Live in the present but not for the present

[Talk at University of Massachusetts, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors. So thank all of you for coming here today and as I mentioned I’ll speak on the topic of live in the present but not for the present. Living in the present is a common theme in mindfulness meditation so we tend to get distracted to the past this went wrong that went wrong or we worry about the future. In the Srimad Bhagavatam which is an ancient bhakti text from India it describes that that shoka and bhaya these are two primary modes through which we are subject to moha. Shoka is lamentation and that is for the past this went wrong that went wrong and bhaya fear is for the future and through both of these we are put under moha that is illusion so sometimes we’ll be sitting comfortably in our room we start thinking that person spoke like that to me that person snubbed me over there we may just start thinking thinking and our blood may start boiling one moment we may just come and compose another moment we are about to pound someone if we can so what has happened it’s just our thoughts our thoughts have gone into the past and they filled us with enormous anger frustration resentment or the same can happen about the future our thoughts may sometimes go into the future and we start worrying after my studies I don’t get a good job oh if I don’t get a good job then I’ll have a big loan I don’t not able to pay the loan what will happen to me oh I’ll be on the streets oh no I’ll be on the streets what will I do now I will be sitting comfortably in the air-conditioned room right now what I am dreading what happens if I’ll be in the streets so basically the inability to live in the present can subject us to a lot of unnecessary distress by either worrying about the future or lamenting about the past so I will use one metaphor throughout this talk the metaphor of driving if we are driving in a particular vehicle at that time we may sometimes drive just for the sake of driving if you just newly learned a car or you got a new car or you come to a new place you start exploring but most of the times we don’t drive just for the sake of driving you’re driving for a purpose you want to go to a particular destination so when we are driving we have to be aware of our present location our present situation okay which lane should I be on which vehicle is speeding where there are turns coming and how I should be able to drive safely right now driving in America has its own dangers as compared to driving in India driving in India the danger is often unpredictability anything can happen any moment on the road sometimes the cow may come in between sometimes the animal may come in between so unpredictability causes danger you’re driving in America quite often it is the predictability that causes danger because the roads are smooth and clear quite often because the driving experience is so smooth people tend to doze off and that creates a danger of its own kind so either way we need to be aware so when we are driving we have to be aware of where we are presently in a situation in our vicinity at the same time we are aware of our destination and we are making sure that we are driving our car in such a way that we can reach that destination so living so the title is live in the present but not for the present that means we have to be aware of where I am right now what I am doing right now what I should be doing right now but along with that we are also aware of where I want to go we don’t live for the present most of us have certain goals in our life certain purposes in our life which we wish to achieve and we are living for those purposes so most of your students here so as students you know you’re studying and you have a purpose you want to have bright career a good job a good life in future so we live for the future now the mind is something which is inside us and the Bhagavad Gita explains that our present existence is three-dimensional there is the body there is the mind and there is the soul so the if you come to compare it to a computer metaphor the body is like the hardware the mind is like the software and the soul is like the user so now Google is trying to develop driverless cars and it’s not exactly a driverless car it is actually a computer which is having in the cumulative intelligence of many drivers pool together just trying to drive so the human human beings role becomes as less as possible now in this case what is happening if we compare the computer metaphor to a apply the computer metaphor extend it to a car that the car which is like the hardware extended further is controlled by the computer which is there in the car so that’s the software now what if the software gets corrupted the car is meant to go in a particular direction but suppose somehow the computer software gets corrupted and in the car will get disoriented wanted to turn left but it turns right you wanted to break it accelerates it can lead to disaster so the software is if it’s a computer controlled car then the software is a vital interface between the driver and the machinery or if we consider that this computer control cars are not that common you can consider the example of a plane in a plane the pilot is vital although the computer all there’s a lot of software in the plane which helps the pilot monitor things at the same time the pilot has to be aware and if somehow the software malfunctions and the plane is going in the Northeast but the software indicator is going in the Northwest the plane will end up in a wrong destination so similarly for us the body as I said is like the hardware the mind is like the software so the mind is like the software which gets distracted which becomes malfunctioning that means when it malfunctions so instead of directing us towards directing our attention directing our consciousness towards that which we are meant to be aware of the mind directs our consciousness elsewhere so if I’m driving a car and I’m constantly looking behind looking behind looking behind with disaster now and now when I’m driving a car I meant to look ahead but even when I’m looking ahead I have to be not just look far ahead I have to be aware right now what is next to me so if we keep looking behind or if we keep looking too far ahead we may lose track of what we need to do right now that can lead to danger that can lead to disaster similarly for us our mind it needs to be aware of the present primarily but the mind is like a software which sometimes malfunctions and just as there are viruses which sabotage the software and when the software gets sabotaged by the virus it starts malfunctioning so like that there are viruses which sabotage our mind so one of them is shoka another is bhaya so shoka the emotion of lamentation it just locks us in the past why did he do like that why should she speak like that why did that happen and in that way we are not aware of the present and you could say the software of the virus of bhaya locks us in the future and that way again we become paralysed so living in the past requires being able to purge the software of the mind of these two viruses the virus which misdirects our consciousness backwards and the virus which misdirects our consciousness way too forward so how can we do this so we all need to go past our past our past is something which is always with us we’ve all grown up in a particular way we had a upbringing a particular kind of culture which has influenced us we can’t avoid that influence on us but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to influence us constantly we are the products of our past but we don’t have to be the prisoners of the past products means that whatever we have done in the past that has influenced us and that is influencing us so say somebody becomes an alcoholic and nobody no child is born with a bottle of alcohol in their mouth is it nobody is born an alcoholic but say they start drinking once I drinking second time say this is the this is the place where they’re staying so the hostel or the room and this is the college and say in between there is a bar now there’s a bar in between they decide and let me go and drink once it’s fine second time it’s okay third time and again and each time they drink the desire starts becoming stronger and then indulgence especially repeated indulgence it makes the impulsive compulsive what is simply an impulse come on why don’t you drink once but after some time it becomes compulsive this can’t live without it so initially the thought of drinking might come just when one is passing by the bar but afterwards even before the person comes out of the home the mind is already in the bar I want to drink are they going to the class till the mind is there in the bar oh I could have drunk sometimes when people become addicted then the first thought that they get when they wake up is I want to drink so or the last thing they think before drinking before sleeping is I want to drink so then they’re caught so our past alcoholism is a extreme example but the point which I am talking is that we are all influenced by our past but just because we are influenced doesn’t mean that we have to be controlled by the past I have a stand here the outer you can use that you do not hold it all the time where did you put it just check it somewhere so we are influenced by our past but we all have free will and by that free will we can change the way we choose to act right now so we have to acknowledge the past effects on us say somebody has always been very short-tempered then the urge for anger will come very quickly but that doesn’t mean that they have to give in to that urge we have the capacity to resist our impulses and that is what actually differentiates us from other living beings animals are also having some level of free will but their level of free will is far lesser than humans many of us may fast on some sacred days now Navratri is going on some people fast in Navratri some people fast during Ekadashi so now suppose the sacred fast is going on the fasting period is going on and a cat sees a rat can the cat think oh good I am fasting the cat can’t think like that why because it is simply driven by its impulses now it has also free will to some extent so for example if there are the cat comes out of comes into a room and sees that there are two rats there’s one rat here one rat here now which rat should I eat which rat should I pounce on that is the free will that cat has but it really doesn’t have too much freedom so it just has to eat it’s driven by its impulses now we humans are also driven by our impulses but we are not controlled by our impulses so Oscar Wilde said that giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world I have done it over a hundred times very nice we will decide I’m going to give up something we give it up but it doesn’t give us up it keeps coming back and catching us so this year I was invited on a TV talk show and I spoke about new year resolutions so it’s quoting a survey that 90% of the resolutions that people make a new year those resolutions are not new they made this resolution the previous year but they couldn’t keep it so now this year again making the same resolutions so there is definitely the influence from the past which comes upon us we can’t deny that it can come in terms of our desires it can come in terms of our emotions it can come in terms of our habits but it does not force us it pushes us but we have the capacity to push back that is where the whole room for improvement lies within us so we acknowledge the past this is how I tend to get angry oh I know I tend to feel depressed I tend to I have a weakness for a particular thing but we can choose not to act on it and how is this possible if we look simply at the mechanistic perspective if we consider ourselves simply to be products of matter then there should actually be no room for free will if say I pick up this phone I drop it I won’t drop it don’t worry so if I if I drop it now the phone does not have any free will whether to follow or not it is going to fall why because it is simply made of insatiate matter but if we were simply products of insatiate matter then we too should not have any free will but we do have free will even somebody who says I don’t have any free will they are using their free will to say that I don’t have any free will so even the denial of free will is an aversion of free will so we do have free will now where does this come from our capacity for choosing should I do this should I not do this it actually is a function of our consciousness so this year in the first half and I had come to America had also gone to Canada so there I had spoken in Toronto University and there in Toronto University one of the most prominent neuroscientists of Canada they have a library dedicated to him who spoke there so that’s Dr. Wilda Penfield he is considered the father of neurosurgery and he did a number of experiments to try to determine where is consciousness. Consciousness is basically awareness all of you are aware that I am speaking right now I am aware that you are hearing so where is the centre of awareness within us so normally it is associated with the brain but where in the brain exactly so he did some experiments so one of the experiments described in his book called a mystery of the mind which he wrote almost after 40 years of studying the brain so one of the experiments was that now we know different parts of the brain are connected with different bodily functions say the frontal lobe of the brain is connected with the motor nervous system so if a particular part of the brain is activated hand goes up when the hand goes up that part of the brain is in activation so he asked the subject to raise their hand the subject raised the hand he asked the subject what happened I raised my hand okay then he told and he found that that part of the brain had been activated he asked the subject okay lower your hand so what happened I lowered my hand and he saw that that part of the brain had become deactivated now he repeated this experiment but in the second case he activated that part of the brain using probes and as soon as that part of the brain is activated using probes hand went up what happened since my hand went up he asked the subject did you raise your hand no I didn’t you did then he deactivated part of the book the hand fell down what happened did you put your hand down so now Penfield repeated this experiment while activating different parts of the brain but no matter whichever part of the brain he activated nowhere did the subject get the feeling that I am the doer the subject was the observer and different activating different parts of the brain created trigger different stimuli suddenly the subject started remembering some childhood memory started feeling some fragrance some smell some music whatever the different memories were triggered but the agent was the observer was not the doer so what does this actually mean so essentially what this means is that there is something beyond the brain which is the initiator of the action which is the observer of the action the brain is the tool for the execution of the action if connected to this computer is a printer and if I press the print button in the printing hand will start moving over here now you can come and press the print button and again the printing hand will start moving but whether it is I or you are moving the print button the print button and the printing hand are connected but the person is someone separate so Penfield’s question was that in the case it was he the experimenter who activated the brain in the first case so first case who activated the brain and his conclusion was that the source of consciousness is extra cerebral the brain is like a computer it is programmed by something outside of itself and that outside agent and that is what the Bhagavad Gita calls as the soul it is a source of consciousness it ha prakash is a car could snub locum remember me Kshetra Kshetra thought could snub Prakash a to Bharata in 13.33 and 34 Krishna used two metaphors for explaining how the soul relates with the body and one of the metaphors is this one is just the Sun illuminates universe so similar illuminates the body with consciousness so the soul is separate from the body but the soul’s consciousness passes into the body through the mind through the brain into the body and to the outer world now so the body and the mind are programmed to function particular ways but we can resist that programming so for example if I am if I have visited a particular site many times say if I have visited as soon as I if I