhana's but Krishna can bring Duryodhana was consistently against Krishna we are sadhakas we sometimes do some wrong things but we are not consistently against Krishna that is a bad thing come back on the track so Krishna can bring good even out of the bad does it answer your question so if someone has insulted us grievously and we are hurt then we keep thinking about the past so what should we do in such a situation we have to find the best way to resolve the past and that can be broadly three courses of action one is we forgive and end that chapter second is we forgive but we withhold trust and third is we forgive but take corrective action see often I have a whole seminar on forgiveness I will just outline this in broad patterns many times the problem comes because we equate forgiving with trusting forgiving is for the past trusting is for the future if somebody has made a mistake in the past yes I am not going to hold this against you I forgive you but if we lend money to someone and that person cheated us I may forgive you for that but that doesn't mean I am going to lend you money again so when we equate the two then we feel we can't even forgive but we separate the two I can forgive someone but I am not going to trust someone forgiveness can be given, trust has to be earned trust has to be earned so with this analysis let's look at three possibilities somebody makes a mistake but they are genuinely repentant and they are trying to reform themselves and we see in their overall life it is just a one off incident they are good people but at that time they did something wrong then we can forgive and just end that there is no need to hold that in their face for the rest of their life forgive and end it second is if we forgive but then they keep doing the same thing again or we feel they may do the same thing again then we may with all trust observe the person what is that saying in English you know if you cheat me once shame on you fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on you fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on you fool me twice shame on you if I let myself become a victim again and again that is stupidity so why should I hurt myself in some cases we may have to withhold trust and watch that person and only if that person is reforming then we may repose that trust again now how that is practically done we have to see but it is in principle that we have to do what it takes to protect ourselves and third is that sometimes we may forgive internally in terms of emotion I am not going to hold this as a resentment against you but if you are doing the same thing again and again you will keep hurting me and you will keep hurting others so I will take action against you in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna in 11.33 tells Arjuna that they are your enemies kill them kill those enemies and attain victory but that same Gita in the same chapter 22 this is 11.33 in 11.55 he says one who works for me without animosity towards all living beings that person will come to me so Krishna is telling Arjuna yes functionally they are your enemies they are enemies of Dharma you have to fight against them but don't have a revengeful mentality Arjuna did not fight the war to take revenge Arjuna fought to establish Dharma so sometimes establishing Dharma in our context may mean seeking justice may mean taking disciplinary action may mean taking legal action or whatever but we don't do it with a vengeful mentality that means internally we understand ok this person has done this thing probably it was my own past karma because of which it has come but so in that sense we don't hold that resentment against them but just not holding resentment doesn't mean we give them the power to hurt us again so we have to see that I have a service in this life I have my Dharma and I have to do what it takes to do my Dharma properly so if somebody is hurting me so much that it troubles me physically, emotionally and I can't do my duty then I have to take protective action I won't do it in a vengeful mentality but I will do it in a in an intelligent way so forgiveness, forgiving is not necessarily forgetting sometimes see it's like say if I have a wound and that wound is a raw wound right now so as soon as I touch it I feel pain somebody touches it I feel pain but over a period of time the wound heals sometimes the wound is bad then it may be a scar say if you have a scar on the body the scar remains but the scar does not cause pain it is there because basically the mark of that wound is there but now it is internally healed just the external mark is there so like that once we process that hurt appropriately we forgive in terms of our inner emotion I am not going to hold this against you resentfully but externally we take the appropriate action so when we forgive in that way then after that, that wound may still remain but it will not be a raw wound it will be like a dried scar it's very difficult if somebody has hurt us to forget it completely but forgiveness creates a new way of remembering where we are not emotionally fixated they are just like yes I have a scar over there but I am not thinking why did I get this scar because the pain is not there so like that forgiveness basically frees us from the emotional fixation on the hurt and then we can move on does that answer your question but we forget to be in the present so how can we be more and more in the present there are two distinct things over here there is living in the present which is very important but there is living for the present which is not desirable living in the present means the present moment is the opportunity that I have to do something constructive, to do something purposeful to use for some higher goal in my life but living for the present means the present itself becomes my ultimate goal we can't live for the present because if we don't think about the future then how will we plan a basic sign of intelligence is planning so basically there are three modes of material nature there is goodness, passion and ignorance so we can think about the present in goodness, in passion, in ignorance and we can think about past and future also in goodness, passion and ignorance so when I think about the present in ignorance then what happens I have got diabetes, acute diabetes and a delicious gulab jamun comes in front of me I forget the future I live in the present that will destroy me in fact when we fall for sense enjoyment how do we fall for it we only think about the present I want to enjoy now so living in the present is fine but when our world view becomes reduced only to the present this is the moment I want to enjoy that is why I don't care about anything else that is not positive so in the mode of ignorance we just don't care about anything actually in the mode of ignorance we don't even really care positively about the present also whatever, this is what I feel like doing, I will do it even if it causes me pain, this is what I will do it so in India there is this alarm because many young kids not a few young kids have committed suicide because of this blue whale challenge it's an online game where some people challenge you mark a blue whale on your body people do that, ultimately they commit suicide so actually this is simply the mode of ignorance I just wrote an article about it from the blue whale challenge to the blue hole challenge the blue hole is Krishna so we need to relate with Krishna, that is the challenge of our life so the point is that in the mode of ignorance sometimes we just get caught by something it doesn't even give us pleasure but just the passion of the moment is so great, this is what I will do just don't think about anything so we need to live in the present but in the mode of goodness in the mode of goodness means as you said we understand that the present is the womb of the future so yes I want a brighter future in my life but how will I get it? By working in the present so when we have a proper world view see living in the present has become almost like a mantra in today's world just be in the present, be here now but when it is divorced from a higher world view be here now can actually be harmful because I may just do some things because they feel good right now for me so we have to have proper world view which helps us to understand what is the worthy goal for the future so for a devotee our ultimate goal is that we want to attain Krishna's abode, we want to develop love for Krishna but the way to develop love for Krishna is by serving him right now by doing our responsibilities in the mode of devotional service right now so when we see that the present is the womb of the future and we understand what it is that is truly worthy in the future then we will live in the present but we won't live for the present we will live in the present for Krishna does this answer your question? Prabhupada Ki Jai Gaur Bhakt Vrindaki Jai Jai Gaur Premanand.