To rise from karma to bhakti, change your benchmark of reality from the world to Krishna

[Srimad-Bhagavatam class on 1.5.34 at ISKCON, Brisbane, Australia]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So the Karma Marga holds that by doing good work we will get good results. And that is the basis of most religion in the world. Most of the western world especially say America which has influenced most of the western world now and the whole world at large.
America was founded on the Protestant work ethos. Protestant was a group within Christianity which broke off from the main Catholic Church and then it has become quite widespread now. And their idea was that worldly prosperity is the proof that God is pleased with us.
So they had the idea that what they called as prosperity theology. Their theology taught that when we get prosperity in the world that indicate that God is pleased with us. And they saw that if a country or if a people are not prosperous that indicate that God is displeased with them.
So broadly we could say this is the Karmakanda way of understanding Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha. So Karmakanda is not just something within this world where we say within Vedic path. Path of Karma, it’s a broad human mentality.
Now in Karma also one may do Bhakti in the sense that one may worship the deities, one may chant the holy names, one may worship the Lord in different ways. So externally speaking Karma also contains Upasana, the path of Karma. Now the word Karma can have many different meanings.
Karma Yoga is different from Karmakanda. But when we talk about Karma as a mentality we are talking more about Karmakanda, not Karma Yoga. Karma Yoga is detachment to pursue something higher.
So Karma is one mentality, Jnana is another mentality. Karma hopes that by doing things in this world in a religious way we can enjoy life. Jnana says that this world is not enjoyable at all.
It’s a place of misery. So we just have to get out of this world. And so Karma focusses on gratification whereas Jnana focusses on rejection.
I use the world for my gratification and Jnana says this world has no happiness. Just get out of it. It’s a rejection.
Now Bhakti is also involving engagement. It involves the best of both of these. That we take the world but we don’t seek the world for our gratification.
We focus on the world for its utilisation. We see the world as an arena where we make contribution for the service of the Lord. So another way we could say that Karmis romanticise the world.
Jnanis demonise the world. Devotees utilise the world. So when we talk about the path of Karma, the idea is, so the defining difference between Karma and Bhakti is in what is considered the benchmark of reality.
All of us, we have certain thing which we consider as the most important in our life. Everything else may go wrong, that’s okay. As long as this one thing is right, everything is fine.
So for some people it may be their office, their job may fall apart, they may lose their money. But as long as their family is fine, then things are okay. So we have somewhere where we all get shelter.
So in today’s world some people become workaholics. Even if their family is falling apart, as long as I am doing well in my office, that’s fine. So that may have become reversed.
But we all have an internal home. Somewhere where we take shelter. That we consider as our reality.
And when that is disturbed, everything gets disturbed. So for some people their reality may be their favourite sports. For some people their reality may be cricket.
And if their team wins, then they are in the 7th heaven. And if their team loses, their world has come crashing down. When I used to follow cricket 20-25 years ago, it was common that people would watch TV and see cricket at that time.
And some people if their favourite team would lose, they would just break the TV. Break the TV glass in frustration. But I spoke this in a class and I came to know that that’s very old fashioned.
Now people don’t watch TV so much. They have their internet and everything. So it seems that when people, it happened in Sri Lanka a few years ago, when Sri Lanka lost in the World Cup.
There are dozens of young people who committed suicide. Just because their favourite team lost the cricket match. So what has happened here, their defining reality was, Oh, I am a Sri Lankan cricket fan and Sri Lanka’s cricket destiny is my defining reality.
So all of us have certain defining reality in our life. And when that is shaken, everything else becomes shaken. When I was in America, I was in New York a few months ago and we passed by the area where the Twin Towers existed.
And the Twin Towers fell, it was not just a building which fell. A tall imposing building. But what fell along with it was the conception.
What the Twin Towers represented. For most people it represented success of the American dream of prosperity and power through material advancement, through technology. And it just came crumbling down in a few hours.
And it left a permanent scar on the American psyche. Not just on the American psyche, the psyche of the whole Western world. And in the Western world now, there is a lot of aggressive atheism.