visit NY times many times then as soon as I type n then my browser will automatically completed then by times now today I might want to go to some other side I want to go to new India some other side whatever it is now as soon as I type n it will give you an invite another autocomplete now I can choose not to go there but it will come there as autocomplete so similarly our past will resurface in our life as a present autocomplete option that means as soon as an alcoholic gets a desire for some relief or some pleasure we the autocomplete option will be trick now you can get pleasure you can get relief by other means also but at that point because it has become the habit that will be the autocomplete option so similarly some people they have tendency to get depressed so one thing goes wrong in their life immediately autocomplete in the mind life stinks my destiny is rotten things always go wrong for me and this pattern of thoughts will come and will make the person depressed but even when the autocomplete comes we can choose not to complete it when I type n NY times is coming but I can choose to type something else over here so that’s how we can go past the past by recognising that certain patterns will come in me certain behaviour may come as a default option within me but I can deselect that option and I can select something else this whole possibility is there because we are not simply programme machines we are actually possessors of programme machines our body mind they’re programmed but we can reprogram them we are separate from them to the extent we understand ourselves as spiritual beings to that extent we can separate ourselves from the influences that have shaped us in the past and we can reshape ourselves and a further aspect in understanding our spiritual side is that actually all of us are not just isolated beings we are parts of a whole when we fly in a plane we are concerned have I got my ticket have I got my ID proof but when boarding a flight do we worry what if the plane doesn’t have enough fuel what if the pilot is drunk what if the plane is malfunctioning now we don’t worry about these things because we understand that there’s a whole system to take care of those things so we do our part our part is we clear the security make sure that we have our ID your ticket and then there’s a whole system to take care of other things so while flying in a plane we understand our position and our purpose my position is I’m a passenger in this plane my purpose is I want to go from here to there and there is a whole system which will take care of everything else so similarly for us in our life also we have to understand our position and our purpose there is a lot happening in our life also in which we are simply the initiators right now I’m speaking how exactly do I speak I think and I desire I want to speak something but how do those words come out now when scientists try to replicate human speech using machines we have text-to-speech generators but just give a flat monotone usually so we speak and we have to speak the mechanism by which the voice cords are operated the modulation comes out the emotion comes out the meaning comes out it’s extremely complex most of us don’t even know how the voice cords work we just desire to speak and the speech happens so every day when we eat food how is that food digested and converted into energy researchers try to make some digestive machine because many people have digestive problems and just somebody’s heart is not working we may have pacemaker somebody’s kidney doesn’t work we may have a dialysis unit I thought if people’s digestion doesn’t work can we make a digestive unit so you can just digest food for them they tried it and they found that they will not need a machine they need a factory and not just a factory but a chain of factories the sheer complexity of the chemical reactions that are required for converting food into usable energy it’s so huge in physics if we consider work is forced into displacement then the sheer amount of work that is done in digesting one morsel of food is actually more than the amount of work that the average person does throughout the day so who is doing that we just eat the food and we forget the only time we think of our digestion is when it doesn’t work we just take it for granted but we are not taking care of it we are not making it happen some there is a supreme consciousness of which we are parts and the Bhagavad Gita says that there’s an eternal supreme consciousness and we are all amshya we are parts of that so we just have to play the part of the part so we have certain arena of control right now what about the past what about the future that is not in our control and there is a higher consciousness that is taking care of that we just focus on what in our control the whole will take care of the whole so even when I say oh don’t lament about the past don’t worry about the future it’s not so easy to do that because we start thinking what if things go wrong in the future what will happen to me what will I do so usually in material consciousness when we don’t are not aware of life’s spiritual side then we have only two options we think that either things are in my control or things are out of my control if things are in control I feel confident things are out of my control I feel panicky but when we have spiritual consciousness we understand that there is another possibility things may not be in my control but they are not out of control because there is a higher consciousness which is planning everything this conscious is known by different names in different traditions the Bhagavad Gita refers to the infinite by the name Krishna now the future is something which we are all concerned about and we all want a bright future the future is brightest for those who brighten the present that means that whatever we want to do to get a brighter future the only way we can do it is in the present so if I want to have a good career I study right now if I want to have a good relationship with someone I have to invest in the relationship right now so the present is the way to the future so we focus on the present but we don’t diverse it from the future we see that the present is the womb of the future so we don’t live in the future we live in the present but we see the present is what is going to go to future so I am worried about the future what will happen okay about the future there may be hundred things which are not in my control but there is one thing which is in my control that is that I can mould the present I can use the present in a way that it can help me in the future so we need to see this connectedness of the present in the future once a person went to a hotel and he ordered some idlis so he ate the first idli, second idli, third idli, fourth idli, what a waste he said the fourth idli has filled me I wasted my time eating the first three idlis if I had just eaten the fourth idli I would have saved my time I would have saved my money I would have been full right it doesn’t work like that the filling of the stomach didn’t happen because of the fourth idli alone all the four idlis together filled the stomach it’s common sense but sometimes in our life when we look at things we don’t see them as cumulative we think I did this one thing and everything came out I didn’t do this one thing everything went wrong so we often tend to see life in discrete units but life is not discrete it is continuous so right now I may be working and I think I’ve worked so hard I have not achieved anything in my life I’ve not been successful I’m not happy I have not got anything that I wanted in my life but and we may think I just want one lucky break I get the lucky break then everything will work out but yes even if I get the lucky break in future sometime I have to be prepared to use that break so no movement in life is inconsequential it’s like every morsel of food that the person is eating each piece of idli that the person is eating that is contributing to the nourishment it’s one particular point a person just I am full now so like that at one particular point in our life success will manifest but that doesn’t mean all that we did before that was worthless and if somebody just is in front of the idli plate sometimes on children but they have some food in front of them but instead of eating the food the food goes everywhere except inside their mouth and it goes around them it spills over now if like that the child takes four idlis off the plate but nothing goes inside the mouth the child is not going to be satisfied child is not going to be nourished so similarly if we just go through life thinking oh in future I will get a good break and then things will be wonderful but I don’t use the present then it’s like not eating the idlis that I have right now so it’s not that some future idli will make me nourished what I am eating is going to contribute to the nourishment so here there is the Bhagavad Gita explains that we are finite consciousness and there is infinite consciousness and the relationship is a mood in a mood of loving service and contribution so if we think I want to achieve this I want to be this I want to be the number one I want to be champion now if that is the only desire that is driving us then if I don’t become the number one if I don’t become the champion if I don’t become the achiever I feel my life is wasted what did I do with my life but if we see that our life is meant for contribution a life is meant for service a life is meant for a spiritual connection that we are parts of the whole and the connection with the whole itself provides us spiritual satisfaction so when we work in a mood of devotion we work in a mood of contribution everything that we do it contributes towards the satisfaction Krishna says by your work worship him so when we do whatever we are doing in a mood of worship in a mood of service I have been given certain talents let me use them in a mood of service then that enables us to stay focused in the present while also preparing for the future that enables us to do our best with the opportunities we have right now but not become overly dependent on when will my efforts be realised when will I be successful yes every morsel that I’m eating it will contribute to my nourishment even if that nourishment doesn’t seem to be manifesting right now we focus on doing that which is in our control knowing that there is a higher plan working in life and with that higher plan how it will evolve that we may not know right now so we look at the present and plan the future but God looks at the future and plans the present and that’s a fundamental difference in vision so that means we think I’m here right now I’ll take these steps and go there yes we have to use our intelligence that way but sometimes in life certain things happen which are just not in our control so if we are living only in the present then if in the present things start going wrong what is the point of living if I want to get a particular job and suddenly I find that I don’t clear the interview if I’m only living in the present I’ll just get depressed you know this didn’t work out that didn’t work out that didn’t work out so we have to know that actually there is a higher plan in operation in our life and we may be thinking this step will lead to this step this step will lead to this step and we make our plans that’s our use of intelligence but one of the fundamental teachings of the Bhagavad Gita is don’t be attached so don’t be attached doesn’t mean be apathetic or irresponsible it just means that we don’t let our conceptions imprison us what attachment does is it limits our conceptions when I’m attached to something I want things to work out this particular way only and if it don’t work out that way I feel everything is messed up but things can work out in a way different from what we plan it can be better than what we plan but we have to be open to it to conclude with one example and now when we say God looks at the future and plans the present means that there will be something which may appear not so good for us right now but they may be for good see everything that happens is not necessarily good sometimes some people publish a Gita Saar and that they say jo hua wo achcha hua, jo ho raha hai wo achcha ho raha hai, jo hone wala hai wo bhi achcha hi hoga whatever happened is good whatever is happening is good whatever will happen in will be good now I have read the Bhagavad Gita several hundred times I never found any words anywhere close to this the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t say much about what is happening and the focus in the Bhagavad Gita is what we are doing how are we responding how are we choosing so it’s not that everything that happens is good sometimes bad things happen in life but everything that happens can be for good not not that it is good but it can be for good that means the bad thing is bad right now but something good can emerge out of it when a child is having some stomach pain and the mother takes the child to a doctor and the child thinks oh the doctor will give me something by which my pain will go away and to the child’s dismay the doctor takes out an injection what is this I came here to be relieved from pain and you’re causing me more pain but the doctor is seeing the future the stomach infection is going to worsen and therefore I need to I need to inject this over here inject this and in one sense sometimes it may appear that by going to the doctor the child’s pain has increased but eventually that pain will decrease that pain will decrease because the doctor has a plan over there so we see the present and plan the future God sees the future and plans the present and thus if we have this vision that let me do my part and the future will be taken care of by God so attachment blocks our vision makes us think if things are not this way they are all wrong they are out of control but when we are instead of being attached we are devoted then we do our best but at the same time we are open whatever is whatever happens we will try to find the opportunity to do that so we live in the present but not for the present when difficulties come in the present then if I am forced to live in the present if I’m having terrible pain in the body I live in the present just feel the pain a little misery we live for something beyond the present we live we live for the future and not just for the future some abstracting the future actually the Bhagavad Gita tells us that in the future the thing that will give us the greatest satisfaction is not a particular event that happens in our life a particular achievement that we make yes those things can give us some satisfaction but the greatest satisfaction will come when we connect ourselves with Krishna when we through our devotion establish a spiritual connection with him in that connection is the highest satisfaction and through that connection we get the stability and the strength by which we can go through life’s ups and downs and we can make the best contribution internally if we are agitated even if the opportunity comes we will not be able to take it we will be agitated and miss out on the opportunity internally if I come then we will take what a fortunate life presents and we will be able to contribute constructively so this way we the Bhagavad Gita concludes by Arjuna telling Krishna 18.73 he said I will do your way I will do your way so whatever situation comes in our life we do our best and we leave the rest we will find that if we live thus so we live in the present but we live for Krishna we live in a mood of service to him I will find that by this the future will be better than what we have planned better than what we could have anticipated because there is a higher intelligence operation in our life and that higher intelligence has a better plan than what we have for our life if we just do our part in that plan without being attached to everything else but being attached to the mood of service of contribution then we find that higher we will let that higher plan unfold in our life and thus we will be able to make contribution externally and find satisfaction internally so I’ll summarise what I spoke I spoke on the topic of live in the present but not for the present I give the example of how our mind has these two viruses if we compare the mind to a software two viruses which sabotage the mind’s function what are the two viruses past and future but specific emotions shoka and moha shoka lamentation about the past not moha bhaya fear about the future anxiety worry so I’m driving I keep looking back I’ll have an accident so I keep looking