How small conflicts become big – Daksha Pastime analysis 2 – Ego causes desensitization

[Bhagavatam class on Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.4.29 at ISKCON, Melbourne, Australia]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
From the Srimad Bhagavatam about how the catastrophic event of Sati giving up her body happened. And here the great sages and the people who are witnessing their lamenting how one is maintaining the whole world, whose progenitor of all living beings allowed his own daughter to die, not only allowed, but actually caused her to die by his neglect of her.
So I talk about, as I said, I’m talking about how small conflicts become big and how we can avoid them. Yesterday I talked about how there are present negative feelings about things. If we keep them in our heart, they keep getting bigger and bigger and then they explode at a particular time.
So we need to let small things pass. Now, as we move forward in the past, I will talk about how on one side, here the focus is on Daksha. So I’ll talk today from the point of Daksha.
Tomorrow I’ll talk from the point of Sati. So here it’s Anadhyam. Anadhyam is the word used.
Atma is soul. So Anadhyam can at one level mean soulless or we can say heartless. So the neglect which Daksha did of his daughter was heartless.
Actually, we all have the capacity for feeling emotions. We are sentient beings and our sentience, our capacity to feel emotions is directed by our attachments. We feel emotions towards the thing that we are attached to and towards the thing that we are not attached to, we don’t feel that much emotions.
So, for example, somebody is sitting here in Australia and somebody is starving outside their room, outside their house, but they may not even notice that. But if they are cricket fans, if somewhere thousands of miles away, someone loses their favourite team cricket match, they’ll be devastated by that. So we have a capacity to feel emotions, but we feel emotions in relationship to the things that we are attached to.
Now, at one level, the selectivity of our capacity to feel emotions is not bad because we can’t. We are finite beings and we cannot feel emotions about infinite things. Sometimes some people who are too sentimental, they read some news about some atrocity somewhere or some accident that happened somewhere and they start crying.
Now, there are so many things happening in the world, at so many places, that if we start getting emotionally affected by it, we will not, we just become a bubble of emotions. So naturally, we limit the capacity, limit the things about which we feel emotions. That’s why I said that the death of one person is a tragedy.
But a death of a thousand people is a statistic. If one person dies and we see that person, oh it’s terrible, this person died. But somewhere a bomb explodes, somewhere a war takes place, somewhere a disease epidemic comes up and they die.
That’s a statistic. You just get desensitised to it. Now, this desensitisation at one level can be basic because of basic human limitation.
As I said, desensitisation means we don’t feel any emotions. Being desensitised is different from being insensitive. Insensitive means to not care.
Desensitised, desensitised means to not feel. So, for example, if somebody’s got paralysis, then you touch them in the hand. They don’t feel anything over there.
So they’re desensitised over there. So now our attachments make us super sensitised to some things and desensitised to other things. So the context with respect to this pastime is that Daksha, he was super sensitised to considerations of honour.
Oh, Shiva is not respecting. But he was desensitised to the pain of his own daughter. To the extent that her pain would become so unbearable that she’s going to die.
But he was completely tuned out. So with respect to the sensitisation and desensitisation, it’s like our consciousness operates according to the channels. That means if we are tuned into FM radio, we are tuned in a particular channel and whatever is being transmitted in that channel, we hear that and we may respond to that.
But what is happening on other channels, we may not perceive it at all. If we are to perceive what happens on certain channels. Then we need to have the understanding that actually there is a world out there which I may get desensitised.
For example, a person becomes alcoholic. Then they become super sensitised to the taste of alcohol. I just want to drink it and drink it at all costs.
But they may become desensitised to everything else. They may become desensitised to the cost that the money that they’re spending, to the inconvenience that they’re causing to others, to the family members. They may suffer because they’re spending so much money on alcohol, spending so much money on alcohol.
They become desensitised to that. In Russia, when vodka became a big addiction, there was a vodka awareness generation ad that was made once. So said that the price of vodka had gone up.
And so then a son, a child in the family, he asked his father, now that the vodka price has gone up, Papa, are you going to drink less? The father said, no, you are going to eat less. You are going to eat less. So food is a basic necessity.
It’s a natural parental emotion to provide for one’s children. But when one becomes desensitised, then one is so one’s emotions are so reverted to the alcohol that the starvation that one’s own child is facing, one doesn’t realise. Now, normally, if somebody is an alcoholic, then that is we consider that to be a degraded person.
How can you be so? What is this? But the alcoholism is something which you can see as directly bad. But there can be similar intoxication because of ego. And that intoxication because of ego was what happened to.