Not just atheism, but aggressive atheism. And that aggressive atheism is a reaction to fanatical religion. So here what has happened is, in all these situations, for people, the point I am making is, we all have certain conceptions of what is the grounding reality.
And as long as that grounding reality is okay, everything else is okay. But when that grounding reality itself shakes, then we don’t know what to do, where to stand. So in karma, people may have different particular attachments.
But their grounding reality, the benchmark for all reality is the world. And God’s existence, yes God may be greater than the world, but God’s existence is defined in terms of the world. And God’s existence is of relevance till he arranges for our protection in this world.
He provides for us in this world. But bhakti can be done with great devotion. We can do the activities of worshipping the Lord, singing his names with great devotion.
But as long as our reference point is this world, that devotion cannot be very stable. So there are people who have this karma kandi version of bhakti. Bhakti means, bhakti can be an emotion, it can be an action, but it can also be a conception.
So when we are talking here about, there can be bhakti which can be performed at a cultural level, where it is, okay, it’s a part of my culture. Why do I go to a temple? Because people have told me, let’s go to a temple. My ancestors told me, my parents told me, my society tells me.
So I’ll go to a temple. This is cultural bhakti. From cultural bhakti, we need philosophical bhakti, which will take us to spiritual bhakti.
So spiritual bhakti means we understand that Krishna is the supreme spiritual reality and that is the benchmark of reality. Otherwise we think this world is reality and based on that if we try to perceive, we evaluate God. What is he doing for me here? Then God will always fall short of our expectations.
It is not God who falls short of our expectations. It is our expectations which fall short of reality. If we start with a foundational expectation that God should take care of me in this world.
Yes, he will. But he will take care in his terms. So the basic foundation of reality, if we see the Bhagavatam, it is so remarkable a book that the Bhagavatam’s vision is fixed on Krishna.
And that’s why Parikshit Maharaj, even when death comes upon him, he is not so concerned about it. He is concerned primarily, am I remembering Krishna? The mood of the Bhagavatam is seen time and time again where say this Bhutarasura and Indra, they are fighting. And when they are fighting, the Bhagavatam completely inwards the normal hierarchy.
The normal hierarchy is that demons are bad people, Gods are good people. And if you live a good life, you will rise to the heavens and become like a God. That’s the idea.
But here Indra and Bhutarasura are fighting and the whole storyline seems to be going normally as Indra goes to, the Devatas go, and they get some, they do some tapasya, they get some weapon, Vishnu comes on their side and they are routing the demons. Vishnu is thought to be on their side. Vishnu doesn’t come specifically in that battle.
But then suddenly, as these demons are getting defeated, suddenly he starts praying. And he starts praying devotional prayers and he tells Indra, don’t you have faith in Vishnu? Now it is the demons who are cursed, they don’t have faith in Vishnu. But what happens over here? This Bhutarasura, he says, ajata paksha ma taram kha gaha He says, just as a small bird is longing for its mother to come, I am longing, when can I serve my Lord? When can I be united with my Lord? Oh Indra, kill me.
I will give him this body and I will attain my Lord. So for Indra, the heavens and the heavenly prosperity is the reality. And he is fighting for that.
But for Bhutarasura, for him, Krishna and Krishna’s abode, that is the reality. He says, this, I give it up, you take it. And thus, the normal hierarchy that the demons are lower, the devatas are higher, that gets inverted.
Here the devata is considered lower and the demon is considered higher. Why? Because the devata is considering, the king of the devatas, Indra is considering, his heavenly prosperity to be the reality that he wants to hold on to. And for him, praying to Vishnu, taking shelter of Vishnu, is so that this reality can be protected.
And for Bhutarasura, this reality doesn’t matter. He says, yes, I am going to give this up, I am going to attain the eternal abode. Prabhupada Naracharya described in the purport, that when Bhutarasura gets absorbed in meditation on the Lord, then Indra wants to kill Bhutarasura.