far ahead I’ll also have an accident I don’t look while driving I have to be aware of the destination but I have to be also be aware of my present location so life is like a journey and when we move along this journey our body is like a vehicle for us so the body is like I give a computer analogy what are three parts body mind and soul they are like the hardware software so the software of the mind can malfunction at times and then we need to correct malfunction so the past is going to influence us and whatever choices we have made in the past they become our default options in the present alcoholic a person is drunk alcohol repeatedly whenever they want some relief alcohol pops up as a default option it’s like a site we have visited repeatedly that pops up as a autocom default autocomplete on our browser so the past influences us but it doesn’t force us we can choose to not accept the default option that is coming and this capacity to choose comes because we are different from matter I talked about Dr. Penfield’s experiments on probing the brain that the source of consciousness is extra cerebral so matter itself does not have free will consciousness has we are not programmed machines our body and mind are programmed machine they are programmable machines and we are distinct we can use it or abuse it so we go past our past by not accepting the default impulses that come from the past but choosing with intelligence and what about the future we are worried that will my future be bright but whatever we get in the future that is a cumulation of what we are done in the present just like a person who is eating idlis it is not that the fourth idli nourished all the four is like that the present is what contributes the future so those who brighten their present will have a bright future and if you feel in future so many things may go wrong then we understand that we don’t have to control everything we are parts of a whole when we are flying in a plane we just play our part taking our ticket and id and other things in the plane are taken care of similarly our body will need food when we speak so much so many things are happening in the body that we are not aware of there is a higher intelligence taking care of these things and that higher intelligence has a plan and we have the spiritual understanding and we don’t just see things in that terms of the dialectic things are in my control or things are out of my control you see the third possibility things may be out of my control but they are not out of control with the higher control and talk about how the infinite consciousness God who is known in the bhagavad-gita as Krishna he we see the present and plan the future but he sees the future and plans the present so like a child who says I want to get rid of my stomach pain but the doctor says I will free the remove the infection so I need a free injection so if we just live in the present sometimes the problems will seem to be increasing in the present and life may become unbearable but if we live for developing a connection with Krishna there in that connection will give us internal stability and through that internal stability we will be able to make optimum contribution externally and we will be able to find enduring satisfaction internally so the way to live in the present is by rejecting the impulses of the past and by entrusting the future to Krishna and focussing on making the best choice possible in a mood of devotional contribution thank you very much are there any questions or comments okay okay I do we have control over destiny yes definitely the word destiny is used different senses so let’s clarify the terms before we move forward to what we mean in whatever we do there are certain things which are in our control and certain things are not in our control so for example if a farmer farming in a traditional setting is once a harvest so now there are three factors involved the farmer has to sow the land so the seeds flow the land that is from the Gita’s terminology that is the karma of the farmer that is the duty or the action of the farmer then there is a second factor that is the rains coming in time adequate quantity but that is not in the farmer’s control and that is daiva that is destiny the third is kala even if the rains come on time it’s not that today rains came tomorrow the crops are going to come the harvesting season has to come say three months have to pass whatever it is for the particular grains when the kala passes then there is phala so karma plus daiva plus kala leads to phala now there are two extremes of world views one is the world view which is there in today’s world which can be called from the Vedic perspective as karmavada karmavada is everything is in our hands if I want to succeed I will succeed and nobody can stop me from it well life doesn’t work out like that sometimes we may try our best I may study very well for an exam but even the day of exam I fall sick what do I do so there are factors beyond our control and one of the major reasons why there is so much depression there is so much inferiority complex there is so much negativity in today’s world is because people are made to believe that they alone determine their success and what is the result of this the result is that when failures come that means they alone are responsible we don’t want to shirk responsibility you want to correct ourselves but sometimes there are just factors beyond our control so if we think that if I think that I alone am responsible for my success then I alone become responsible for my failure and then if I get failures once twice thrice then failure does not remain an event we start thinking failure is a person I am a failure we are never failures we may get failure as events in our life because sometimes we may do our karma but the daiva may not come or go so karmavada actually subjects us to unnecessary negativity by burning us with excessive expectations the other extreme is to think that everything is determined by destiny that is called as daivavada or in English it is called as fatalism so daivavada is the idea that nothing is in our control everything is a strength now this is not at all either the reality that we experience we do make decisions and our decisions do have consequences and even in the Bhagavad Gita if we see Krishna tell Arjuna everything is controlled Krishna tell Arjuna now you decide what you want to do vimrish shaita dasheshena yathechi siddha kuru deliberate and decide what you want to do so the balance understanding is that karma plays a role our actions play a role daiva also plays a role so so here when I said I started by talking about we clarify the meaning of the word destiny so sometimes we use the word destiny we equate it with phala the result that I want to get say for example I want to get a job in a particular company so am I destined to get that job or not so here when we’re using the word destiny we are using it to refer to phala the fruit but that’s a different usage when the when in the Bhagavad Gita’s context we use the word destiny we use it to refer to those things which are not in our control so there are certain things which are in our control certain things not in our control and both combined together they determine the result so almost all of us acknowledge that there’s something which are beyond my control cricket is a very popular game in India you know in several countries so the Australian cricket team which is currently touring India now it is known to be very aggressive team at least in the past it was and yet Australian cricketers are among the most superstitious in the world there’s a prominent Australian batsman Mark Taylor whenever he would go out to bat he would always first go to the pavilion restrooms and shut the lids of all the commodes and if after that if you get out early instead of going to the pavilion first you would go to the commode and if any lid of the commode would be open he would go and blast his teammates why did you keep the lid open because of that I got out the commode lid being open what other thing to be getting out but in his own quirky way he understand that there’s some factors beyond my control which also determine my performance and he’s trying to take care of that so if some people wear some amulets some people have their own maybe some people wearing an earring and only one leg here they do all different kinds of things these are all ways in which they’re trying to appease that which is beyond our control so do we determine the fellow yes we are determiners of the fellow but we are not the sole determiners of the fellow so if we think I alone determine the results but if we think I don’t determine the results at all that is also illusion we play a role we play an important role but we are one factor in the determining of the results we are not the sole factor so we can definitely shape the results but we don’t alone determine the results is that answer your question yeah yeah so Krishna says we should do a prescribed duty but how can we know what our prescribed duty is there is whenever we study scripture there is an essential principle and there is a contextual application so the when the context changes the specific way in which that principle is applied will change so we need to focus on the essential principle not the contextual application so in the past when Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita at that time there were different social divisions which were meant not for discrimination but for cooperation that the Varanasiam system was there and people had their duties prescribed according to that but today the social system is quite different we do not have that kind of division in which we can position ourselves appropriately so then we go to the fundamental principle Krishna says what are the purpose of social division it was Guna Karma Vibhagashaha. Guna means all of us have certain comfort certain things we are comfortable it some people will be intellectual they like to study they like to analyse they like to study some people are more extrovert just like to be with people they like to talk they like to leave they like to interact so we all have our own dispositions certain things which we feel comfortable doing so Guna refers to that which we are comfortable doing. Karma refers to that which we are competent at doing something which we feel good doing and something which we are good at doing so we look at our current situation and we try to observe okay how best can I function in my present situation so while going through our life we we encounter different situations we do different kinds of activities so we observe what am I good at what makes me what I feel good doing what I am good at doing and gradually try to gravitate towards that so we don’t have to worry too much about finding some prescribed duty which is prescribed for us and doing that there are the essential principle is that we live harmoniously with that which is our nature so whatever I find comfortable doing not comfortable in a narcissistic sense where I just am self-obsessed but comfortable in a sense that I can contribute in an optimum way so we focus on doing that and that is how the whole principle of Bhagavad Gita is harmony. If I have a car which is meant for racing and then I try to drive it through crowded metropolis it’s not going to work so well. If I have a car which is meant for driving a normal road if I take it for racing it’s not going to work so the body and the mind it is like a vehicle that we have it’s like a car so when we said we do our prescribed duty it simply means that we do the duty we play the role that our vehicle is best suited for so by observation by introspection and by association we observe ourselves we introspect based on observation and then we have our friends we have our guides we ask them also okay you observe me what do you think that I am good at doing gradually by this we learn about ourselves and then we can position ourselves in a vocation that is best suited for the body-mind vehicle that we have been gifted okay okay good question so how do we differentiate between the mind and the soul because you say the user and the software are two distinct things but inside us we don’t know how do we differentiate between the two okay so can you do a simple thought experiment it will take a minute or so so just close your eyes sit comfortably close your eyes and just try to focus on whatever appears on your mental screen you may be thinking or what is there for food now I have to do this work whatever it is don’t just be attached to that just try to observe whatever appears on your mental screen now as you are observing try to step back and look at the observer you’re observing something on the mental screen and there is someone who’s observing try to step back and look at the observer you notice that if you try to step back and look at the observer the observer steps back try once more try to look at the observer of the mental screen no matter how much we try we can’t find the observer because what we are looking for is what we are looking with what we are looking for is what we are looking with take a deep breath you can open your eyes now so here when we close our eyes what we see going on we see a lot of things going on that is the mind so mind is like our inner screen we have safer this outer screen on which you are seeing this power point projection but whatever we are seeing it comes on an inner screen so for example right now we are hearing me speak you know you are hearing her speak we are smelling the fragrance of the food coming from there we are feeling the cold of the AC over here you know all these sensations from the various senses are coming in and they are integrated and presented on a screen the screen on which they are integrated that is the mind. Shlotram chakshu sparshanam cha rasanam ghranam eva cha adhishthaya manaschayam vishayan upasevate so adhishthaya manaschayam this is like the Krishna there’s five fingers of a palm five fingers of the hand are integrated around the palm like that the five senses are integrated around the mind but the mind is the integrator and based on what gets integrated say for example if the food is smelling very delicious then that perception may become very prominent and we may think I want to eat the food and we may start the desire may become prominent we may start salivating so now what is happening over here on the inner screen something may come and it may come so fast that it may stimulate a reaction within us and because all this is happening inside us we may not realise it something flashed on the inner screen I saw it I sensed it I desired it and now I’m looking for it but what appears on the inner screen is different from the observer of the inner screen so the mind is the inner screen and the soul is the observer of the inner screen and to the extent we are attached to something to that extent the inner screen and the observer of the inner screen they seem like one for example there’s some food which I love then as soon as the food comes in front of me even if I don’t think about it I’ll go and eat it but if there is some food which I don’t like then I see that food you know if I say no will this person who is having the food will they feel bad can I just get away by not saying no so what happens when something is desirable it comes in the inner screen and something is undesirable so it comes on the inner screen but when it is desirable because we are attached to it the action happens instinctively and in that sense we can’t separate between the screen and the observer of the screen but when something is unpalatable something is not so unpalatable so we just turn away I’m not realised also we are turned away from it sometimes you may just go through a menu you just not take a particular food you’re not even think much about no I don’t want this then somebody asked why did you take this then you start thinking no why did I take this maybe I don’t think of a reason why I didn’t take it so when there is extreme attachment or the extreme aversion at that time the mind and soul in a functional sense become almost like one but there is deliberation should I do this should I not do this then we can see that there’s a perception coming in and there’s observer who is perceiving and then by separating the two we can understand that the two are separate so the mind is the is the screen on which the stimuli come in either from external perception or even from internal recollection but the soul is the observer and then the soul is the decider should I do this or should I not do this okay thank you

