From anartha-nivrtti to artha-pravrtti 2 – Understanding Nivrtti
So nivritti can go ahead okay i have to go ahead sorry so nivritti literally means retirement or giving up now in this case i talk about frustration can be a beginning point for realisation but there's a difference between frustration and renunciation frustration means the desire is there but the opportunity for indulgence is not there i want it but i can't get it that is frustration whereas renunciation means i don't want it because i have got something higher now frustration can be a beginning point from where renunciation may emerge just like say i talk about the two-story building two levels so i i'm frustrated with what is here i'm not getting it i'm not getting satisfied even if i get it so i start looking for something more and then when i get something more then i give this up so renunciation means i don't want it so frustration can be a beginning point but frustration alone is not renunciation and if when we are indulging in sense pleasures or when we are giving into the anarthas there are times when we all get frustrated but that frustration alone if we if we assume that it is renunciation then we wonder what happened again next time the temptation comes we relapse so the nature of maya is that we all become frustrated but maya never makes us hopelessly frustrated maya keeps us hopefully frustrated yeah you did not get it now but you'll get something in the future maybe future in future and that way that hope keeps us going on so even when the frustration comes that frustration doesn't automatically lead to renunciation it is okay i did not get this now so i'll give it up but then after some time if an opportunity comes i'm i'm open for it so that way we do not right we are not rising to a higher consciousness it is so quite often when there is we could say there is gratification and there is frustration in both of these we are still centred on the sense object centred on the object thinking that oh i i want it and i'll enjoy it and oh i don't want it it's causing me misery i'll i'll give it up but still that it is still the centre of our consciousness so nivritti in terms of renunciation is not simply frustration with sense intelligence there's something more that is involved over there so now with there are the mind has different modes and the three modes we can understand in this frame of reference is one way of looking at it that in the mode of ignorance we just thinking thinking and thinking also in an uncontrolled way the word contemplation is often used in a positive sense deep contemplation but prabhupada also use it in a negative sense when we contemplate on the sense objects so there's only contemplation and no action people are in their own fantasy world then that is often in the mode of ignorance krishna says the characteristics of mode of passion mode of ignorance he says in 14.13 is there is no illumination no thoughtful contemplation and no action also in the mode of passion there is first action and then there's contemplation we speak something hey why did i speak that like that and in the mode of goodness there is first there is there is a balance of contemplation and action they're thoughtful and then we are active also so why i'm talking about this right now here because renunciation is in the mode of goodness frustration is in the mode of ignorance when somebody is frustrated now they are oh i couldn't get it i don't i will i'll not seek it but they're not doing anything positive to rise to a higher level of consciousness so saying no to something is never sustainable we have to say yes to something else so in the mode of ignorance there is oh this is so bad i want to give it up this is so bad i want to give it up there's contemplation but okay after giving it up what are we going to take up that is not there so that's why frustration is not sustained i get frustrated one thing but after some time again i do it parikshit maharaj talks about this that sometimes we indulge sometimes we give up this is like bathing of elephant so basically this abstinence which may happen because of frustration that is not sustainable and that happens because we are we are at that particular time at least in the mode of ignorance not doing anything positive to rise to a higher level of consciousness so now when you talk about the word nirutti actually means to retire in in hindi in sanskrit they say if somebody retires he has become nirutta now so nirutta retirement so in a special way completely retired so actually desires themselves they don't they won't retire till we tyre of them so they will keep coming back even if we decide i don't want them still they'll keep coming back so it's like say if we found a stray dog and we decide to adopt that dog and then afterwards we were told you know this dog has got rabies it's very dangerous dog don't keep it with you don't keep it with you now we will tell the dog go away go away now the dog if the dog has become attached to us and we have affection to the dog the dog will just think i'm playing with you go away go a little away and come back again go away and come back again go away come back again then you know 10 times you say no to the dog and 11 times oh this dog is so nice you just fondle it and caress it maybe hug it oh my master loves me either again 11 times you go away and just play what happens with us is even if we say no to our lower desires it's like that the dog doesn't go away and we may