And Indra keeps cutting, cutting, cutting the body of Bhutarasura. And he keeps cutting, cutting for a long, long time, he has to cut through so that he can, he thinks he will win and kill Bhutarasura. But by that time, Bhutarasura has already gone to the spiritual world.
So the whole process of bhakti, we need philosophical understanding so that our reference point or benchmark for reality changes. If that change of the benchmark has not happened, we think this world is real, and God has to help me in this world, then we will never be able to be steady in our bhakti. Because in this world, ups and downs will keep coming.
And when ups and downs keep coming, then our devotion will also keep going up and down, with the ups and downs. So the Bhagavatam says at various levels that, actually, what is maya? I’ll conclude with two points and we can have question answers. The first point is that, what is maya? Normally we think of maya as something very attractive, something which may take us away, take us on the wrong path.
That’s one understanding. But Bhagavatam gives a much more foundational understanding. It says, Anything which appears attractive, anything which appears meaningful, but is disconnected from Krishna, that is maya.
So maya is not so much an object as a conception. As long as I’m conceiving of anything as separate from Krishna, that is maya. And this is demonstrated in the 10th canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Yajnik Brahmana’s bhakti pastimes, that the Yajnik Brahmanas are doing pujas, they’re doing elaborate yajna, and they’re doing it very carefully according to rules and regulations.
But when Krishna comes to them through his cowherd boys, they turn away from Krishna. So what has happened? They’re seeing the yajna as very important, but they’re seeing the yajna as not connected with the Yagyeshwara. And because of seeing the yajna and Yagyeshwara as two separate, what happens is, they are considered to be in maya.
So they may be saying, we are very dharmic, we are doing religious activities, but they are getting disconnected. And because they’re disconnected from the supreme reality, their religious activities are not considered laudable, they’re considered reproachable. And their wives who give up those religious activities to devote themselves to the Lord, they’re considered to be far more glorious.
So maya, again, this understanding that anything disconnected from Krishna is maya, anything which we see as attractive but it is disconnected from Krishna is maya. This means that the reference point for deciding what is maya is Krishna. The benchmark for reality is Krishna.
And anything that is disconnected from Krishna is considered to be maya. From this perspective, that which is normally considered maya can also be used in the service of Krishna and then it is no longer maya. When Prabhupada came to America, initially he said, rajas tamo gunera sabaiyachan.
All these people are covered by the modes of passion and ignorance. How can they get illumined? That was his concern. He was not concerned, oh, my accent is Bengali.
How will they understand it? He is not concerned that, oh, I’m an old man. There’s a generation gap. How will they understand it? He’s not seeing that.
He’s seeing that it is the modes which are obstructing people from understanding Krishna. And he prayed to Krishna. So Prabhupada’s vision, he even saw America as connected with Krishna.
And he saw the problem was not these people are materialistic, but that they have turned away from Krishna. And eventually in Prabhupada’s experience, he actually said that for his preaching, America helped him much more than India. Of course, Indians also helped, but Indians didn’t become committed devotees.
Prabhupada would say that Indians, they offer one thing very well. They offer suggestions. But they don’t commit to do things.
Why don’t you do like this? Swami, why doesn’t your temple have the deities facing this way? Why doesn’t it have this? Why doesn’t it have that? So now, of course, Prabhupada appreciated and Prabhupada would appreciate now that so many Indians are taking up bhakti. But the point is, making that, Prabhupada saw that among Americans there was a spark for bhakti. And he found that.
And he used the passion which was there among Americans, young Americans at that time. He used that for the service of Krishna. So there were, when Prabhupada, when he came to India, to Vrindavan, at that time, another Vaishnava, he couldn’t digest the idea that this person has preached all over the world and made people into devotees.
And he tried to disparage Prabhupada a little bit. He said that actually, we all were pure brahmanas. We don’t associate with low class people.
But Bhaktivinand Swami, he was a businessman. He knew how to organise a business. He associated with all kinds of people.
So he used his business expertise to preach to these western people. And then he made them into devotees. He was appreciating, but it’s like, in English there is a saying that you can, some people are damned by faint praise.