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

So, thank all of you for coming here today and as I mentioned, I'll speak on the topic of live in the present but not for the present. Living in the present is a common theme in mindfulness meditation. So, we tend to get distracted to the past, oh this went wrong, that went wrong or we worry about the future.

In the Srimad Bhagavatam, which is an ancient bhakti text from India, it describes that shoka and bhaya, these are two primary modes through which we are subject to moha. Shoka is lamentation and that is for the past, this went wrong, that went wrong and bhaya, fear is for the future and through both of these, we are put under moha, that is illusion. So, sometimes we'll be sitting comfortably in our room but we start thinking that person spoke like that to me, that person snubbed me over there.

We may just start thinking, thinking and our blood may start boiling. One moment we may just come and compose, another moment we are about to pound someone if we can. So, what has happened? It's just our thoughts.

Our thoughts have gone into the past and they filled us with enormous anger, frustration, resentment or the same can happen about the future. Our thoughts may sometimes go into the future and we start worrying. After my studies, I don't get a good job.

Oh, if I don't get a good job, then I'll have a big loan. I'm not able to pay the loan. What will happen to me? Oh, I'll be on the streets.

Oh, no, I'll be on the streets. What will I do? Now, I will be sitting comfortably in the air-conditioned room right now but I'm dreading what happens if I'll be in the streets. So, basically, the inability to live in the present can subject us to a lot of unnecessary distress by either worrying about the future or lamenting about the past.

So, I will use one metaphor throughout this talk, the metaphor of driving. If we are driving in a car, we drive just for the sake of driving. If we just newly learned a car or we got a new car or we come to a new place, we start exploring.

But most of the times, we don't drive just for the sake of driving. We are driving for a purpose. We want to go to a particular destination.

So, when we are driving, we have to be aware of our present location, our present situation. Which lane should I be on? Which vehicle is speeding? Where there are turns coming? And how I should be able to drive safely right now? Driving in America has its own danger as compared to driving in India. Driving in India, the danger is often unpredictability.

Anything can happen any moment on the road. Sometimes, a cow may come in between. Sometimes, the animal may come in between.

So, unpredictability causes danger. Driving in America, quite often, it is the predictability that causes danger. Because the roads are smooth and clear, quite often, because the driving experience is so smooth, people tend to doze off.