say no a few times and then once we say yes again the desire comes back so it's it's only when the dog understands this master doesn't want me only no matter what i do is not going to pay any attention to me is not going to give me anything then it will go away so similarly for us when we have to when we have to give up some indulgence quite often we give it up but then again we indulge it and then it stays with us it doesn't go away so therefore the renunciation is is often a slow process and it's not always a straight process sometimes we there are twists and sometimes there may be u-turns also but we we are meant to go towards that so niruddhi is something which we just we we get tired of the desire i don't want this and that what happens with us is when we are frustrated we are not tired of the desire we are tired of the fact that we did not we could not get the object of the desire so the desire is still nice and i would like to do this but just i'm not able to do it so one is being tired of the effort to get the object and so i say i don't want it but when in future the object seems to be available without much effort hey come on i'll do it so this this tired this tiredness of um of of material desires of anarthas will happen when there is attraction to something higher so that's a niruddhi has to be sustained the bhagavata in the third canto in kapila section says jara is old age so ajara is that which doesn't grow old so prasanga is attachment so attachment is like a pasha is like a noose or a shackle which is ageless so our you know our body grows old but our desires don't necessarily grow old we get exhausted but our desires don't get exhausted when we stop sense indulgence after we indulge that is not because the desire has gone away it's quite often because the capacity is not there right now and then say i may eat a lot and then now enough i give the example of gulab jamun now you take something but tomorrow if somebody offers gulab jamun yeah give me so at that time it's not that there's a transition oh now it is enough because now the capacity is not there but the desire itself is not gone away so the desires often exhaust us but they don't get exhausted themselves they just stay on and on and on and this way they keep binding us so niruddhi so i am talking about oh it's it is it is the famous verse where it talks about uh redirection of the heart to krishna of today we know devotees so it is in this that word comes only once in the bhagavatam or once or twice yeah it is 325 20 it talks about how only when we become attached to devotees attachment to the material is very difficult to give up but when we become attached to devotees then the doors to liberation open so i'm focussing on the first part ajaram that the attachments themselves don't go away so easily now in our condition stage this is our dilemma that you know we can't get the higher taste unless we give up the lower taste but we can't give up the lower taste unless we get the higher taste so what do we do now of course like any any blanket statement that is made this is not absolutely true we actually to some extent it is true that if we are obsessed with lower taste if i'm constantly thinking of getting some sense object for my pleasure then i can't think about krishna so in that sense if you are obsessed with the lower taste we can't get the higher taste it's not that krishna is not accessible to me in the sense that krishna is keeping himself far away from me but rather i cannot access krishna if i'm attached to something i will be in the temple taking the action of krishna but i'll think of my attachment so i cannot think about krishna so in that sense as long as the lower taste is strongly pulling us we can't get the higher taste and at the same time you know unless we get the higher taste we can't give up the lower taste so as long if this is the only thing i have how can i give this up this is what has given me pleasure in my life and this is the only pleasure i know so we are caught in the situation where we we can't get the higher taste and we can't give up the lower taste and that's so in this situation how do we move forward so actually it begins with the intelligence so jiva goswami explains that what priti does for the siddhas buddhi has to do for the sadhakas that means priti is affection affection for krishna keeps the siddhas those who are perfected beings it keeps them on the spiritual level they're naturally attracted to krishna they think about krishna and they stay absorbed in him but for us that kind of priti that kind of affection or attraction to krishna is not so much there so then buddhi is required so with buddhi with intelligence we can keep ourselves on the spiritual platform in 3.43 the bhagavad gita krishna says even with the intelligence understand yourself to be transcendental to the param and fix the mind on the soul fixes on the spiritual level so it is with the intelligence that we can we need to begin so what what does it mean to begin with the intelligence with the intelligence we need to be convinced that the higher taste is actually higher and the lower taste is actually lower this is a lower pleasure this is a temporary pleasure this is not going to satisfy so with our intelligence we need to get this conviction and to the extent we get the conviction with the intelligence to the extent we will get the reason rational to resist it so and with the intelligence we also get the higher taste get the higher taste