If you say, okay, if somebody cooks food, how is the food? It’s not bad. Now when you say it’s not bad, you are not criticising it, but it’s criticism. So, basically what he was doing was, he was criticising Prabhupada by saying that, by minimising Prabhupada’s accomplishments.
But, in the Bhagavatam it is said that, what is the greatness of a uttama adhikari? It is that the uttama adhikari can see the potential for connecting with Krishna in everything. And Prabhupada had that. So for Prabhupada, India and America were realities.
India is dharma bhoomi, America is, relatively speaking, the western world is relatively materialistic. But for Prabhupada, these are the Indians, yes they were pious, but they were turned away from Krishna. Whereas Americans, they were turned towards Krishna.
That means they were interested in Krishna, not they were turned towards Krishna. Prabhupada turned them towards Krishna. So the point here is not to again, it’s not to minimise Indians and glorify Americans, nor is it to minimise Americans and glorify Indians.
The point is that a devotee’s basis for seeing everything is the connection with Krishna. And here in bhakti, as contrasted with karma, it is Krishna who is the foundation of reality and we try to connect everything with Krishna. So for devotees, sometimes prosperity can be something which helps them to come closer to Krishna.
Because if the devotee does well materially, then there is not much material anxiety of how do I earn a living. And they would again peacefully focus on Krishna. But the prosperity can also take a person away from Krishna.
Because a person may feel that okay, now I have money, why do I need God? I can take care of things myself. Adversity can sometimes take a person away from Krishna. A devotee may feel, I am doing so much, why didn’t God protect me? What is the use of worshipping God? Or adversity can take us towards Krishna.
That okay, this world is a place which is always unstable. I need Krishna as my supreme shelter. So the ups and downs in life, they are unpredictable.
But whether we take shelter of Krishna or not, that depends on our disposition. So devotee is, the Bhagavatam’s expertise is that we always translate reality in a way that is favourable for our bhakti. That whatever happens, how can this help me come closer to Krishna? That is the devotee’s devotional expertise.
And that’s what is the expertise. Parikshit Maharaj is cursed to die. His expertise is, okay, this is an opportunity for me to become devoted to Krishna more and more.
Vritrasura is being defeated. He says, oh, this is an opportunity for me to remember Krishna. So this is a devotee’s devotional expertise.
But whatever happens, how is it favourable for my serving of Krishna? Prabhupada tried for 30-40 years to preach in India. It didn’t work. Okay, this is an opportunity that I should go to the West.
He preached in the West. His health got spoiled. And he had to come to India for recovery.
He saw that as an opportunity to preach in India. Then, whatever happened, sometimes unfavourable things happened. Even Prabhupada is preaching Vishnu.
But what he did was, he saw that as an opportunity to preach more. Opportunity to move closer to Krishna. That is what our, the dhami-buddhi-yogam, Krishna says, I give you the intelligence by which you can come to me.
That means what? Whatever happens, how can I see that as an opportunity to intensify my devotion? If by Krishna’s mercy, by Vaishnava’s mercy, by Guru’s mercy, we can get this intelligence, that no matter what happens, Krishna, this is an opportunity for me to come closer to you. Please guide me how I can come closer to you. Then, everything will be auspicious in our life.
maha-vipatthau samsare yaha smare tamada soodana vipatthau tasya sampatti iti aha shankara Lord Shiva, while talking about Uttarasura, he says, Avacitra Gita, Uttarasura, he says that maha-vipatthau samsare, in this world there can be a great disaster. yaha smare tamada soodana If amidst that adversity one remembers Lord Vishnu, Lord Madhusudana, then vipatthau tasya sampatti that adversity will become the source of prosperity for the devotee. So I’ll summarise.
I spoke today about how the difference between karma and bhakti is not in the external forms of actions that we do, but it is in the benchmark of what is the reality. So in karma, there is the using of the world for gratification. In karma, there is the rejection of the world because it will cause misery.
In bhakti, there is the connection of the world with Krishna. And there is contribution from ourselves to Krishna in this world. And most of the religion in the world today, whether it is in India, Hinduism, or whether in the Western world, Christianity, it is Protestant, it is the prosperity theology is the idea that this world is real and God will be the provider and protector in this world.