So his daughter was starving for a little affection. She’s not asking for much. All that happened was she came to she came to his house, which is her house.
That is where she had grown up. And there’s a big festivity there. And she came and all that she asked for was some attention.
But he completely neglected it. The human body can starve. It starves because of lack of food.
But the human heart starves because of lack of affection. The heart can starve and actually when the heart is starved of affection, that can cause unbearable distress. So the nature of the ego in this case, he was so ego conscious.
His consciousness was simply tuned to the ego. I don’t know that Shiva does not respect me. Shiva did not respect me.
And therefore, anybody connect with Shiva, I will not care. So this is how our attachments can make us super sensitive about small flights in certain situations and they can make us completely desensitised to other things. But when this this selectivity of our of our capacity to experience emotions, this can have terrible consequences.
Sometimes we feel that if we become detached, we’ll become uncaring, we’ll become hard hearted and we will not be responsible. Yes, it can happen if somebody doesn’t understand detachment properly. Detachment can make one hard hearted, but attachment can also make one hard hearted.
Attachment makes us super sensitive, super soft hearted about the object of attachment. But it makes us desensitised to everything else. And it doesn’t care for the emotions of those one is not attached or one who doesn’t matter to oneself.
That is illustrated right in the start of the Bhagavad Gita. The first was Dhritarashtra asked, Dhritarashtra Vacha Dharamakshetre Kurukshetre Samavetaya Utsavaha Mamakaha Pandavas Jaiva Himakurvata Sanjaya. He says, Mamakaha Pandavas Jaiva.
What did my son and the Pandavas do? Now, he was a father figure in the family. Sometimes there are always among equals. There are always some squabbles.
That is natural. Siblings may fight with each other. Friends may quarrel with each other.
Now, when there are squabbles among equals, those who are elders, they need to mediate and they need to resolve it. But if the squabbles that happen among younger people, if the elders take side and on the weak side, they completely neglect the other side, then that is a terrible dereliction of duty. So Dhritarashtra, yes, it could be said that he had natural affection towards his own children.
It’s fine. But the Pandavas were not some aliens. They were also related to him.
They were his nephews. And normally, if there is a joint family or there is a traditional family setting, then the extended family also brings with it an extended sense of connectivity and responsibility. If a greater family is there and something goes wrong with somebody, then other people come and support it.
So with respect to Pandavas, they did not have a father. So Dhritarashtra was meant to be like a father figure for them. And they, the Pandavas, actually treated Dhritarashtra like a father figure.
Yudhishthira respected Dhritarashtra just like a father. But Dhritarashtra never reciprocated. Although he took the respect that they offered to him as a father, but he never did and he never showed them affection.
He never did the responsibility expected of a father figure. So here what has happened? Throughout, before the Mahabharata, he was so sensitive to even the smallest pain of Duryodhana. Duryodhana, when he came back from the Rajasuya Yajna, he was burning with envy.
He said that Dhritarashtra, actually Shakuni and Duryodhana both manipulated Dhritarashtra. Shakuni came to Dhritarashtra and said, Oh King, your son, who is more dear to you than your life, is so distressed that he may give up his life now. He said, What happened? What’s wrong with you, Duryodhana? And Duryodhana was just mourning and fuming.
And Dhritarashtra said, Oh Duryodhana, what are you lacking? You have magnificent palace, you have servants, you have royal form, you have power. What are you lacking? Duryodhana’s answer was, What man can be happy when he sees his rival doing better than him? So, most of the anarthas, lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and illusion, we call them negative because they make us do sinful activities or they blind us to our spiritual interest. But from a practical perspective, even if somebody doesn’t accept the importance of spiritual life, still, or somebody doesn’t accept the concept of karma and accountability for one’s actions, still, what these anarthas do is, lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and illusion, they put our source of pleasure outside us.
And therefore, they make us dependent on things that are not in our control. When somebody is controlled by lust, then they depend on something outside of them for pleasure. When somebody is angry, at that time, they want something outside to control by which they will get some pleasure.
And among all these anarthas, envy is the worst. When envy comes up, what happens? One cannot delight in oneself getting things. One has to make sure that one gets things better than others.
Or the others get things worse than the traditional story in India. And there are similar stories. I told a story in America and they told me a similar story there.
There were two neighbours who were praying to God. And both of them were fervently praying. So, God came to them.
And that first neighbour said, what do you want? He was about to ask. So, you and your neighbour, both of you are praying. So, I will give you whatever you want, but on one condition.
Whatever I give you, I will give your neighbour double. Have you thought about it? Make me blind in one eye. Make me blind in one eye.