and understand that this higher taste is actually higher so i talked about what is sense pleasure there is sense of the sense and there's a sense object there's a contact of senses and sense objects and that gives us some pleasure and most of the times we think that because i don't have a good enough sense object that's why i'm not getting the pleasure somebody wants to eat and enjoy oh i don't get good enough food to eat if i could get to if i could get a free coupon to a five-star hotel i would have such a good time most of the time we think the sense objects i have i don't have the sense objects or the sense objects i have are not good enough that's why i'm not getting the pleasure but even then actually the contact of senses and sense objects it's always going to be temporary so how do we understand this lower taste is lower i use an acronym time t-i-m-e that is temporary illusory miserable enjoyment um so temporary illusory miserable enjoyment at the end of the session we'll give you this ppt those of you want i'll add it over there i somehow i don't think it is it there right now something i'm supposed to go to next time i think it got deleted in the transfer somehow sorry about that so temporary illusory miserable enjoyment what does it mean temporarily how do we understand the lower taste is actually lower we think that because the sense object is not there so i can't enjoy but even the sense object were there actually the capacity of the senses to enjoy itself is limited and it can never be made unlimited so in that sense it is always going to be temporary whatever it is if i get a room if i get the if it's great i want you know i want this house i want this car i want this phone i get the latest phone yes but then the attractiveness of the phone is because of its newness after some time the newness goes away and there's not much pleasure over there so the temporariness is inescapable that's the first thing illusory means sometimes uh we we chase after an object okay i'll start a simple example say if we hear that there's a feast and we hear there's a feast and that feast there is going to be pizza i say i like pizza very much so then i go there i want the pizza i want when will i get the pizza will i get the pizza and then i go there and i found that that rumour was false there is no pizza so then all that i got was the craving so there's so that basically when we seek sense there are three possibilities one is we seek it and we don't get it at all so then this is simply miserable so t-i-m-e temporary illusory miserable so if i crave for it and i don't get it at all and that's misery there are so many of our desires we can think about we crave for them but we don't get them and that craving simply causes us misery the second is we go there and there is a pizza and then we get it and we're about when we want to eat it it's badly cooked so it just doesn't taste good come on it looks so good it must be good it is not good so then that it illusory means it appears as if pleasure is there but actually it is not there so there's a wonderful cake that is made but in the cake instead of sugar somebody has put salt then the cake looks like a wonderful cake but it tastes what is this so like that sometimes we get the object first is we don't get the object only second is we get the object but the object disappoints us the object disappoints us the third is we get the object and it's enjoyable also but what after that the enjoyment is temporary now no enjoyment in the material level lasts for longer so in this way either we don't get the enjoyment only and that leads to misery we get it it doesn't live up to our expectations and that's why it's illusory we get it it gives us some pleasure but then that pleasure doesn't last for long that's why it's temporary so this is this analysis temporary illusory miserable that acronym is mine but this three possibilities this from Vishwanath Chakradakar's purport to the verse in the 15th chapter of the first canto he talks about worldly pleasures he talks gives three examples over there which are given in the Bhagavatam and based on that he gives us analysis so basically the verse says that Arjuna is saying I've got the same bow that I've got the same bow there's the same chariot but earlier I defeated everyone and now just some infernal coward defeated me how did that happen he says because Krishna has left and because Krishna has left he says therefore my potency is like like if like if you put if you put fuel on ashes it's of no use or it's like money produced by a magician and so he gives various examples over there and in that connection Vishwanath Chakradakar gives his analysis so basically with this is just one analysis we may all can do different kinds of analysis by which with our intelligence we get convinced that the lower taste is lower so at different points in our life there are different maybe philosophical understandings or personal experiences or some analytical frame and analytical frames by which we get this yet this is really not worth it that that understanding when we get it that is very valuable and how the higher taste is higher that I'll talk when I come to the next session about Artha Brahmati I'll talk about Artha at that time so now I'll with our intelligence what do we do I said we need the intelligence but the intelligence alone is not enough it has to it has to function so there is impulse which just rises within us and even if I understand the lower