And with this expectation, actually we end up frustrated because it is the world is never going to be a source of happiness in a steady way for us. So bhakti means that through the philosophical understanding, we rise from cultural bhakti through philosophical bhakti to spiritual bhakti. Then we see Krishna is the benchmark of reality.
Krishna is the ultimate reality. And our goal is to harmonise ourselves with Krishna. So maya is not just some object that takes us towards self, but any object that takes us away from Krishna, that is maya.
So maya is a conception within us of the disconnection of that object with Krishna. So even an activity like doing yajnas can be maya. If in the yajna one forgets Krishna, and even a demon in a ghastly looking body who is fighting against a devta like Uttarastra fighting against Indra can be in the consciousness of Krishna if for him Krishna is the greater reality.
And the devta who is fighting with the blessings of Vishnu apparently can be in maya because for him the heavenly world is the reality. So by practising bhakti, by associating with devotees, by associating with those who are grounded in Krishna is the supreme reality. And we make Krishna as the defining reality of our life.
And then whatever happens for us in life, we learn to translate it in a way that it is favourable for our bhakti. That’s what Srila Prabhupada did. He saw America as favourable for his sharing of Krishna bhakti when India did not respond.
When his health did not work, he came to India but saw India as an opportunity for sharing Krishna bhakti. And this way, good or bad happens in our life. If by Krishna’s mercy we get the intelligence to translate it as an opportunity for moving closer to Krishna, then our life is always auspicious.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Any comments or questions? Thank you very much.
The issue is that she put down many Krishna to look at the milk. So she did milk in order to safeguard another milk. I don’t remember during the course of your class in one context you mentioned that everything has to be connected with Krishna.
In this case, both are connected to Krishna. So sometimes we have that situation, both are connected to Krishna. So how do we decide which one is better? So Mother Yashoda, she gave up Krishna so that she could, she put Krishna aside so that she could take care of the milk which she was using for serving Krishna.
So when we have two things which are connected with Krishna, how do we decide which to give up or which to choose? Yeah. That’s what makes us. If life had come with black and white choices, it would not have been so difficult to choose.
Life often comes with choices and shades of grey. But broadly speaking, our operational principle is So whatever is favourable for my service to Krishna, I accept that. And that means that we have to take individual responsibility.
So if there are two courses of action, I can do this service, I can do this service, I can do this programme, I can do this programme, I can go to this yatra or I can go for yatra, whatever. Then we have to use our intelligence. What is the best way I can serve Krishna? Now for us, every one of us has an individual relationship with Krishna.
And we all want to make our individual offering to Krishna. Not in an egoistic sense that I am special and I am doing something special. But I have a personal relationship with Krishna.
And my personal relationship, of course, the personal relationship is through the spiritual master. But still it’s a personal relationship. So we want to make an offering to Krishna.
So we have to see how best I can serve Krishna. Sometimes in certain situations, there may be emergency and something which may not be so inspiring for us or something which may not be so foundational for us. We may do that because that’s what the circumstances require.
At the same time, we need to have actually our personal relationship with Krishna. Prabhupada, he gives various definitions of what is Krishna consciousness. In one particular lecture, he says that if you come in front of the deities and you feel Krishna is asking you, what are you doing for me? Then you are Krishna conscious.
Normally most people come to the temple and ask God, what are you doing for me? But if we come to Krishna and ask and we feel that Krishna, what are you doing for me? So we need to feel that I am doing something for Krishna. And now we have a primary service which will evolve over a period of time. And of course, it will not be one service.
It can be various things which we do together as a part of our offering to Krishna. So generally, if we have a broader purpose for our life, not just, see most of us, we understand going to Krishna is our ultimate purpose. But how does that translate into practical service in this world? We say that there are so many lost souls in the material world.
Yes, that’s true. But there can be many lost souls in ISKCON also. Because we have understood that Krishna is my ultimate goal.