So, my neighbour will become blind in both eyes. So, this is the tragedy. So, Duryodhana was so envious that he said, what man can be happy when his rival is doing better than him? And then Dhritarashtra tried to pacify him.
Be satisfied with what you have. But there was no way he could be satisfied. Then Shakuni had, Shakuni and Duryodhana presented the plan.
We will invite them from gambling and we will have them, we will have them, and Duryodhana disposes them of all their wealth. And now this is such an insidious plan. Dhritarashtra agreed to that.
So, what happened was, he was so sensitive to the small pain that Duryodhana was going through that he was ready to cause the Pandavas enormous amount of pain. So, this is the nature of the attachment. Attachment, what it does is, it makes us super sensitive to the emotion of one person, the person we are attached to, and makes us desensitised to the emotions of others.
Or it takes our consciousness just along one track and what is happening on the other tracks, we just are no longer aware of that. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna uses the word, He says in 2.42-43, he says, याम्मां पुष्पितां वाचं प्रवधन्यविपश्चितः वेदवादतः पार्थ नाअन्यद अस्तितिवाधिनः कामात्मानः स्वर्गः पराजन्म कर्मपलप्रदाम् क्रियाविशीष्व भहुलाम् भोगैश्वरेग तिम्प्रति So in 2.42-43, he is talking about the people who want to attain heavens. And he says, कामात्मानः.
So the word आत्मा refers to soul. But we also use the word आत्मा in a metaphorical sense. Put your heart and soul in the service.
That doesn’t mean you take out the soul from the heart and put it in the service. It just means invest your consciousness, invest your emotions. So the word conscious, this word soul is used to refer to the driving spirit, the core, the heart, the very essence of a thing.
So. So, for example, it may say that in cricket, they say the sporting spirit is the soul of cricket. If you don’t play sportingly, then it is not a gentleman’s sport.
So now, whether it is a gentleman’s sport or not, that’s a different question. But the point is, there is something to the driving spirit, something to the essence, something to the core that is also referred to as the soul. So here when Krishna uses the word कामात्मानः, that means he’s saying that काम becomes the आत्मा of the person.
Means their worldly desires, whatever desires they have, the काम, that becomes a driving force of the person. So in physics, they have the concept of the centre of mass and the centre of gravity. Centre of mass is the point where the object is there, where the object’s mass is concentrated or what is the central point of that.
But centre of gravity is where the force of gravity acts and the central point of that. Now, normally the two will coincide. But depending on the shape of the object, depending on the nature of the gravitational field, the centre of gravity and the centre of mass may be.
So similarly, for us as souls, the centre of our being is the आत्मा, is the soul in the sense of the part of Krishna, the spark of spirit that is there within us. But depending on our attachments, our attachments are like the force of gravity. They pull us down.
They pull us down towards the object of attachment. So depending on what our particular attachment is, our centre of gravity varies from the centre of mass. That means, although at my core I’m a soul, but based on what I’m attached to, how much I’m attached to, my driving desires will not be based on my soul.
They will be based on what is presently my driving spirit. That becomes, functionally speaking, my soul. So this, of course, we are using in a non-literal sense.
But the point I’m making over here is that आकामात्माण, Krishna is using it in a non-literal sense to refer to how काम, the desire for काम can be the driving desire of some people. Three verses later after this, Krishna says that, 2.45 he says that, So normally we hear the word भगवान, that means the possessor of opulences. धनवान is the possessor of wealth.
ग्यानवान is the possessor of knowledge. Now what is आत्मवान? If I am the soul, what does it mean to be the possessor of the soul? That means, like in the Bible it is also said, what profited the man, he gained the whole world, but he loses his eternal soul. So here losing the soul doesn’t mean that the soul is an object which falls out of the body and we lose it.
Losing the soul means losing spiritual awareness. Losing the opportunity for spiritual awareness and getting lost completely in materialistic consciousness. So when Krishna is saying, when one becomes detached from worldly things, detached from ungodly worldly things and then one works with that detachment, then one can become आत्मवान.
That means one can become the possessor of one’s soul. That is, one can become the possessor of spiritual awareness. To become आत्मवान means our centre of gravity coincides the centre of mass.
That means our driving desires harmonise with our defining identity. Who I am and what I desired. They come in harmony.
Now, some amount of disharmony is inevitable when we are in material existence. But the extent of disharmony varies depending on the magnitude of the attachment and the nature of the attachment. So the attachment is सप्सोगुणा, रज्योगुणा, तमोगुणा and how attached one is.