taste is lower still the impulse will rise so if an alcoholic understand that alcohol is bad for me I want to give up alcohol but next time they pass by a bar next time they see somebody else drinking that impulse will come I want to drink so impulse is what rises it can rise from some external perception or it can arise also from some inner recollection it rises within us and when the impulse becomes intent is I am going to drink then that is the time before so in our inner world the impulse is something which arises without our our doing anything it just rises because of external perception or in a recollection and we can't do away with the impulses they will rise within us but when they become intent that is the time when we suck up so in between impulse and intent is intelligence so let intelligence guard the path from between impulse and intent so impulse rises within me so impulse is something which is rising within me I want to eat this I want to watch this I want to buy this then the intent that impulse come why don't you do this why don't you do this why don't you eat this why don't you watch this that is the impulse that is coming in the intent is I will do it so when it comes to the level of intent then we will relapse but in between the impulse and the intent can be the intelligence the impulse arises but I don't succumb to it I don't let it become my intent my intention I don't decide to do it so the this intent becomes this intelligence becomes strong through scripture so we study scriptures that scriptures help us understand the nature of material pleasure nature of spiritual pleasure the nature in which our own mind works and then we are just because the desire has come within me that doesn't mean I have to act on it if the desire comes the desire will stay for some time it will go away so we don't have to identify with that desire we don't have to necessarily indulge in that desire so temptations may come we don't have to welcome so temptations may come but they'll come they'll stay for some time if we don't entertain them they will go away but if we identify with them we make them our intention then we will succumb so nivritti means at this we are talking about attachment or giving up or we'll talk about taking up or something in the next session but at this stage giving up means we focus on the principle that that the intelligence has to be strong krishna also says buddhinashad pramashyati he says when intelligence falls we fall in 2.62-63 when he talks about the sequence of how the soul relapses the intelligence is like the protector for us now when sometimes so i'm talking about how at the previous session i talked previous slide i talked about how the intelligence can stop the impulse from becoming an intent but sometimes we just get overpowered and when we get overpowered at that time we may just i'm like this only i'm hopeless i'm fallen i can never give this up this kind of thinking is actually the mind's deception now suppose say somebody say we are we are living a nice law-abiding life and a friend comes along and says come let's rob a bank what come let's rob a bank says now i have a full i have a foolproof plan oh we will get the money and we'll slip away nobody will catch us and then that person persuades we go along and rob the bank and then when the police come that person just disappears and we get caught and then when we go in the we go we are brought in the court and then we find that person is sitting as a judge you are a criminal you should go to jail so our mind is this double role player the mind first come on why don't you do this the mind proposes to us come on do this and then when we end up doing it the mind is you are a hopeless fool so the mind allures us into wrongdoing and that condemns us also so there so what happens even when even when say we had made a resolution okay i'm not going to do this and then we did it anyway then i say oh there's so many times i just have no willpower i'm just hopeless so thinking like this we can actually do a little analysis at that time the mind offers some rationalisation how did the mind persuade us we had our intention i'm not going to do it and then next one and then we did it so the mind offers some rationalisation by which it it sidelines our intelligence so what was that rationalisation and then like one rational little doesn't matter so then when we understand what the rationalisation is then we can come to that rationalisation a little doesn't matter yes that may be true but it cannot be true also the regulation is fine in some cases if there is no even the regulated indulgence can lead to unregulated indulgence so whatever is the rationalisation that the mind uses everybody is doing it well everybody is going to do it but everybody is going to get the karmic reactions for it so just because everybody is doing it doesn't make it necessarily right so we have to when we study the philosophy when you see we use the intelligence one is we use the intelligence to avoid the impulse from becoming intent but the other is even if it becomes when we act on it the next time what do we do okay what made me do it how did the mind rationalise and how can i resist that rationalisation how can so if i have that if i have a counter to that rationalisation ready then the next time the mind will not be able to fool us in the same way my mind keeps fooling me yes it keeps fooling me but there is some trick which it uses for fooling and if we can understand