But what do I do right now? We need to have, a follower of Shri Prabhupada has to be defined by a sense of purpose and a sense of urgency. That was what distinguished Prabhupada from his many other God brothers, who were also great devotees in their own ways. Prabhupada had a sense of purpose and not just this is what I want to do and this is what I want to do fast.
A sense of purpose and a sense of urgency. Krishna Consciousness cannot wait. That was what Bhakti Sahaj Chakra told Shri Prabhupada.
So we need to have a sense of purpose and sense of urgency. And with that, we can make choices. It’s like say, if I’m going, I’m driving along somewhere.
And then somebody else, can you just pick this up? Okay, then I’ll think, okay, I had to get there by this time. I can make this detour. But if I don’t have anywhere to go, then anybody can suggest, you go this, you do this, you do that.
And we just keep going here and there. And we may get distracted by devotional, many devotional things that come up. And we may get distracted by non-devotional things also in that case.
So, now what our purpose may be, that will evolve over a period of time. It’s not that we learn it overnight. But during the course of our life, we have to, okay, going to Krishna is my ultimate goal.
But what am I going to, what am I going to practically do to go towards Krishna? So, you may decide, for the next six months, I want to study scripture. Next six months, I want to focus on preaching. Next six months, whatever it is.
We have some goal and we can always do course correction. You know, okay, this is becoming, it’s taking too much time. So, therefore, I’ll do this now.
I’ll do this. That’s fine. But there has to be some sense of purpose and urgency, which defines our bhakti.
And based on that, we can take all the decisions. Should I do this or should I do that? If you don’t have that sense of purpose and urgency, then even in devotion itself, there are so many options. Now, we can hear so many devotional lectures.
We can hear so many kirtas. We can go for so many programmes. We can do so many things.
But it’s all, it can all be, in a sense, uplifting. See, when the bad is the enemy, when we have a choice between the good and the bad, then we require some moral strength to make the choice. Why do I say that often the good is the greatest enemy of the best.
The bad is not the greatest enemy because the bad will leave aside. But the good is often the greatest enemy of the best. This is also good.
That is also good. That is also good. But in the process of doing a hundred good things, that which would be the best thing gets left aside.
So, Prabhupada, he could have been in India. He wrote some books and he got the Prime Minister to endorse his book. He got the President of India to endorse the book.
If Prabhupada wanted, he could have just stayed in India and written many more books and he could have become an established author. And relatively speaking, for him to write books would have been far less challenging than come to America. Because old age, a distant land, didn’t know anyone.
So, for him, he could have actually written books and would have been glorious. But Prabhupada did not do that. For him, being an author was not just the main thing.
Yes, being an author was important. But for him, the books were the means by which he could share Krishna’s message with the world. So, he made that.
When he came to America in 63, 64, 65, Prabhupada published one volume of the Bhagavatam. From 65 to 68 almost, he couldn’t publish even one book after that. And he had no idea whether he would publish the books also.
Prabhupada took that risk. Because he had, his mission was to get people to practise Krishna Bhakti. Not just to give classes, not just to write books.
When Prabhupada was going to go to America, at that time, Sumati Morarji, she said, Swamiji, if you want to speak Bhagavatam, you come to my house, I will hear Bhagavatam from you everyday. Now, Prabhupada did not want that kind of hearing. She was also a Vaishnavi.
But for him, it was a part of her culture to hear Bhagavatam. She was not going to make her a dedicated follower, practitioner, something like that. So, Prabhupada could have made those choices, but he chose the best.
And that requires courage. So, sometimes we may have to say no to certain things. And saying no is always painful.
But it’s like somebody invites us for a programme. We don’t want to go for the programme. But then, how to say no for it? That’s the question.
But if there is some other programme we are already going for, then saying no is not that difficult. So like that, the easiest way or the least painful way to say no to something less important is to have a yes for something more important burning within us. So, that yes comes from our overall sense of urgency and purpose.
With that, we can say no to lower things. Not lower in the sense of bad, they are also good. But we can make choices within devotion by having that sense of purpose and urgency.