Science, Spirituality and Self-empowerment

[Seminar for docors at Perth, Australia]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
We want to go up. Hare Krishna.
Some introductions are meant to prepare the audience for the talk. Some introductions make the talk an anti-climax. Muthu Dharam is kind.
I’ll try to serve in whatever way I can, all of you. I’m grateful that all of you have come here today. And I’ll try to speak something on a topic, which is of relevance to all of us.
That is, self-empowerment. We all want to improve ourselves. We all want to become better.
Better human beings, better professionals, better family members. And how we go about this quest defines our human journey. So, I’ll start briefly on an autobiographical note, and then we’ll move towards philosophical.
Since my childhood, I had a lot of faith in the power of education. I felt that education opens new doors in people’s lives. And while I was studying engineering in a prominent college in India, I joined a social welfare organisation, which focused on education.
So, I would go to slums near my college, and I would have free tuition classes for the students there. And I found these are nice students, but almost in all their families, the fathers were alcoholics, and there was domestic violence. So, when I met the fathers, they were nice people.
And they were very grateful that I was coming and teaching their children. But then, the children and their mothers would tell that when the fathers would drink, they’d become like a different person. So, as I started talking with them, I felt that, okay, I’m teaching them maths, I’m teaching them history, I’m teaching them English, but how much is this really going to help them? So, we decided, we meaning the social welfare organisation, we decided to diversify at that time into alcohol de-addiction.
And we started having talks on the topic, getting some experts. And one of my friends, we all worked together, he got a whole village, a small village, to give up alcohol. That was a big victory for us.
But one day, I had gone to the slums, and he came back, and I came back in the evening, and he looked shattered. When I asked him what happened, he said a few days before, there had been the local panchayat elections. And in order to get elected, one of the candidates had brought four truckloads of free alcohol.
And not only the fathers, but even their children had drunk. So, at that time, I realised that there is something more that is required. So, at that time, I thought, okay, these villagers are there, these slum people are there, they are not very well educated.
So, if the education comes, then that will solve the problem. So, when I was studying engineering, there was one student who was in the final year, and he had been a university topper throughout all his eight semesters. Brilliant student.
I admired him for his brilliance, but I was perturbed to see that he was a chain smoker. And he told me that the more I smoke, the more my brain works faster. And he, at that time, got the highest paying job in the history of our college.
So, it was a big success. And then, during the first six years, when he was still doing his training, he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. And he died.
So, this jolted me, because I could not consider him to be in any way lacking education. He was probably among the finest products of the education system. So, then I started thinking, what is it that is missing? If he is so brilliant that he can see, he can just crack electronic and telecommunications issues, which take hours for others to figure out, why can’t he figure out that smoking is injurious to health? That was the time when a friend gave me the Bhagavad Gita.
And in the Bhagavad Gita, I read, especially in the third chapter, about how there are forces within us that work against us. And the Bhagavad Gita gives a methodology by which how those forces can be countered. So, I realised that scientific education serves a very important purpose.
But, we need something more. That was the time when I started exploring the relationship between science and spirituality. And how both these important sources of knowledge can be used to tap human potential.
So, can we start? So, this is Nobel laureate, Arvind Schrodinger. He says that I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order.
But, it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot, next slide, it cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight. It knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity.
Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains. But the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. Now, this is a scientist, a Nobel laureate speaking.
And my point here in quoting him is not to criticise science. The point is to recognise that every scope, every field of knowledge has its strengths. Because it focusses.
And focus goes on one thing, focus goes off another thing. So, science focusses on the outer world and how to bring more and more control over things in the outer world. At the same time, there is the inner world.
So, he is saying that science cannot tell us about the beautiful and the ugly. It means that we may use some high tech software like Photoshop, say to design a very attractive poster. Now, with software, with technology, we can know the precise percentage.
Ok, this colour has 33% red, 25% blue, 18% yellow. We can get precise figures. But if at the end, we want to evaluate.
Is this poster beautiful? Does this poster look good? That is something which science cannot tell us. Science can tell us, if there is a young boy who has got a grandmother who has given her anything, who has written in her will, that her inheritance is for him. Now, by studying science, that boy can come to know that if I put arsenic in my grandmother’s breakfast, I can get the inheritance faster.
But should I do it or should I not do it? That is something which science doesn’t tell. It is not that science tells put arsenic. It is just that science is neither moral nor immoral.
It is amoral. It does not talk about morality. Albert Einstein said that we can talk about the ethical foundations of science.