that trick then we can counter it so i'll talk about from the transcendental perspective in bhakti we'll talk about this a little later how bhakti can protect us but even sattva guna also can protect us to some extent so usually sattva guna mode of goodness mode of goodness can also protect us so this is when our mind goes into illusion say i'm sitting here i'm thinking maybe i will buy this i'll watch this i'll eat this and our mind goes into a fantasy world oh this will be so enjoyable i want it i'm going to get it who can stop me from getting it the mind is going to fantasy imagining at that time now we can drag the mind back to reality so when the we are we will be sitting in a temple or we'll be sitting in in a place where there's no temptation but our mind is going to fantasy world which is going to impel us towards temptation so at that time we just bring ourselves back to reality what does it mean bring ourselves back to reality now we can see the senses can be the pathway to illusion but if we can as i said earlier we can go into illusion in two ways one is through the perception by the senses the other is through the recollection and the imagination by the mind that means sometimes i see a sense object and i get a desire for it sometimes there is no sense object like an alcoholic sees alcohol bottle or sees a bar and desires to go and drink or an alcoholic sitting in a home itself peacefully but then there's a desire coming oh then the memory comes up hey i drunk just so nice i wanted to look it so the it comes up from the mind from the recollection so especially when we are practising bhakti we are living in devotee association to some extent then it is often the mind's imagination which starts agitating us so at that time see our consciousness the soul's consciousness comes if the soul is here the subtle body is here the physical body is here soul's consciousness comes from the subtle body through the physical body to the outer world so now if in the outer world sometimes there is no temptation but in the inner world there is temptation the mind is fantasising something so now to take the soul's consciousness directly to the spiritual level is not so easy so if you can just get out of the mind let us get the consciousness from the fantasy at the level of the mind to the reality at the level of the senses what does it mean to get it to the reality at the level of senses that means we just become aware of our surroundings what am i okay what am i doing i'm sitting in a temple what am i doing thinking like this okay what is there in this temple here there is krishna so just observing our the world around us becoming more aware of the world around us that itself can drag us out of the temptation so basically the more we imagine the more we get captivated but we can get the consciousness out of the fantasy to the reality and the reality is not tempting then that can so for example if i have a picture if i'm getting agitated by something unless there is a picture of shloka prabhupada over there so i just look at the picture and start thinking about that picture or even verbalising this is a picture of prabhupada so prabhupada's hand is raised and he is gesturing to convey a philosophical point he is sitting on the floor as he usually sits and there is a library behind him library of books behind him and this looks like a rustic setting so probably this might be in mayapur or vrindavan i don't know it's mayapur so so basically when we direct our consciousness towards a reality which takes us out of the fantasy of the mind then that itself can protect us because once we get consumed by the fantasy we are lost so the mode of goodness is characterised by awareness and awareness can progress at various levels first awareness is awareness of distractedness or distraction oh you know i'm in a temple instead of thinking of krishna i'm thinking about something else that awareness itself is the beginning then there can be even awareness of material reality is also important like sometimes you become absent-minded you know i take out my specs i put it over here and then i start searching where is my specs you all have heard about this kind of absent-minded people so they're not aware so even awareness of material reality just being aware be attentive that is also in the mode of goodness so first i become aware of my of the distraction i'm getting distracted then i become aware of the reality around me and then gradually i become aware of spiritual reality so in that way here while we are talking about this level of dealing with it because right now we're not talking about artha brahman so i'm not focused on krishna directly but even at the material level we can deal with temptations by just coming to the mode of goodness in the mode of passion the mind takes us into fantasy land and that's when our imagination runs haywire and it captivates us but you can just get us ourselves back to reality you know okay i am i am so and so i have this responsibility i have this service and i'm i've taken this vows i have to do this just get ourselves back to reality another easiest way to get us back to reality is to focus on some spiritual stimuli within our environment as i said look at a picture of prabhupada picture of krishna just try to focus on that verbalise that hear that hear about that think about that so ultimately we want to direct our consciousness to the spiritual level but even getting it to the current reality it is