So many people drink, but even when they drink, they may drink in moderation. So if some people go for a party where they want to drink, then when they’re driving back, they make a plan, you should not drink during the party. So you’ll be driving us back.
So even while drinking, they have that level of sobriety. They understand that I cannot drive while I’m drinking. So now, but some people may just get so drunk that they just can’t think about anything.
They just get dead head. So attachments also have degrees. Now, the point I was making earlier is there are certain attachments, which are easily seen as attachments as bad.
Somebody gets into alcohol, somebody gets into drugs, they become addicted. It’s bad. But there is an attachment which comes from the ego, which masks itself as the need for respectability.
That means I think I’m simply doing this because I want to be respected. But in the name of being respected, in the name of seeking respect, one may also become completely intoxicated and blinded. So it’s like in today’s world, there is a form of addiction like we have alcoholism.
There is workaholism. Now, workaholism is called by psychologists as the prestigious addiction. Why? Because in today’s work centred culture, the person works for a lot of time.
The person works for 10 hours, 12 hours, 15 hours. Oh, you work so hard. People get a sense of prestige out of working so hard.
And now, yes, we need to work to live and we may have some ambitions, we fulfil those ambitions. But if work becomes practically the whole thing, our work defines our life. Then we are working so that we can avoid dealing with the issues in life.
You know, at my home, I have a spouse. I don’t get along with the spouse. I have kids.
I don’t know how to take care of them. So I just give the excuse of work and work constantly and just throw some money at home. But then what is happening? We are working, but that working is becoming an escape.
But whereas when somebody drinks and then that becomes an escape way, that can be seen as bad. But when somebody becomes a workaholic and then seeks that escape way, that is a prestigious addiction. You get awards for working so hard.
You can get infatuated by that. And when that happens, then the addiction as it becomes, it is more and more prestige. And many times the consequence is not so visible easily.
Alcoholism, the consequence is quite easily visible. Alcoholism is not so visible. The word consequence, I use the negative, I imply negative consequences.
When it is not visible, then you just get more and more consumed by it. So the same happens with ego. A certain level of respect is what we all naturally expect.
So like work is something which we all have to do. So in that sense, you could say work and respect are different from something like alcohol or drugs. Nobody is going to drive without alcohol or drugs.
We can do very well without it. But we have to work to live. And in our normal dealings, we do expect respect.
And if we don’t get some respect, we’ll actually feel hurt by that. That’s fine. But when that which is normal becomes disproportionate.
So our body has various parts and normal bodily growth means that all the parts grow proportionally. But when there is cancer. Now, normally speaking, cancer cells are not some, cancer cells are not like some malevolent foreign organism that has come in the body.
It’s not some germs that have come in. It’s not some bacteria that have come in. It’s our own bodily cells.
One part of the body starts growing disproportionately. And when it starts growing disproportionately, that growth becomes so disproportionate that it becomes destructive for the rest of the body. So the addictions like alcoholism or drugs, they are like foreign bodies coming in our body.
This is not necessary. I’ll get out completely. But with respect to cancer, it’s a part of our body which suddenly starts growing so much that it grows disproportionately and destructive.
Similarly, there’s a normal human need to work. There’s a normal human need to have some amount of respect. But when that becomes obsessive, that becomes disproportionate, then that destroys everything else.
This is what has happened to Daksha over here, that his need for prestige, his need for honour became so compulsive, so obsessive that he has forgot everything else. That it was almost as if he acted soullessly. He acted heartlessly because his own daughter completely neglected her.
He neglected her to such an extent that she ended her life. And worst of it, we’ll see later, that Daksha does not express any regret that his daughter has killed herself. Everyone else laments, but he doesn’t lament.
There is no description of him lamenting. So this is in most traditional cultures, honour. I’ll conclude with this point.
This is an important point to understand. There is there is honour. There is and there is ego.
Or you could say there is pride or arrogance, whatever word you want to use. The two are not necessarily the same. Most traditional cultures were very honour centred.
You have to act in a way that protects the good name of your family. Should not do anything to spoil the good name. So now honour is itself not a bad thing.
In fact, in the Bhagavatam fourth canto, there is a verse where Dhruva’s determination is appreciated by Narada Muni. And Dhruva leaves home and goes to the forest. And it’s a very striking verse, which says, ahok shakti tejasam, maan bhangam amrushyatam.
So just see the glory of the Kshatriyas that they cannot tolerate dishonour. Is this glory? If you’re dishonoured, you should tolerate it. So he’s appreciating that Dhruva is such a small boy, just a five year old boy, but he cannot tolerate dishonour.