Is science being used for ethical or unethical purposes? Einstein had one of the greatest regrets. He gave the suggestion to make the nuclear bomb and then that nuclear bomb was used against Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When he saw the extent of the devastation that had happened, he felt that this was excessive and abusive use of that bomb.
But the point is, he said we can talk about the ethical foundations of science, but we cannot turn around and talk about the scientific foundation of ethics. We have a sense of right and wrong and that sense of right and wrong guided us. Some people can use science and technology wisely, some people can use it destructively.
Science itself is a very powerful tool of knowledge. At the same time, it has its limitations. So science cannot equip a person who is addicted to, there is no tablet that somebody can take, somebody is a drug addict, take a tablet and drug addiction will go away.
Somebody is short tempered, take a tablet and anger goes away. No, somebody can take a tablet, the person can be made to go to sleep. And when they wake up, the anger will still be there.
It has to be processed. Physical symptoms can be suppressed for some time. So the point here is, that if we want to change ourselves internally, there is something more that is required.
Martin Luther King said that our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided people. We have a phenomenal capacity to control the outer world, but our capacity to control our inner world is decreasing at an alarming rate.
Now, Einstein himself, he was probably the greatest scientist of the last century, one of the greatest scientists in the history of the world. He himself was conflicted by the implications of an extrapolation of the scientific world view to all of life. Now, if, say I take this dongle, and I drop it, I won’t drop it, but suppose if I drop it, it has no free will whether to fall down or not.
It is simply going to fall. So matter has no free will. And if it falls down, and if there is a, if there is a heavy object, if there is a small child, it falls on the toe of that child and breaks that toe.
We won’t hold this responsible. Because it is just acting. According to the law of gravity, it has no free will.
Now, if, if I come and slap one of you, are you going to slap me? When you ask this question, that means, you understand that, I have free will, and I should not have been doing this. So Einstein recognised that if we consider science as offering the total knowledge about everything, and science postulates that we all work, that nature works according to laws, laws of physics. And laws of physics allow for no free will.
So if we human beings are simply products, there is nothing more to us than our physical self, physical body, then all our actions, we are just made of atoms and molecules, and all our actions are simply, ultimately governed by the laws of physics. So that would mean that none of us have free will. Because we are simply chemical robots.
This is a very disturbing implication. Because that would mean that the Nazis who killed anywhere between 6 to 10 million Jews, they are not responsible for the holocaust. Because they had no free will.
They just did whatever the biochemicals of the brain told them to do. If we accept the idea that we have no free will, then all systems of justice would collapse. All relationships would collapse.
There would be no, most importantly for us, if we are simply chemical robots, governed by the chemicals in the body, then there is no possibility for us to improve ourselves. We are born the way we are, we stay the way we are, and we die the way we are. So, this is not a necessary implication of science.
This is the implication that comes when we make science as the only source of knowledge about everything. That is called scientism. Suppose there is a brain surgeon, and he comes back home, and his wife is upset with him.
And the brain surgeon says, let me do a brain scan to find out why you are upset. The wife will say, you go and scan your brain first. Hesitated.
We can with the best brain scan, we will find if there is some damage in the brain in some part. But if somebody is hurt, somebody is angry, you talk with them and understand their emotions. With the most sophisticated brain sensors now, we can find out when a person is dreaming.
But what that person is dreaming, we cannot find out even with the best sensors. We have to wake the person up and ask, what were you dreaming? We can understand vaguely, that person is having fear or anger or happiness. But what exactly was it that was causing fear, anger or happiness? That is a first person experience.
And that is not reducible to simply brain chemicals and the laws that govern matter. Go ahead. Now one of the most cherished statements that people long to hear is they want someone to say, I love you.
But what does I love you mean in a purely materialistic world view? That I and you are simply biochemical robots. And love is simply the surge of dopamine or some other chemical in the brain. So is that all that there is to love? It’s a surge of chemical in a chemical room.
When a mother loves a child, the mother feels an affection. What is that affection? Is that simply some chemicals going around in the brain? Yes, the chemicals may go around in the brain. But there is something much more to human experience.
So there is, Robin Williams was a prominent comedian, Academy Award winner, and he, a couple of years ago, he committed suicide. Now, many celebrities have committed suicide, but when a comedian commits suicide, that is especially disturbing. When a comedian makes other people laugh, that would mean that he must be happy.
But he was so unhappy that he committed suicide. So now, I’m quoting this for two reasons. First is that, as I said, brain chemicals are there, and brain chemicals are associated with emotions.