relatively easier than directly spiritualising it on sometimes and then doing that can help us to resist the temptation also because once we come out of fantasy land then in the reality the imagination doesn't go so haywire and it we are able to check it so this i mentioned this point already that to decide to not think of something is to think of it so we cannot we cannot simply live by abstinence we need to rise somewhere higher that's why renunciation requires redirection without that renunciation cannot be sustained and that redirection artha pravrutti is what i'll talk about in the next session so i'll summarise what i spoke just now today so we're talking about the second session where you talk about nivrutti and nivrutti i talked about how the frustration means i can't i can't get it whereas renunciation means i don't want it in frustration i still have the desire but just because the object is not there so i'm tired of the effort to get the object but the desire i'm not tired of the desire renunciation means i'm tired of the desire unless i'm tired of the desire the desire will not go away like a pet dog even if i push it away it will keep coming back till i show it unambiguously that i don't want it so like that the desires which we have petted earlier we have to say firm no to them only then they will go away and then attachments are ageless they they exhaust us but they themselves don't get exhausted temporarily we may enough we may say enough but after some time again when the the desire comes up the opportunity comes again we indulge so the problem is that we the dilemma is that when we can't get the higher taste unless we give up the lower taste and we can't give up the lower taste unless we get the higher taste the way out of the dilemma is through the intelligence with the intelligence we understand that the lower taste is lower and the higher taste is higher and one reflection for understanding that lower taste is lower is the acronym time t-i-m-e what is that temporary illusory miserable enjoyment it's not enjoyment actually in that sense but so when i seek crave for something i don't get it at all then only i get the misery of craving that's miserable i crave for it i get it but it doesn't live up to my expectations then it's illusory i crave for it i get it but it doesn't last for long it's temporary so by reflections like this we can redirect our user intelligence to check the impulse when it rises the impulse will rise because of external perception or internal recollection but when it gets converted into intent that's when we fall but if the intelligence can stand as a guard in between then the impulse won't get converted into intent and in that connection i talked about this just when the impulse arises within us then it impulse takes us into fantasy land so if we are diverted into illusion then through fantasy then we can the sensory reality around us can also ground us get us out of the fantasy so by focussing on awareness of our material reality and then with some spiritual stimuli within that material reality we can get out of the fantasy land where we will where if we go inside then we will succumb so that way by being in the mode of goodness or by some thought exercises by which we can bring ourselves back to the mode of goodness that means as we become aware of our circumstances then we can protect ourselves from passion and the illusion that comes with passion now ultimately we can't just not think of something so renunciation requires redirection and that after priority we'll discuss in the second half of our session in the afternoon so are there any questions or comments yes this is kind of on the string from the last session but um in regards to if i focus on something you can make it something that i would like to get rid of then if i if i'm focussing on it too much i can get the things i want that i don't want even more even if i'm saying i don't want to drink i don't want to drink correct but um so can you talk about some balance between focussing on it too much but then going the opposite way and thinking well you know like naturally you know i need it to come naturally i don't want to focus on it too much there's like the flip side of that can you talk about balancing yeah yeah so on one side you may say that if i just keep thinking of not doing it that will end up i'll end up doing it because the desire will come up but then we also have to be aware of the we have to be aware that i have to give this up so let's say it's i'll give two examples say if i have got a say i had a shoulder pain a few days ago now as soon as i put weight on the hand suddenly it causes pain now if i'm constantly going to think about i got a shoulder pain i got a shoulder pain i got a shoulder pain then i'm going to be miserable i have to think about other things and i have to go on doing what i can uh even with the shoulder pain but then on the occasions when i have to get up at that time i have to be aware hey that's true i have this poor i have this pain in the shoulder i cannot put weight on the shoulder so that awareness has to be there so that when that pain can get aggravated i don't aggravate it but at the same time it's not that i have to constantly think about it i'm constantly thinking about it i increase my misery if i don't think about it at all then also i put weight on it and i cause misery to myself so in that sense the awareness has to be there but the we could say the constant awareness of the