And that creates a danger of its own kind. So, either way, we need to be aware. So, when we are driving, we have to be aware of where we are presently and the situation in our vicinity.

At the same time, we are aware of our destination. And we are making sure that we are driving our car in such a way that we can reach that destination. So, the title is live in the present but not for the present.

That means we have to be aware of where I am right now, what I am doing right now, what I should be doing right now. But along with that, we are also aware of where I want to go. We don't live for the present.

Most of us have certain goals in our life, certain purposes in our life which we wish to achieve. And we are living for those purposes. So, most of you are students here.

So, as students, you are studying and you have a purpose. You want to have a bright career, a good job, a good life in future. So, we live for the future.

Now, the mind is something which is inside us. And the Bhagavad Gita explains that our present existence is three-dimensional. There is the body, there is the mind and there is the soul.

So, if you compare it to a computer metaphor, the body is like the hardware, the mind is like the software and the soul is like the user. So, now Google is trying to develop driverless cars. Now, it's not exactly a driverless car.

It is actually a computer which is having the cumulative intelligence of many drivers pooled together, which is trying to drive. So, the human being's role becomes as less as possible. Now, in this case, what is happening? If you compare the computer metaphor to a, apply the computer metaphor, extend it to a car, then the car, which is like the hardware extended further, is controlled by the computer which is there in the car.

So, that's the software. Now, what if the software gets corrupted? The car is meant to go in a particular direction. But suppose somehow the computer software gets corrupted and then the car will get disoriented.

You want it to turn left, but it turns right. You want it to brake, it accelerates. It can lead to disaster.

So, the software is, if it's a computer controlled car, then the software is a vital interface between the driver and the machinery. Or if we consider that these computer controlled cars are not that common, we can consider the example of a plane. In a plane, the pilot is vital.

Although the computer, there's a lot of software in the plane which helps the pilot monitor things. At the same time, the pilot has to be aware. And if somehow the software malfunctions and the plane is going in the northeast, but the software indicator says it's going in the northwest, the plane will end up in a wrong destination.

So, similarly for us, the body, as I said, is like the hardware. The mind is like the software. So, the mind is like the software which gets distracted, which becomes malfunctional.

That means when it malfunctions, so instead of directing us towards, directing our attention, directing our consciousness towards that which we are meant to be aware of, the mind directs our consciousness elsewhere. So, if I'm driving a car and I'm constantly looking behind, looking behind, looking behind, it'll be a disaster. Now, when I'm driving a car, I'm meant to look ahead.

But even when I'm looking ahead, I have to be, not just look far ahead, I have to be aware right now what is next to me. So, if we keep looking behind or if we keep looking too far ahead, we may lose track of what we need to do right now. That can lead to danger, that can lead to disaster.

Similarly, for us, our mind, it needs to be aware of the present primarily. But the mind is like a software which sometimes malfunctions. And just as there are viruses, which can sabotage the software.

And when the software gets sabotaged by the virus, it starts malfunctioning. So, like that there are viruses which sabotage our mind. So, one of them is shoka, another is bhaya.

So, shoka, the emotion of lamentation, it just locks us in the past. Why did he do like that? Why should she speak like that? Why did that happen? And in that way, we are not aware of the present. And we could say the software of the virus of bhaya locks us in the future.

And that way again we become paralyzed. So, living in the past requires being able to purge the software of the mind of these two viruses. The virus which misdirects our consciousness backwards and the virus which misdirects our consciousness way too forward.

So, how can we do this? So, we all need to go past our past. Our past is something which is always with us. We have all grown up in a particular way.

We had a particular kind of upbringing, a particular kind of culture, which has influenced us. We can't avoid that influence on us. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to influence us constantly.

We are the products of our past. But we don't have to be the prisoners of the past. Products means that whatever we have done in the past, that has influenced us.

And that is influencing us. So, say, somebody becomes an alcoholic. And nobody, no child is born with a bottle of alcohol in their mouth.

Nobody is born an alcoholic. But, say, they start drinking once, start drinking second time. Say, this is the place where they are staying, say the hostel or the room, and this is the college.

And say, in between there is a bar. Now, there is a bar in between, they decide, let me go and drink. See, once it's fine, second time it's okay, third time.

And again, each time they drink, the desire starts becoming stronger. And then, indulgence, especially repeated indulgence, it makes the impulsive compulsive. What is simply an impulse? Come on, why don't you drink once? But after some time, it becomes compulsive.

Just can't live without it. So, initially, the thought of drinking might come just when one is passing by the bar. But afterwards, even before the person comes out of the home, the mind is already in the bar.

Oh, I want to drink. Or they go into the class, still the mind is there in the bar. Oh, I could have drunk.

Sometimes when people become addicted, then the first thought that they get when they wake up is, I want to drink. So, or the last thing they before sleeping is, I want to drink. So, then they are caught.

So, our past, alcoholism is an extreme example, but the point which I am talking is that we are all influenced by our past. But just because we are influenced, doesn't mean that we have to be controlled by the past. I have a stand here, you can use that, you don't have to hold it all the time.

Where did you put it? Just check it somewhere. So, we are influenced by our past, but we all have free will. And by that free will, we can change the way we choose to act right now.

So, we have to acknowledge the past's effects on us. Say, somebody has always been very short tempered, then the urge for anger will come very quickly. But that doesn't mean that they have to give in to that urge.

We have the capacity to resist our impulses. And that is what actually differentiates us from other living beings. Animals are also having some level of free will, but their level of free will is far lesser than humans.

Many of us may fast on some sacred days, now Navratri is going on, some people fast during Navratri, some people fast during Ekadashi. So now, suppose a sacred fast is going on, fasting period is going on, and a cat sees a rat, can the cat think, oh, today I am fasting? The cat can't think like that. Why? Because it is simply driven by its impulses.

Now, it has also free will to some extent. So, for example, if the cat comes into a room and sees that there are two rats, there is one rat here, one rat here, now which rat should I eat? Which rat should I pounce on? That is the free will that the cat has. But it really doesn't have too much free will.

So, it just has to eat, it is driven by its impulses. Now, we humans are also driven by our impulses, but we are not controlled by our impulses. So, Oscar Wilde said that giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world.

I have done it over a hundred times. No, very nice. We will decide I am going to give up something.

We give it up, but it doesn't give us up. It keeps coming back and catching us. So, this year I was invited on a TV talk show and I spoke about New Year resolutions.

So, I was quoting a survey that 90% of the resolutions that people make on New Year, those resolutions are not new. They made those resolutions the previous year, but they couldn't keep it. So, now this year they are again making the same resolutions.

So, there is definitely the influence from the past which comes upon us. We can't deny that. It can come in terms of our desires, it can come in terms of our emotions, it can come in terms of our habits, but it does not force us.

It pushes us, but we have the capacity to push back. That is where the whole room for improvement lies within us. So, we acknowledge the past.

This is how I tend to get angry. I tend to feel depressed. I tend to, I have a weakness for a particular thing, but we can choose not to act on it.

And how is this possible? If we look simply at the mechanistic perspective, if we consider ourselves simply to be products of matter, then there should actually be no room for free will. If, say, I pick up this phone and I drop it. I won't drop it, don't worry.

So, if I drop it, then the phone does not have any free will whether to fall or not. It is going to fall. Why? Because it is simply made of insentient matter.

But if we were simply products of insentient matter, then we too should not have any free will. But we do have free will. Even somebody who says, I don't have any free will, they are using their free will to say that I don't have any free will.

So, even the denial of free will is an assertion of free will. So, we do have free will. Now, where does this come from? Our capacity for choosing, should I do this, should I not do this? It actually is a function of our consciousness.

So, this year in the first half when I had come to America, I had also gone to Canada. So, there I had spoken in Toronto University. And there in Toronto University, one of the most prominent neuroscientists of Canada, they have a library dedicated to him.

So, he spoke there. So, that is Dr. Wilder Penfield. He is considered the father of neurosurgery.

And he did a number of experiments to try to determine where is consciousness. Consciousness is basically awareness. All of you are aware that I am speaking right now.

I am aware that you are hearing. So, where is the center of awareness within us? So, normally it is associated with the brain. But where in the brain exactly? So, he did some experiments.

So, one of the experiments described in his book called Mystery of the Mind, which he wrote almost after 40 years of studying the brain. So, one of the experiments was that now we know different parts of the brain are connected with different bodily functions. Say, the frontal lobe of the brain is connected with the motor nervous system.

So, if a particular part of the brain is activated, the hand goes up. When the hand goes up, that part of the brain is in activation. So, he asked the subject to raise their hand.

The subject raised the hand. He asked the subject, what happened? I raised my hand. Then, he told and he found that that part of the brain had been activated.

He asked the subject, lower your hand. So, what happened? I lowered my hand. I saw that that part of the brain had become deactivated.

Now, he repeated this experiment, but in the second case, he activated that part of the brain using probes. As soon as that part of the brain is activated using probes, the hand went up. What happened? My hand went up.

He asked the subject, did you raise your hand? No, I did not. You did. Then, he deactivated that part of the brain.

The hand fell down. What happened? Did you put your hand down? I did not. You did.