When I get angry, I can see a particular part of the brain is activated. When I’m calm, another part of the brain is activated. But the emotion of calmness and anger is something deeper.
It is not just a secretion of brain chemicals. Just like, with respect to comedy, somebody may laugh, but laughter alone does not define happiness. Sometimes if you meet, if you go to some relative and they have some small child, to have fun with that child, you may tickle the belly of that child.
And when the belly is tickled, some people are very ticklish. A little tickling and they just can’t stop laughing. They start laughing.
Now, is the laughter as a response to tickling, is that laughter happiness? Is it happiness? No. If that laughter were happiness, and we all want happiness in our life, so we all could get our own perpetual tickling machines. Whether we want happy, tickle ourselves and we’ll be happy.
So laughter is an external expression of happiness. And sometimes that external expression can be replicated by certain physical stimuli. But just because that external expression is replicated, does not mean that the inner experience is there.
So just as there is a physical expression, which comes when we are happy, similarly there is a biochemical expression. Certain chemicals are secreted in certain areas of the brain, when we are happy. But that doesn’t mean that laughter alone is not happiness.
Similarly, secretion of certain chemicals in the brain alone is not happiness. So we may control the externals, but that does not necessarily lead to internal emotions. So technology and all the development of technology, we have phenomenal amount of entertainment in today’s world.
All this technology and entertainment is actually meant, in a sense, for tickling people. Tickling people emotionally, tickling people intellectually. Tickling people to provide some entertainment.
So we could say technology is technology. Technology, tickle people. So this is again not to criticise technology.
The point is to contextualise it. That external change and internal change are two different things. With technology we are getting phenomenal amounts of control in the outer world.
But parallel to that, we need control. That is what will help us to develop our potentials. Go ahead.
One of the most tragic examples of the lack of internal control is suicide. A few years ago, I was at a UNESCO conference on science, spirituality and suicide. So it is world peace, this was the theme within that.
UNESCO representative was quoting statistics. One million people commit suicide globally. One million means that this is more than the number of people who are killed in wars, terrorist attacks and murderous crimes combined together.
More than the number of people who are being killed by others are the number of people who are killing. One million suicides per year means about one suicide every 40 seconds. That means since we started this talk around 25 people have already committed suicide.
This is a catastrophic problem. And there can be many specific causes of suicide. I lost my job, my spouse rejected me, this happened, that happened.
There can be specific causes. But there is something which is fundamental. Where one feels that life itself is not worth living.
There is such an overwhelming attack of negative emotions within that one wants to destroy oneself. Why is this happening and how can this be corrected? The Bhagavad Gita offers us a three level model of the self. Our self has three aspects.
The body, the mind and the soul. If you compare it to a computer system, this is like the hardware, the software and the user. The body is like the hardware, the mind is the software and the soul is the user.
Technology is focussing on making the hardware better and better. We are getting far more external control over things than what even 50 years ago people could have imagined. Just by pressing a few buttons you can talk with anyone in any part of the world.
So we are getting a phenomenal amount of external control. But the software internally is getting more and more corrupted. Corrupted by short sighted desires, corrupted by fears, corrupted by negative emotions.
These are like the viruses. And they are causing people to sabotage themselves. Suicide is an extreme expression but much more widespread is addiction.
There are hundreds and thousands and even millions of people who are addicted to different things. And I talked earlier about my experiences with people who are addicted to alcohol or to smoking. Now, animals also sometimes do things which cause their destruction.
Say a fish gets caught by a bait. A mouse may be caught by cheese in a mouse trap. But these animals have excuses.
Their bait looks like food. And they don’t know in advance it is a trap. We humans who are supposed to be the most intelligent among all living beings have neither of these excuses.
Nobody thinks that a cigarette is needed as food. And who doesn’t know that cigarette smoking is injurious to health. Still we get infected.
This is something which is a very dangerous force which is there within us which makes us propel, rush down the path of self-destruction. So sudden self-destruction is suicide. A little more gradual self-destruction is through addictive indulgences.
In America, there are several states, especially in southern part of America, I just came from America, I was two months there. There, the government has declared that these states have got a drug emergency. Such widespread drug addiction that a whole generation, younger generation is getting wiped out by it.
So, at a lesser level, even if I say okay, I am not addicted, but we all have negative emotions. For some of us, it may be anger. Before I studied the Bhagavad Gita, I started practising the Bhagavad Gita, I was infamous for my short temper.