obsession need will be there so like that if i have a particular like if an alcoholic is there now if say this is the office this is the home and there is a bar in between which the alcoholic has always frequented now if the alcoholic is going to pass by that then the desire is going to come and the craving may become stronger alcohol can be pulled sometimes the alcoholics are also told that i'm using an example of alcohol because one of my friends is a like a counsellor alcoholic addict anonymous and i found many of the principles that they talk about apply to us also in our particular conditionings so they say that you know you can you may take a you may need to take a longer route some other route don't go by that bar even if it takes more time just avoid that so we have to be aware of the weakness that we have and we have to make sure that we don't aggravate it so just constant contemplation on it can aggravate it but just indiscriminate recklessness can also aggravate it so the balance will be that we become aware of the triggers the situations where that weakness that anartha may get aggravated and we avoid those we avoid those situations but we don't focus on just no no i won't do this i won't do that i won't focus on something positive so as i said when we use our intelligence here to understand why this lower taste is lower so at that time also to some extent we have to think about it but this is we are thinking when we are in the mood of goodness using scripture as a scripture as our guide so at that time we are basically equipping ourselves to say no whenever the impulse arises so we definitely need to think about it adequately enough so that we have the reasoning so that we have the intellectual resources to say no when the impulse arises but we we don't have to be thinking about it constantly does it answer the question thank you yes okay yeah i understand yeah so desires won't retire till we tyre of them was this daksha's philosophy daksha's philosophy was somewhat different it was that that unless we indulge in the desires we won't tyre of them he was his point was that indulgence is the only way to realisation indulgence is the way to renunciation no we have to so now we have to tyre of desires now how that will happen that will vary from person to person some people they may indulge lifelong and still they may not tyre of it some people and this is not what i need to do so the point is that we need to get something higher in our life so whether now the higher taste is higher i can get that conviction simply by hearing or sometimes i get there by experiencing but it is we need to tyre of that desire so daksha's philosophy is that that to tyre of the desire we need to indulge in the desire that is not that is not my point my point is that we have to come to that level it may be through indulgence it may be through direct focus on krishna but the point is we have to become tired of desires yes there's two quotes or two verses that are consecutive um and it describes how one who fails to try and free himself from anarchist he's only with misfortune in his life and he doesn't get the mercy of the lord and the next verse um describes how they always seem to contradict me since i'm one's own one can't free himself from anarchist but if he cries to the holy name for several days and the holy name will remove all the anarchists from his heart it's a big statement but um what i'm wondering you know a lot of what we're dealing with what you've presented is on the strength of intelligence and certainly that's important but then the idea that whole aspect of uh you know i'm going to talk about it okay so i heard you definitely yeah definitely thank you so i have in my hand i just wanted to say that i'm forgetting so much of this and the prophet said you know that we have to be conscious before krishna happens and that this awareness of material reality it makes a whole lot of sense it just makes a lot of sense because because then we can wake ourselves up thank you she said you had a question the earlier session yeah i i just so long as you're saying it sort of leads into what you're going to talk about next oh okay yeah okay fine thank you you can just speak i'll repeat the question probably you mentioned we gave example of the shoulder pain we said we don't have to pay too much attention to it but when there's a need we need to pay attention but the problem is to realise we need to pay attention so is there anything that we visualise or something that we need to keep to make us be aware of the situation okay so when we we need to become aware that there is danger so how can we remind ourselves of that so that we can we can protect us like to remember that you know i do have shoulder pain i cannot put weight on this leg so sometimes it's just by experience i put weight and then i realise hey this is too much pain so like that we are a little reckless and we expose ourselves to some some perceptions some sense objects and then we get agitated why did i get into this at all i didn't have to get into this so broadly speaking if we become more one of the characteristics of the mode of goodness is awareness so we become more aware of what makes us distracted you know when we are chanting actually we are trying to fix the mind on Krishna and they say oh my chanting was totally distracted today okay that's one thing but it's just getting frustrated by chanting was distracted we can think okay what was the distraction you know