And that’s why he has left his home, he has gone to the forest and now he is ready to search for God. But Narada Muni speaks in a positive way, laudatory way. Just see how great are the Kshatriyas that they cannot tolerate dishonour.
Now, what is going on over here? Actually, honour in the traditional culture was used as a very powerful force to make people behave honourably. The sense of honour was used to make people behave honourably. There’s a letter of Srila Prabhupada where he writes to one of his disciples and his disciple had taken initiation.
But then he had broken the regulative principles and he had fallen. So then Prabhupada writes in the letter, he says, you have taken a vow before the deities, before the sacred fire, before the Vaishnavas. How could you break the vow? Don’t you have any sense of honour? Don’t you have any sense of honour? What does it mean? Honour in this context is not prestige, how much the world respects.
When we talk about prestige or ego or pride, it is about how much the world respects. But honour is often about how much I respect myself. That means there is a certain way I am to behave.
If I give my word, I’ll stick to that word. And so honour is of honour is a concept where the natural natural power of the human ego is channelled to make a person act in honourable act respectively. So, yes, you should not be dishonoured, should not do anything which will be dishonourable.
And therefore, act dharmic, act in a way that brings honour. So this, if we are in a, if we are in a pious society, we all have a natural human need to be accepted and respected. And if it is a pious society, it’s a virtuous society, the way we will earn acceptance and respect is by acting pious, by acting piously, by living respectfully.
So the need for honour can make people behave in honorableness. And in that sense, if people just don’t care what others think about me, we shouldn’t. I’ll come to a later point how this can become excessive.
But if we take our word seriously, we take our image seriously, not in the sense that we are putting up a facade, but rather we want to be accepted, respected by living honourably. Then honour is a force which can inspire us to live virtuously. So if you’re chanting with devotees and then we feel sleepy.
What will other devotees think of me? I’ll not sleep, I’ll wake up and chant. Now, if I’m chanting only so that I look good to other devotees, that’s not good. But if that forces me to wake up, wash my face and chant again, then that is good.
If I’m only driven by the consideration of honour and nothing else, then it becomes a problem. But if honour is one more force which impels me to move towards dharma, then that is good. So now, so that in that sense, the word honour is often used in a positive sense.
But when it becomes arrogance or pride at that time. Yeah. So when you talk about pride or arrogance, what happens there is that this becomes the compulsive driving need of a person.
That means unless people honour me, unless people respect me, unless people show me this, I just get too agitated. And if one thing is the sense of honour should make me behave honourably, then it is positive. But if the sense of honour becomes excessive, then rather than that sense of honour making me behave honourably, the lack of honour makes me act against others disproportionately.
You didn’t respect me, I will show you who I am and what I can do. So this is where the same force which is constructive becomes destructive. And when Narada Muni is appreciating Dhruva, that what is the glory of the Kshatriyas, they cannot tolerate dishonour.
What is happening? Because of that sense of dishonour, Dhruva is ready to leave home at the age of five and go out in search of Vishnu. And the result is supremely auspicious. It is supremely glorious.
So the sense of honour makes him do something glorious. So the sense of honour is meant to make us act honourably. But the sense of honour, when it is misdirected, it makes us act vindictively towards somebody who has dishonoured us.
And that is what happens in many societies where the higher purpose is forgotten. Where only the shell and structure remains, the purpose is lost. That OK, honour is fine, but what is the purpose of honour? And that is forgotten.
Then in the name of honour, people do all kinds of terrible things. As I’ve been spending more time in the West, I’ve come to know more about Western people’s perception of India. So one of the things that you Indians, you indulge in honour killings.
Actually, it’s an obscure incident that happened in a few places, but they are played out in the Western world. And it happens not just in India. It happened in China.
It happened in the Middle East. So what has happened is the honour was meant for a higher purpose. It’s meant to make people behave honourably.
But when that sense of that higher purpose is forgotten. In India, the festivals, festivals are meant to be centred on Krishna. Diwali is meant to be centred on Lord Ram.
But for most people, what is Diwali? Diwali is simply food and noise. Gambling also. Eat a lot of food and blow a lot of crackers.
There’s no remembrance of the Lord. So what happens is the structure remains. Similarly, with respect to the honour-centred societies, the structure, you dare to dishonour me, we will show you what we can do.