Just exploded people. So, they said that anger is a force. When a person becomes angry, no, anger is temporary insanity.
We just do things. Sometimes somebody gets angry and just lashes out at people verbally. One of my friends used to get very angry.
And then, after he would calm down, he would say, is this a normal person? Why are you so disturbed? I just get angry, you don’t take me seriously when I get angry. But, he would speak such things. One of his friends, he just recorded what he spoke during his anger.
And then, he showed it. Surely, I spoke this? I couldn’t even dream of speaking things like this. So, under flashes of anger, we may do terrible things.
And, that can also devastate, that can sometimes break other people’s hearts. Or sometimes, people may get angry and they may break our bones. So, we can break others’ hearts, we can break our bones because of anger.
So, we all have negative emotions within us which work against us. So, all these, whether it is suicide, or whether it is addiction, or whether it is negative emotions, all these are examples of how the software inside us is corrupted. And, this corruption of the software needs to be corrected.
Otherwise, we, even if life opens more doors for us, technology today has opened so many doors for people. But, with technology, there are new forms of addiction that are coming. I was at a school in America, and the teacher asked me to speak to the children about, they call it screen addiction.
So, we just want to keep on at the screen. And so, technology has opened doors, but people are getting addicted to video games, to watching movies. There is internet addiction, and there are different forms of addiction that come up through that.
So, the more doors the technological growth may open for us, the more we will use those doors to get ourselves into trouble. If we do not have a cure for the inner corruption, the viruses that have corrupted us from within. And, how do we go about correcting that? So, the first principle to understand is that, whereas the materialistic world view may tell us that we are simply like programmed machines.
The Bhagavad Gita’s understanding tells us that we are not programmed machines. We are the possessors of machines. The body is a machine.
You could say even the mind is like a machine. But, we as souls are different. Yes, these machines are programmed, but they are also programmable.
We can change the programming. The possibility of free will and the possibility of self-improvement exists because we are not the programmed machines. We are different from this.
I spoke in Canada at Toronto University, and there one of the most famous scientists in Canada is Dr. Wilder Penfield. He is a Nobel laureate neurosurgeon. And, he did 40 years of research in brain studies to try to find out where is the source of consciousness.
So, he did various experiments, which he put together in his book called The Mystery of the Mind. And there, one of the most striking experiments was he had a subject. He told the subject, raise your hand.
The subject raised the hand. There is a particular area of the brain which corresponds with the motor nervous system’s action by which the hand gets raised. So, he observed that that part of the brain got activated and the hand was raised.
This is a very simple, without any technical jargon, I am keeping things as simple as possible. For example, the stress on the principle. So, then he asked the subject, what happened? He said, I raised my hand.
Okay, put your hand down. What happened? He said, I put my hand down. Then, using electrical activation probes, he activated that part of the brain.
And, what happened? He said, my hand went up. Did you raise your hand? I didn’t, you did. Did he activate that part of the brain? The hand went down.
What happened? My hand went down. Did you put your hand down? I didn’t, you did. Now, while repeating this experiment, then Dr. Penfield activated other parts of the brain to see whether any part of the brain when activated would make the subject feel that I raised my hand.
No matter whichever part of the brain was activated, the subject never got the feeling that I raised my hand. To understand the implication of this, consider there is a computer, say, assume there is a printer over here. And, the printer has a printing hand.
Now, if I press the print button on my computer, the printing hand will move. Now, you can come here on the computer and you can press the print button. And, then also the printing hand will move.
So, the brain area which corresponds with the activation of the hand, the raising and the falling, that is like the print button. When the print button is pressed, the hand moves up. Again, when the print button is released, the hand comes down.
So, in the second case, it was Dr. Penfield who pressed the print button. In the first case, who pressed it? The brain is a device which is being activated. But, who is the activator? After 40 years of studying the brain, Dr. Penfield concluded in his book The Mystery of the Mind that the brain is like a computer.
But, it is programmed by something outside of itself. Another Nobel laureate scientist, Charles Sherrington said that the source of consciousness is extra cerebral. So, this is strong scientific evidence which points to the reality that consciousness itself is non-material.
It exists outside the brain. And, we as conscious beings have a body, have a mind which has certain habits, which are like programmes. But, these are changeable.
The possibility of self-improvement is only there when we have free will. And, the possibility of free will is only there when we accept a spiritual world view. With a materialistic world view, there is no possibility for free will.