So, now Penfield repeated this experiment while activating different parts of the brain. But no matter whichever part of the brain he activated, nowhere did the subject get the feeling that I am the doer. The subject was the observer and activating different parts of the brain triggered different stimuli.

Suddenly, the subject started remembering some childhood memory, started feeling some fragrance, some smell, some music, whatever. The different memories were triggered. But the agent was the observer, was not the doer.

So, what does this actually mean? So, essentially, what this means is that there is something beyond the brain, which is the initiator of the action, which is the observer of the action. The brain is the tool for the execution of the action. If connected to this computer is a printer and if I press the print button, the printing hand will start moving over here.

Now, you can come and press the print button and again the printing hand will start moving. But whether it is I or you are moving the print button, the print button and the printing hand are connected, but the person is somewhere separate. So, Penfield's question was that in the second case, it was he, the experimenter, who activated the brain.

In the first case, who activated the brain? So, first case, who activated the brain? And his conclusion was that the source of consciousness is extra cerebral. The brain is like a computer. It is programmed by something outside of itself.

And that outside agent, that is what the Bhagavad Gita calls as the soul. It is the source of consciousness. In 13.33 and 34, Krishna used two metaphors for explaining how the soul relates with the body.

And one of the metaphors is this one. Just as the sun illuminates the universe, so similarly the soul illuminates the body with consciousness. So, the soul is separate from the body, but the soul's consciousness passes into the body, through the mind, through the brain, into the body and to the outer world.

Now, so the body and the mind are programmed to function in particular ways. But we can resist that programming. So, for example, if I am, if I have visited a particular site many times, say if I have visited, as soon as, if I visit NY Times many times, then as soon as I type N, then my browser will automatically complete with NY Times.

Now, today, I might want to go to some other site. I want to go to New India, some other site, whatever it is. Now, as soon as I type N, it will give you NY Times auto-complete.

Now, I can choose not to go there, but it will come there as auto-complete. So, similarly, our past will resurface in our life as a present auto-complete option. That means, as soon as an alcoholic gets a desire for some relief or some pleasure, immediately the auto-complete option will be drink.

Now, you can get pleasure, you can get relief by other means also, but at that point, because it has become the habit, that will be the auto-complete option. So, similarly, some people, they have a tendency to get depressed. So, one thing goes wrong in their life, immediately auto-complete in the mind will come, life stinks, my destiny is rotten, things always go wrong for me and this pattern of thoughts will come and will make the person depressed.

But even when the auto-complete comes, we can choose not to complete it. When I type N, NY Times is coming, but I can choose to type something else over here. So, that is how we can go past the past by recognizing that certain patterns will come in me, certain behavior may come as a default option within me, but I can deselect that option and I can select something else.

This whole possibility is there because we are not simply programmed machines, we are actually possessors of programmed machines. Our body-mind, they are programmed, but we can reprogram them, we are separate from them. To the extent we understand ourselves as spiritual beings, to that extent, we can separate ourselves from the influences that have shaped us in the past and we can reshape ourselves.

And a further aspect in understanding our spiritual side is that actually all of us are not just isolated beings, we are parts of a whole. When we fly in a plane, we are concerned, have I got my ticket? Have I got my ID proof? But when boarding a flight, do we worry, what if the plane doesn't have enough fuel? What if the pilot is drunk? What if the plane is malfunctioning? Now, we don't worry about these things because we understand that there is a whole system to take care of those things. So, we do our part.

Our part is we clear the security, we make sure that we have our ID, we have our ticket, and then there is a whole system to take care of other things. So, while flying in a plane, we understand our position and our purpose. My position is I am a passenger in this plane.

My purpose is I want to go from here to there. And there is a whole system which will take care of everything else. So, similarly for us, in our life also, we have to understand our position and our purpose.

There is a lot happening in our life also, in which we are simply the initiators. Right now, I am speaking. How exactly do I speak? I think and I desire I want to speak something.

But how do those words come out? Now, when scientists try to replicate human speech using machines, we have text-to-speech generators, but they just give a flat monotone usually. So, we speak and when we have to speak, the mechanism by which the voice cords are operated, the modulation comes out, the emotion comes out, the meaning comes out, it is extremely complex. Most of us do not even know how the voice cords work.

We just desire to speak and the speech happens. So, every day when we eat food, how is that food digested and converted into energy? Researchers try to make some digestive machine, because many people have digestive problems. And just like somebody's heart is not working, we may have pacemaker, somebody's kidney does not work, we may have a dialysis unit.

They thought if people's digestion does not work, can we make a digestive unit? So, you can just digest food for them. They tried it and they found that they would not need a machine, they need a factory. And not just a factory, but a chain of factories.

The sheer complexity of the chemical reactions that are required for converting food into usable energy, it is so huge. In physics, if we consider work is forced into displacement, then the sheer amount of work that is done in digesting one morsel of food is actually more than the amount of work that the average person does throughout the day. So, who is doing that? We just eat the food and we forget it.

The only time we think of our digestion is when it does not work. We just take it for granted. But we are not taking care of it.

We are not making it happen. There is a Supreme Consciousness of which we are parts. The Bhagavad Gita says that there is an eternal Supreme Consciousness and we are all amshya, we are parts of that.

So, we just have to play the part of the part. So, we have certain arena of control right now. What about the past? What about the future? That is not in our control.

And there is a higher consciousness that is taking care of that. We just focus on what is in our control. The whole will take care of the whole.

So, even when I say, oh, do not lament about the past, do not worry about the future, it is not so easy to do that. Because we start thinking, what if things go wrong in the future? What will happen to me? What will I do? So, usually in material consciousness, when we are not aware of life's spiritual side, then we have only two options. We think that either things are in my control or things are out of my control.

If things are in control, I feel confident. If things are out of my control, I feel panicky. But when we have spiritual consciousness, we understand that there is another possibility.

Things may not be in my control, but they are not out of control. Because there is a higher consciousness which is planning everything. This consciousness is known by different names and different traditions.

The Bhagavad Gita refers to the infinite by the name Krishna. Now, the future is something which we are all concerned about. And we all want a bright future.

The future is brightest for those who brighten the present. That means that whatever we want to do to get a brighter future, the only way we can do it is in the present. So, if I want to have a good career, I study right now.

If I want to have a good relationship with someone, I have to invest in the relationship right now. So, the present is the way to the future. So, we focus on the present, but we don't diverge it from the future.

We see that the present is the womb of the future. So, we don't live in the future, we live in the present. But we see the present is what is going to go to the future.

So, I am worried about the future, what will happen? Okay. About the future, there may be hundred things which are not in my control. But there is one thing which is in my control.

That is that I can mold the present, I can use the present in a way that it can help me in the future. So, we need to see this connectedness of the present and the future. Once a person went to a hotel and he ordered some idlis.

He ate the first idli, second idli, third idli, fourth idli. He said, what a waste. He said, the fourth idli has filled me, I wasted my time eating the first three idlis.

If I had just eaten the fourth idli, I would have saved my time, I would have saved my money, I would have been full. This is absurd. It doesn't work like that.

The filling of the stomach didn't happen because of the fourth idli alone. All the four idlis together filled the stomach. It's common sense.

But sometimes in our life, when we look at things, we don't see them as cumulative. We think, I did this one thing and everything came out. I didn't do this one thing, everything went wrong.

So, we often tend to see life in discrete units. But life is not discrete, it is continuous. So, right now I may be working and I think, I have worked so hard, I have not achieved anything in my life.

I have not been successful, I am not happy, I have not got anything that I wanted in my life. And we may think, I just want one lucky break. If I get the lucky break, then everything will work out.

But yes, even if I get the lucky break in future sometime, I have to be prepared to use that break. So, no movement in life is inconsequential. It's like every morsel of food that the person is eating, each piece of idli that the person is eating, that is contributing to the nourishment.

At one particular point, the person says, yes, I am full now. So, like that, at one particular point in our life, success will manifest. But that doesn't mean all that we did before that was worthless.

And if somebody just is in front of the idli plate, sometimes some children, they have some food in front of them, but instead of eating the food, the food goes everywhere except inside their mouth. It goes around them, it spills over. Now, if like that, the child takes four idlis off the plate, but nothing goes inside the mouth, the child is not going to be satisfied.

The child is not going to be nourished. So, similarly, if we just go through life thinking, oh, in future, I'll get a good break and then things will be wonderful, but I don't use the present, then it's like not eating the idlis that I have right now. So, it's not that some future idli will make me nourished, what I'm eating is going to contribute to the nourishment.

So, here there is, the Bhagavad Gita explains that we are finite consciousness and there is infinite consciousness. And the relationship is in a mood of loving service and contribution. So, if we think, I want to achieve this, I want to be this, I want to be the number one, I want to be champion.

Now, if that is the only desire that is driving us, then if I don't become the number one, if I don't become the champion, if I don't become the achiever, I feel my life is wasted. What did I do with my life? But if we see that our life is meant for contribution, our life is meant for service, our life is meant for a spiritual connection, that we are parts of the whole and the connection with the whole itself provides us spiritual satisfaction. So, when we work in a mood of devotion, we work in a mood of contribution, everything that we do, it contributes towards the satisfaction.