And there is, there is a vendetta and there are revenge, revenge sagas that happen because that sense of honour has not only become misdirected, but it has become excessive. So honour is meant to help us act in harmony with our true identity. But if honour becomes our identity, then that honour can make us act disproportionately.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna in 2.13 that you are not the body of the soul. The soul is unchanging within the changes of the body. Next verse he says, matrasvarsastu kaunteya shito shnisukha dukkhada agamapayino anityas tam sthithikshasubharata Therefore, tolerate.
This is temporary. This is superficial. This doesn’t affect your soul.
Tolerate. The significant point is Krishna is using two forms of address, Partha and Kaunteya. Both are related with the body.
Just now he has told you are not the body. And now he is telling, O son of Kunti, O descendant of Bharata. Why? The Prabhupada explains that in the purport that belonging to a great dynasty brings responsibility with it to act respectfully.
So Krishna is telling Arjuna, O Arjuna, you belong to a Kshatriya dynasty. You belong to a respectable dynasty. You are the son of a glorious woman.
Therefore, yes, tolerating is difficult, but you can do it. You have the capacity to do it. You belong to a worthy lineage.
You can do it. So here the sense of identity, the sense of honour coming from one’s parentage or one’s lineage is used to inspire one to behave honourably. So honour is meant to inspire us to behave in harmony with our identity.
But when one forgets one’s spiritual identity and the honour becomes the only identity. I belong to this family and this family is so honourable. You dare to insult me, I’ll kill you.
Then the purpose of that honour is restored. And that’s what happens. He thinks that Shiva did not respect me.
I will not care for anyone. I’ll not care for Shiva. So his emotions of apathy, not even apathy, aversion towards Shiva became so great that it became also expressed as apathy towards his own daughter.
And apathy to the level where she killed herself and yet he did not feel anything. So for us also, the process of bhakti is actually the process of sensitisation. First of all, we want to become sensitised to Krishna.
We come to a temple, Krishna is present over here. And when we chant Krishna, this is Krishna present over here. In general, we will become more and more sensitive to Krishna.
What will please Krishna? What will displease Krishna? How should I conduct myself? Not just when I’m in the temple, but in general with everyone. So as we become sensitised to Krishna, we become sensitised to other living beings also. Because we see Krishna is connected with all living beings.
And whereas normally we will be sensitised to people simply based on our attachments to them or what they can do for us. As devotees, we become sensitised to others based on how they are connected with Krishna. A simple difference between material consciousness and spiritual consciousness is, in material consciousness, as soon as I see someone, I think, what can this person do for me? If this person can do something for me, I’ll talk with him.
If they can’t do anything, forget it. In spiritual consciousness, I think, what can I do for this person? How can I serve this person? That doesn’t necessarily mean that we will be able to serve everyone. We also have to think whom I can serve the best.
So we always remain limited. And because of our limitedness, we cannot do everything for everyone or we cannot do everything even for one person. But the basic framework of the relationship changes.
So the process of bhakti is actually the process of increasing our sensitisation. We increase our sensitisation towards Krishna and increase our sensitisation towards other living beings in relationship with Krishna. In tomorrow’s class, I’ll talk about, from Sati’s perspective, here we talk about how Daksha became blinded by his attachment.
I’ll talk tomorrow about how, from Sati’s perspective, how she invited trouble for herself by her unrealistic expectation of reciprocation from Daksha. So frustration comes because of expectations that are not realistic. That I’ll talk in tomorrow’s class.
I’ll summarise what I spoke today. I spoke about how Daksha, who is the parent of all living beings, became so desensitised that his own daughter killed herself and he didn’t care. I talked about how our attachments, they make us sensitised to certain things.
Our consciousness goes along one track and goes dead end on other tracks. We worry about one batsman gets out in a cricket match thousands of kilometres away. Somebody is dying of starvation outside my house.
I don’t care. So Duryodhana and Dhritarashtra discuss elaborately how Dhritarashtra, because of his attachment to Duryodhana, he couldn’t tolerate a little pain that he had. His son was finished.
He was ready to cause monstrous pain to his nephews. So all the anarthas, they place our source of pleasure outside us. And because of that, they make us powerless.
And the certain attachments, they can be very easily seen to be bad, like alcoholism. If a father says, I will drink, I’ll keep drinking, but you should eat less. This is monstrous.
Alcoholism, drug addiction, the desensitisation they cause can be seen as terrible very easily. But there are certain attachments which can seem as respectable, even prestigious. Let’s say workaholism.
There, work is something which is necessary. Just like we all need our bodily parts. But when one bodily part starts growing disproportionately, that becomes cancerous.
So like that’s something which is an important part of our life also, like work. If that becomes our sole focus in our life, then it becomes cancerous. And it can destroy, disrupt and destroy other aspects of our life.