if okay now there can be unlimited distractions but if you look at our own mind there are some specific distractions maybe it is some we have some financial worries we have some somebody in their family's or whatever now so then we understand okay these are things which my mind worries about this is what i get distracted about and then we can make some plans if i'm worried about worried about finances then maybe just before i start chanting i can read some words or i can keep in mind some words which talk about krishna protects us or whatever i'm just giving an example here of something which we need to instead of just saying i'm distracted we need to analyse our distractions and see how to deal with them also one part is going to become attracted to krishna attraction to krishna is going to take a good amount of time so we need to also analyse our distractions and by analysing how can we deal with those distractions we can decide that again we take shelter of scripture only to deal with it but scriptural wisdom if it is customised or applied to that particular situation that becomes more relevant for us so that way we can by analysing what particular distractions trouble us we can actually deal with them so that's one aspect to it the other aspect is that the over a period of time if we are serious about doing a particular activity then naturally we just learn what is unfavourable to that and we avoid that so say if i if if a student is if we are very if a particular exam is very important for us and then we are going i want to pass this exam and if the student if a person has really decided that seriously then they will not get distracted somebody will come to a movie let's go to a party normally they would have done that but at that time the seriousness of purpose in that exam that itself gives us the impetus for saying no so like that for us if we can have some serious commitment in krishna bhakti then then that itself gives the impetus that i don't want to go in this direction so usually as i said earlier also it is not the first mistake that is the problem so quite often it's not just the perception sense objects or it's not even the recollection of the sense of you that's the problem it's the imagination after that it's the contemplation after that that is the problem so if i'm just busy in my service to krishna so the shoulder example is not fully appropriate because i need to use the shoulder sometimes i just have to put weight but in the case of sense percept in the case of sense indulgence sense perception is unavoidable in that sense i can say that i have to put weight but contemplation sense perception is not necessary so if i if i have to it's like if i'm driving in a car i have to be aware of who is coming from where but i just don't have to turn and look at what is my own i have to keep my vision focused so i'm driving fast i'm aware who's coming from this side who's coming from this side but i'm just moving forward and it's not that when i'm driving along the road i'll turn around and look this way oh who's coming over there no i'll keep my vision fixed especially if i'm not just going on sightseeing tour if i'm going on a purposeful drive somewhere then i'll just focus on the road so like that if our life is activated with a higher purpose then even when the desire comes up at that time we won't dwell on it we just yes that's enough it's come i'm not interested in it we move on so that way we can avoid the aggravation of the perception of the recollection perception or the recollection and that way we can move on i just want to know what you're going to cover the next session okay so in artha i'm going to talk about how krishna is the all-attractive person how he everything attractive in this world actually reflects the spark of krishna's splendour and artha i'm also going to talk about to some extent engaging according to our nature to connect with krishna and in pravrutti i'm going to talk about the concept of rasa from the bhakti samudra sindhu how the house how uh developing rasa we often hear those terms like and all the sums and all that so what exactly those terms mean and how exactly can we develop an attraction to krishna so that is going to be the focus in the last session do we carry arathas from our previous lives yeah okay so do we carry arathas from our previous life yes of course i mean if we're not carrying they're very fortunate but most of us we do have they may not become manifest immediately like even among children we see some children are they are even when they are in the cribs they are thinking when i'm going to take over the house they're small they're so dominant i want this and i want this right now and other kids are like gentle so they are they don't get so angry you just leave them where they are they are okay so we all have we all we don't come as blank slates we do have particular conditioning that come from our previous life and they make us vulnerable in particular ways but they also make us equipped in particular ways so some of us may have more intellectual nature then we can study jastra more some of us may want musical nature then we can musical nature then we can study we can connect with krishna through singing and music so it's a mixed bag we carry a lot from our previous life some of us some of it is unfavourable to bhakti and some of it is favourable to bhakti so what is favourable we use that and what is unfavourable we manage that okay so thank you very much.