Krishna says, sva-karmanatam abhyarcha siddhim vindati manava. By your work, worship him. So, when we do whatever we are doing in a mood of worship, in a mood of service, if I have been given certain talents, let me use them in a mood of service, then that enables us to stay focused in the present while also preparing for the future.

That enables us to do our best with the opportunities we have right now, but not become overly dependent on when will my efforts be realized, when will I be successful. Yes, every morsel that I am eating, it will contribute to my nourishment, even if that nourishment doesn't seem to be manifesting right now. So, we focus on doing that which is in our control, knowing that there is a higher plan working in life and with that higher plan, how it will evolve, that we may not know right now.

So, we look at the present and plan the future, but God looks at the future and plans the present and that's a fundamental difference in vision. So, that means we think, I am here right now, I will take these steps and go there. Yes, we have to use our intelligence that way, but sometimes in life, certain things happen which are just not in our control.

So, if we are living only in the present, then if in the present things start going wrong, then what is the point of living? If I want to get a particular job and suddenly I find that I don't clear the interview, if I am only living in the present, I will just get depressed, you know, this didn't work out, that didn't work out, that didn't work out. So, we have to know that actually there is a higher plan in operation in our life and we may be thinking this step will lead to this step, this step will lead to this step, this step will lead to this step and we make our plans, that's our use of intelligence, but one of the fundamental teachings of the Bhagavad Gita is don't be attached. So, don't be attached doesn't mean be apathetic or irresponsible, it just means that we don't let our conceptions imprison us.

What attachment does is it limits our conceptions. When I am attached to something, I want things to work out this particular way only and if they don't work out that way, I feel everything is messed up. But things can work out in a way different from what we plan, it can be better than what we plan, but we have to be open to it.

To conclude with one example and when we say God looks at the future and plans the present means that there may be something which may appear not so good for us right now, but they may be for good. See, everything that happens is not necessarily good. Sometimes some people publish a Gita Saar and that they say, jo hua wo achha hua, jo ho raha hai wo achha ho raha hai, jo hone wala hai wo bhi achha hi hoga, whatever happened is good, whatever is happening is good, whatever will happen will be good.

Now, I have read the Bhagavad Gita several hundred times. I never found any words anywhere close to this. The Bhagavad Gita doesn't say much about what is happening and the focus in the Bhagavad Gita is on what we are doing, how are we responding, how are we choosing.

So, it's not that everything that happens is good. Sometimes bad things happen in life, but everything that happens can be for good. Not that it is good, but it can be for good.

That means the bad thing is bad right now, but something good can emerge out of it. How when a child is having some stomach and the mother takes the child to a doctor and the child thinks, oh, the doctor will give me something by which my pain won't go away. And to the child's dismay, the doctor takes out an injection.

What is this? I came here to be relieved from pain and you are causing me more pain. But the doctor is seeing the future. The stomach infection is going to worsen and therefore, I need to inject this over here.

Inject this over here. And in one sense, sometimes it may appear that by going to the doctor the child's pain has increased, but eventually that pain will decrease. That pain will decrease because the doctor has a plan over there.

So, we see the present and plan the future. God sees the future and plans the present. And thus, if we have this vision that let me do my part and the future will be taken care of by God.

So, attachment blocks our vision, makes us think if things are not this way, they are all wrong, they are out of control. But when we are, instead of being attached, we are devoted. Then we do our best, but at the same time we are open.

Whatever is, whatever happens, we will try to find an opportunity to do that. So, we live in the present, but not for the present. When difficulties come in the present, then if I am forced to live in the present, if I am having terrible pain in the body, I live in the present, just feel the pain, a little misery.

We live for something beyond the present. We live for the future, and not just for the future, some abstract thing in the future. Actually, the Bhagavad Gita tells us that in the future the thing that will give us the greatest satisfaction is not a particular event that happens in our life, a particular achievement that we make.

Yes, those things can give us some satisfaction, but the greatest satisfaction will come when we connect ourselves with Krishna, when we, through our devotion, establish a spiritual connection with Him. In that connection is the highest satisfaction, and through that connection we get the stability and the strength by which we can go through life's ups and downs, and we can make the best contribution. Internally, if we are agitated, even if the opportunity comes, we will not be able to take it.

We will be agitated and miss out on the opportunity. Internally, if I come, then we will think what a fortunate life presents, and we will be able to contribute constructively. So, in this way, the Bhagavad Gita concludes by Arjuna telling Krishna, 18.73, he said, I will do your will.

I will do your will. So, whatever situation comes in our life, we do our best and we leave the rest to Krishna. We will find that if we live thus, so we live in the present, but we live for Krishna.

We live in a mood of service to Him, and we will find that by this, the future will be better than what we have planned, better than what we could have anticipated, because there is a higher intelligence operation in our life, and that higher intelligence has a better plan than what we have for our life. So, if we just do our part in that plan without being attached to everything else, but being attached to the mood of service, of contribution, then we will find that higher, we will let that higher plan unfold in our life. And thus, we will be able to make contribution externally and find satisfaction internally.

So, I will summarize what I spoke. I spoke on the topic of live in the present, but not for the present. I gave the example of how our mind has these two viruses, if we compare the mind to a software, two viruses which sabotage the mind's function.

What are the two viruses? Past and future, but specific emotions. Shoka and moha. Shoka, lamentation about the past, not moha.

Bhaya, fear about the future, anxiety, worry. So, if I am driving, if I keep looking back, I will have an accident. If I keep looking far ahead, I will also have an accident.

I have to look. When I am driving, I have to be aware of the destination, but I have to also be aware of my present location. So, life is like a journey and when we move along this journey, our body is like a vehicle for us.

So, the body is like, I gave a computer analogy, what are the three parts? Body, mind and soul. They are like the hardware, software. So, the software of the mind can malfunction at times and then we need to correct that malfunction.

So, the past is going to influence us and whatever choices we have made in the past, they become our default options in the present. A person is drunk, alcohol repeatedly, whenever they want some relief, alcohol pops up as a default option. Just like a site we have visited repeatedly, that pops up as a default autocomplete on our browser.

So, the past influences us, but it does not force us. We can choose to not accept the default option that is coming and this capacity to choose comes because we are different from matter. I talked about Dr. Penfield's experiments on probing the brain that the source of consciousness is extracellular.

So, matter itself does not have free will, but consciousness has. So, we are not programmed machines, our body and mind are programmed machines, they are programmable machines and we are distinct. We can use it or abuse it.

So, we go past our past by not accepting the default impulses that come from the past, but choosing with intelligence. And what about the future? We are worried that will my future be bright, but whatever we get in the future, that is a cumulation of what we have done in the present. Just like a person who is eating idlis, it is not that the fourth idli is nourished, all the four idlis are nourished.

So, like that the present is what contributes to the future. So, those who brighten their present will have a bright future. And if you feel in future so many things may go wrong, then we understand that we don't have to control everything.

We are parts of a whole. When we are flying in a plane, we just play our part, taking our ticket and ID, other things in the plane are taken care of. Similarly, our body when we eat food, when we speak, so many things are happening in the body that we are not aware of.

There is a higher intelligence taking care of these things. And that higher intelligence has a plan. When we have the spiritual understanding, then we don't just see things in that terms of the dialectic, things are in my control or things are out of my control.

We see the third possibility, things may be out of my control, but they are not out of control. There is a higher control. And we talked about how the infinite consciousness God, who is known in the Bhagavad Gita as Krishna, we see the present and plan the future, but he sees the future and plans the present.

So, like a child who says, I want to get rid of my stomach pain, but the doctor says, I want to remove the infection, so I need a fuel injection. So, if we just live in the present, sometimes the problems may seem to be increasing in the present and life may become unbearable. But if we live for developing a connection with Krishna, therein that connection will give us internal stability.

And through that internal stability, we will be able to make optimum contribution externally and we will be able to find enduring satisfaction internally. So, the way to live in the present is by rejecting the impulses of the past and by entrusting the future to Krishna and focusing on making the best choice possible in a mood of devotional contribution. Thank you very much.

Do we have control over destiny? Yes, definitely. The word destiny is used in different senses. So, let us clarify the terms before we move forward to what we mean.

In whatever we do, there are certain things which are in our control and certain things which are not in our control. So, for example, if a farmer farming in a traditional setting wants a harvest, so now there are three factors involved. The farmer has to sow the seeds, plough the land.

That is from the Gita's terminology, that is the karma of the farmer, that is the duty or the action of the farmer. Then there is a second factor, that is the rains coming in time, adequate quantity. Now, that is not in the farmer's control and that is the ego, that is destiny.

The third is kala. Even if the rains come on time, it is not that today the rains came, tomorrow the crops are going to come. The harvesting season has to come, say three months have to pass, whatever it is, for the particular rains.

When the kala passes, then there is phala. So, karma plus daiva plus kala leads to phala. Now, there are two extremes of worldviews.

One is the worldview which is there in today's world, which can be called from the Vedic perspective as karmavad. Karmavad is everything is in our hands. If I want to succeed, I will succeed and nobody can stop me from it.