I talk about the soul as a definition and soul as a driving force. So we are, as the word soul is used literally to refer to the atma, it can be used metaphorically also to refer to what is the most important thing for us. So for those who are attached, their kamaatmana, their kama becomes their soul.
So the atma in terms of the higher dimensional spiritual entity, that is like the centre of mass. But our core attachment, which drives us, that’s like the centre of gravity. So an anatmya, here is a soullessness.
That means there is no heart, no emotion left over there. Atmavan, possessor of soul means that by proper spiritual living, the centre of gravity and the centre of mass become harmonised. One becomes a possessor of spiritual awareness and one’s driving desires harmonise with one’s defining identity.
So when, say, the sense of honour, respect is a natural human need in daily dealings. And in a traditional society, which is honour centred, the sense of honour is used to inspire people to behave honourably, to honour their own words to others and to do actions which will not make them lose face. So that way, even if something is difficult, if it is dharmic, then they will do it.
So but when instead of honour making us live in harmony with our identity, if honour becomes our identity. Then that honour becomes the sole focus of one’s consciousness, not dharma and acting dharmically. Then honour, the sense of honour can become cancerous and people become vindictive.
They take Vendetta. And small things which are seen as impinging on one’s honour can lead to huge reactions. So Daksha was so honour conscious that he was ready to let his daughter die.
And he did not feel any remorse even after she died. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So are there any questions or comments? Yes, Mataji. So if somebody is somebody has become too desensitised to everything because of the attachment, then how do we bring them back to to broader sensitisation of things? Yes, there are broadly three things. One is that something within their area of sensitisation that draws them out of their stupor.
So, for example, there’s a story of Bilwa Mangal Thakur. He was it was his father had died and his father’s crematorium that was to be there. He was supposed to be there for the cremation.
But that time he was thinking of Chintamani. Just left. And then what happened as he came there to Chintamani, Chintamani spoke to him, what are you doing over here? That just jolted him.
So that means, you know, we have some sensitive area of sensitisation. And we have a lot which we are desensitised to. So if something within that area of sensitisation tells us, then because of that, we will sensitise to that.
We understand. That’s one way. So if the other is that sometimes the consequences of one’s actions become so ghastly that one just jolts into awareness.
That means, say, somebody is completely intoxicated and they just think nothing is going to happen. And then they actually kill someone. Now, after that, it’s a big weight on the conscience.
I killed someone. The legal consequences come. But more than that, the person has even a little bit of morality, the moral sense of the ethical consequences can be very burdening.
That completely reorients people. So sometimes that’s it. I will learn through the school of hard knocks itself.
And third could be that sometimes the same thing happens to Ajamil. Ajamil in the Yamduta scheme. And he says this is what is going to happen to me now.
And then the Vishnudas scheme is saved. So that change over there. The third could be that.
If that person is somehow and actually third, when I’m talking about three, they’re not necessarily different. It is just that sometimes Krishna may act in some way in their life and suddenly, what am I doing? I’m not meant to do this. I just lost completely.
I should come back on track. So now usually this Krishna acting also happens in conjunction with the first or second. Somebody speaks externally, but sometimes just that moment comes in our life.
So we have to see. How we can help that person. So if we are in the area of desensitisation, then we may tell and they may hear.
But if they become desensitised to us and the more we tell, the more we feel, the more they feel we are obstructing their enjoyment, they become more desensitised to us. So, say, for example, teenagers and they want to enjoy. At that time, the parents tell them don’t do it.
What do you know? You don’t care. So there is desensitisation. So then the peer association that shapes them a lot.
And sometimes we just have to let time pass. The consequences come. The maturity comes.
We all go through life and we all learn. We may all take different times to learn. There’s a British playwright who said that when I was when I was 15, my father was a fool.
Now that I’m 25, I’m amazed how much the old guy has learned in the last 10 years. It’s not the father. His son was a teenager, blinded by the hormones of teenage.
Has now become a little more, a little more sober to see that what my father was saying was right. So now we can see this with respect to Vidura. Vidura, he always tried to give advice to, if we consider in that circle, for Vidura, for Dhritarashtra, he did not listen much to Bhishma.
Although Bhishma was a saintly, he was somewhat sensitised to Vidura. And then still he would not listen to Vidura. Or rather, he would listen to Vidura but not act on it.
But after some time, eventually, what happened? He had to bear the consequences. He lost his sons. And then when Vidura came back at that time, he was ready.
So Vidura spoke strongly. He heard and he became enlightened. So it’s difficult for somebody who has become desensitised to actually come back on the right track.
But if we pray sincerely to Krishna and Krishna is there in their hearts, Krishna can help them see sense. But it’s a it’s a very difficult thing. Once a person gets into addiction, it’s not only the desire that pulls one through, that pulls one in that direction, but also that one’s own worldview changes.
And one just doesn’t see other things apart from what will fulfil one’s desire and what will justify one’s desire. So it’s quite difficult to get out of there. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yeah. The magnificence of nature in in arranging our body in the world. We study that in science.
But somehow in science, we never made the leap from that to God’s intelligence and God’s benevolence. That we need devotees to help us do that. Yes.
We’re all in it. We’re all in the programme. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. How do we compare Duryodhana with Daksha? How do we compare Duryodhana with Daksha? Broadly speaking, Duryodhana is seen as a villainous character.
He is a person who is just not redeemable. Although many attempts are made to redeem him, he is not redeemable. But with respect to Daksha, he is not considered to be demoniac.
He is not just a devata. He is not among the godly beings. But he is also a respectable being.
But somehow he has gone off track. So broadly speaking, the Bhagavatam, in a sense, it blurs the moral lines. Many of the Puranas, they have devatas on one side, asuras on another side.
But in the Bhagavatam, there are devatas who can sometimes behave in a demoniac way. There are asuras who can behave in a divine way. So Duryodhana is, although he is a human body, but he is totally a demoniac mentality.
So if at all there is any comparison, I would say that we are going to compare Daksha with Dhritarashtra. Dhritarashtra was attached to his son. He was not a bad person.
He had some sense of dharma, but his attachment to his son blinded him so much, he just couldn’t think of anything else. In the case of Daksha, his attachment to his sense of honour blinded him so much that he couldn’t think of anything else. But he was, in a sense, a dharmic person.
The Bhagavatam, basically this whole pastime, this in the fourth canto will be followed up later in the sixth canto, where Chitraketu pastime comes, where also Naradhuni’s pastime comes, where Dhritarashtra’s pastime comes. And before that is Chitraketu. And in that whole sequence, you also have Daksha getting angry because his sons are sent.
There is a confrontation between Daksha and Naradhuni. And Naradhuni is cursed at that time. So what is happening over here in the Bhagavatam, its driving theme is the differentiation between punya and bhakti or karmakanda and parabhakti.
So Daksha is not a bad person. He is a virtuous person. But he is very attached to material religiosity.
And it is being called how material religiosity can also lead to entanglement and destruction. In the tenth canto, there is a story of Maharaj Luga. He is religious, but because of one mistake, he ended up in the body of a serpent, of a lower body.
The Bhagavatam’s driving theme is one has to go beyond punya to bhakti. That’s what we can compare over here. Thank you.
Last question. So and there was a tension between Shiva and Daksha. Why did nobody mediate and try to mitigate the situation? Yeah, broadly speaking, they were just living in their own social circles.
So the conflict did not come so much, although there was tension, but the conflict was not active because they’re not interacting so much. And sometimes Prabhupada told us, your love for me will be shown by how you cooperate. Sometimes two people may be such that just can’t work together.
And then the only way they can cooperate is by operating separately. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s the way we are trying to work together.
Causes so much conflict. And Prabhupada adopted that himself. Two devotees would have conflicts.
You go and start a temple there. You go and start a temple. And they both operated separately and they did well.
So sometimes when there are conflicts. It may just be that it’s not something. Some people can get along with some people.
Some people can’t. And that’s just the way people are. So then it’s not that the two people are bad, but in different relationships, different relations functions well, function well at different levels of distance.
So some relationship to become very close to each other and they can do very well. Some people can do very well, but from a distance. Now, I appreciate what you’re doing and the other person also appreciates what I’m doing, but let’s not work together.
So it’s when too much closeness is forced into a relationship where distance is needed or too much distance is put in a relationship where closeness is needed. Then it causes a problem. So in this case, they were just functioning in their own domains.
And although tension was there, it was not an active confrontation happening at any time. But the way events transpired, it was very fast. Sati came.
Shiva told her, we’re not having interactions. We’re not got an invitation. No need to go there.
But she went there. And then the way things spiralled off. And Dakshya, when she committed, she gave up her body and there was cursing, encounter cursing.
And then by that time, Shiva also got justifiably angry about it. So things just catapulted out of control too fast. So it was just at one point, there was no need for any mediation because both of them are just doing their own thing.
And there’s one interaction, there’s an explosion because of that. So there is no time for any mediation and mitigation. Thank you very much.