Well, life doesn't work out like that. Sometimes we may try our best, I may study very well for an exam, but if on the day of exam I fall sick, what do I do? So, there are factors beyond our control and one of the major reasons why there is so much depression, there is so much inferiority complex, there is so much negativity in today's world is because people are made to believe that they alone determine their success. And what is the result of this? The result is that when failures come, that means they alone are responsible.

We don't want to shirk responsibility, we want to correct ourselves, but sometimes there are just factors beyond our control. So, if we think that, if I think that I alone am responsible for my success, then I alone become responsible for my failure. And then if I get failures once, twice, thrice, then failure does not remain an event, we start thinking failure is a person.

I am a failure. We are never failures. We may get failures as events in our life because sometimes we may do our karma, but the daiva may not come out.

So, karmavada actually subjects us to unnecessary negativity by burning us with excessive expectations. The other extreme is to think that everything is determined by destiny. That is called as daivavada or in English it is called as fatalism.

So, daivavada is the idea that nothing is in our control, everything is just time. Now, this is not at all either the reality that we experience. We do make decisions and our decisions do have consequences.

And even in the Bhagavad Gita, if we see, Krishna tells Arjuna everything is controlled. Krishna tells Arjuna, now you decide what you want to do. Vimrishshaita dasheshena yathechi siddha kuru.

Deliberate and decide what you want to do. So, the balance understanding is that karma plays a role, our actions play a role, daiva also plays a role. So, here when I said I started by talking about, we clarify the meaning of the word destiny.

So, sometimes we use the word destiny, we equate it with phala, the result that I am going to get. Say for example, I want to get a job in a particular company. So, am I destined to get that job or not? So, here when we are using the word destiny, we are using it to refer to phala, the fruit.

But that is a different usage. When in the Bhagavad Gita context we use the word destiny, we use it to refer to those things which are not in our control. So, there are certain things which are in our control, certain things not in our control and both combined together, they determine the result.

So, almost all of us acknowledge that there are some things which are beyond my control. Cricket is a very popular game in India, you know, in several countries. So, the Australian cricket team which is currently touring India now, it is known to be a very aggressive team, at least in the past it was.

And yet, Australian cricketers are among the most superstitious in the world. There is a prominent Australian batsman, Mark Taylor, whenever he would go out to bat, he would always first go to the pavilion restrooms and shut the lids of all the commodes. And if after that, if he would get out early, instead of going to the pavilion, first he would go to the commode.

And if any lid of the commode would be open, he would go and blast his teammates. Why did you keep the lid open? Because of that I got out. Now, the commode lid being open, what is there to be getting out? But in his own quirky way, he understands that there are some factors beyond my control which also determine my performance.

And he is trying to take care of that. So, some people wear some amulets, some people have their own, some people wear an earring and only one leg, ear, they do all different kinds of things. These are all ways in which they are trying to appease that which is beyond our control.

So, do we determine the fellow? Yes, we are determiners of the fellow, but we are not the sole determiners of the fellow. So, if we think I alone determine the results, then we are an illusion. But if we think I do not determine the results at all, that is also illusion.

We play a role. We play an important role, but we are one factor in determining the results. We are not the sole factor.

So, we can definitely shape the results, but we do not alone determine the results. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Yeah.

What exactly my prescribed duty is? Like for example, you initially started with some path of career and then switched on the spiritual path. So, in that context, like how does the person know what his prescribed duty is? Yeah. So, Krishna says we should do a prescribed duty, but how can we know what our prescribed duty is? There is, whenever we study scripture, there is an essential principle and there is a contextual application.

So, when the context changes, the specific way in which that principle is applied will change. So, we need to focus on the essential principle, not the contextual application. So, in the past, when Krishna spoke at that time, there were different social divisions, which were meant not for discrimination, but for cooperation, that the Varanasi system was there and people had their duties prescribed according to that.

Today, the social system is quite different. We do not have that kind of division in which we can position ourselves appropriately. So, then we go to the fundamental principle.

Krishna says, what is the purpose of social division? It was guna karma vibhagashah. Guna means all of us have certain comfort, certain things we are comfortable with. Some people may be intellectual, they like to study, they like to analyze, they like to study.

Some people are more extrovert, just like to be with people. They like to talk, they like to live, they like to interact. So, we all have our own dispositions, certain things which we feel comfortable doing.

So, guna refers to that which we are comfortable doing. Karma refers to that which we are competent at doing, something which we feel good doing and something which we are good at doing. So, we look at our current situation and we try to observe, okay, how best can I function in my present situation? So, while going through our life, we encounter different situations, we do different kinds of activities.

So, we observe, what am I good at, what makes me, what I feel good doing, what I am good at doing and gradually try to gravitate towards that. So, we don't have to worry too much about finding some prescribed duty which is prescribed for us and doing that. The essential principle is that we live harmoniously with that which is our nature.

So, whatever I find comfortable doing, not comfortable in a narcissistic sense where I just am self-obsessed, but comfortable in a sense that I can contribute in an optimum way. So, we focus on doing that and that is how the whole principle of Bhagavad Gita is harmony. If I have, say, a car which is meant for racing and then I try to drive it through a crowded metropolis, it is not going to work so well.

If I have a car which is meant for driving a normal road, if I take it for racing, it is not going to work. So, the body and the mind, it is like a vehicle that we have, it is like a car. So, when we, it is said we do our prescribed duty, it simply means that we do the duty, we play the role that our vehicle is best suited for.

So, by observation, by introspection and by association, we observe ourselves, we introspect based on observation and then we have our friends, we have our guides, we ask them also, you observe me, what do you think that I am good at doing? Gradually by this, we learn about ourselves and then we can position ourselves in a vocation that is best suited for the body-mind vehicle that we have been gifted with. Okay, good question. So, how do we differentiate between the mind and the soul? Because you say the user and the software are two distinct things, but inside us, we do not know how do we differentiate between the two.

So, can we do a simple thought experiment? It will take a minute or so. So, just close your eyes, sit comfortably, close your eyes and just try to focus on whatever appears on your mental screen. So, you may be thinking what is there for food now or I have to do this work, whatever it is, do not just be attached to that, just try to observe whatever appears on your mental screen.

Now, as you are observing, try to step back and look at the observer. You are observing something on the mental screen and there is someone who is observing. Try to step back and look at the observer.

You will notice that if you try to step back and look at the observer, the observer steps back. Try once more. Try to look at the observer of the mental screen.

No matter how much we try, we cannot find the observer because what we are looking for is what we are looking with. What we are looking for is what we are looking with. Take a deep breath.

You can open your eyes now. So, here when we close our eyes, what we see going on? We see a lot of things going on. That is the mind.

So, mind is like our inner screen. We have say this outer screen on which you are seeing this power point projection. But whatever we are seeing, it comes on an inner screen.

So, for example, right now you are hearing me speak. You are hearing her speak. Maybe you are smelling the fragrance of the food coming from there.

You are feeling the cold of the AC over here. So, all these sensations from the various senses are coming in and they are integrated and presented on a screen. The screen on which they are integrated, that is the mind.

Shrotram chakshu sparshanam cha rasanam ghranam eva cha adishtaya manaschayam vishayan upasevate. So, adishtaya manaschayam. This is like the Krishna, there is five fingers of a palm, five fingers of the hand are integrated around the palm.

Like that, the five senses are integrated around the mind. But the mind is the integrator. And based on what gets integrated, say for example, if the food is smelling very delicious, then that perception may become very prominent.

And we may think, I want to eat the food. And we may start, the desire may become prominent, we may start salivating. So, now what is happening over here? On the inner screen, something may come and it may come so fast that it may stimulate a reaction within us.

And because all this is happening inside us, we may not realize it. Something flashed on the inner screen, I saw it, I sensed it, I desired it and now I am looking for it. But what appears on the inner screen is different from the observer of the inner screen.

So, the mind is the inner screen and the soul is the observer of the inner screen. And to the extent we are attached to something, to that extent, the inner screen and the observer of the inner screen, they seem like one. For example, if there is some food which I love, then as soon as the food comes in front of me, even if I don't think about it, I will go and eat it.

But if there is some food which I don't like, then I see that food, then I start thinking, should I take it? If I say no, will this person who is having the food, will they feel bad? Can I just get away by not saying no? So, what happens? When something is desirable, it comes on the inner screen and something is undesirable, so it comes on the inner screen. But when it is desirable, because we are attached to it, the action happens instinctively. And in that sense, we cannot separate between the screen and the observer of the screen.

But when something is unpalatable, or something is not so unpalatable also, we just turn away and we do not realize also we are turned away from it. Sometimes when we just go through a menu, we just not take a particular food. We do not even think much about it.

No, I do not want this. Then somebody asks, why did you take this? Then you start thinking, no, why did I take this? Maybe I had to think of a reason why I did not take it. So, when there is extreme attachment or there is extreme aversion, at that time the mind and soul in a functional sense become almost like one.

But when there is deliberation, should I do this, should I not do this? Then we can see that there is a perception coming in, and there is an observer who is perceiving. And then by separating the two, we can understand that the two are separate. So, the mind is the screen on which the stimuli come in, either from external perception or even from internal recollection.

But the soul is the observer and the soul is the decider. Should I do this or should I not do this? Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.