Because, we are simply biochemicals governed by the laws of physics. So, now, if we understand that I do have free will, how do we go about reprogramming the bodily machine that we have? We talk about four steps in that. We human beings have four distinct endowments which separate us from sub-human beings.
Can you go ahead? So, these are self-awareness, imagination, conscience and willpower. So, I’ll explain them one by one. This is the last part of the talk.
So, self-awareness. What does it mean? Go ahead. Self-awareness means, I am like this.
See, all of us are conscious beings. Even dogs are conscious. Birds are conscious.
They observe, okay, a prey is coming from here. Let me bounce on it. A predator is coming from here.
Let me run away. Everybody is conscious. But, we human beings can become conscious of our consciousness.
That means, when I am sitting here, I am speaking something. I can visualise through a thought exercise. If I am sitting there, where you are sitting? Now, how am I looking? How am I speaking? So, we can project ourselves, outside ourselves and look at ourselves.
We can’t see ourselves fully, but we can become aware of our thoughts. So, one is that I become angry and I act angrily. But, I can become aware of myself.
Okay, I am short-tempered. Right now, I am getting irritated. I am getting angry.
So, this capacity for self-awareness helps us understand when we start going wrong. We may resolve, I am going to act like this. But sometimes, we relapse back into our old patterns.
So, when a plane, say, maybe yesterday I came from Melbourne to here. So, when a plane is flying, 90% of the time, the plane is off track. Because of the wind pressure, because of the momentum, it goes off track.
But, the pilot keeps getting it back on track. And because the pilot keeps getting it back on track repeatedly, the plane reaches the destination. Similarly, for us, we may decide, I want to act in a particular way.
Before we can decide that, okay, I am acting in this way right now. We can become aware of how we are. If, without the self-awareness, we simply identify with our programming.
And we simply act according to our programming. We don’t even understand that there is a programming. So, we have this capacity for self-observation.
By which we can understand how I am right now. So, we can think about our thinking and we can check our thought patterns. Go ahead.
Then there is creative imagination. Imagination is a faculty which we can use for various purposes. We can use for fantasising, for daydreaming.
So, but imagination can be creatively used. Okay, I am like this, but I can become like that. Under pressure situations, I explode.
But I can react calmly. So, that visualisation, what can I become? Like this creative imagination, when it is externally directed, that is what led to phenomenal technological advancement. I was at Dayton University where the Wright brothers first time flew a plane.
So, I spoke there about spiritual flight. How to fly in the spiritual dimension of life. So, the point is that there, till that time nobody thought we would fly.
And people mocked at them. But they had that imagination. Yes, we will be able to fly.
And that is how they flow one day. So, we have the capacity to imagine in a creative way. So, okay, I am short tempered, I am pessimistic, or I am hypersensitive, whatever it is.
But I can change. I can become like that. And you say, this is all simple.
What is the big deal about it? Yes, we all make resolutions. But here we are trying to dissect why when we make resolutions we are not able to keep them or how we can keep them. So, first step is, okay, I am like this.
Now, I want to become like that. I can become like that. This is what I would like to become like.
That is creative imagination. The third is, Conscience. Conscience is the inner voice that tells us when we go wrong.
All of us have this conscience within us. But depending on how much we hear it, its voice goes louder or its voice goes dimmer. Some people have dogs to guard their houses.
So, when a stranger comes, the dog starts barking, barking, barking. It alerts that some stranger has come over here. Similarly, our conscience is like a dog.
It barks when some wrongdoing, some wrong course of action starts tempting us, starts alluring us. Don’t do this, do like this. This is our inner compass.
And we can become aware, okay, I resolved to act like that but I have gone like that. This capacity comes through our conscience. So, if we go back to the flight metaphor, okay, I am flying this way.
I have to fly this way. I was flying that way but again I have relaxed this way. Then, let me move back this way.
That brings us to the last part that is determination. Determination is the capacity that we have emotions within us but we also have our intentions. And we are capable of acting according to our intentions, not our emotions.
Suppose, many of us may have some religious instincts, religious inclination, so we fast on some holy days, sometimes some people fast on Ekadashi. Now, if a cat sees a mouse on Ekadashi, can the cat think, oh, today I am to fast? No, the cat is governed by impulses, simply pounce and eat. Now, when we see food, we see attractive food, our tongue may start salivating, we may also get the desire to eat.
So, the emotion, the desire will come within us. The intention is, no, I am going to fast today. We can fast.
So, we human beings have this determination to resist our default emotions. These default emotions are like our programming. So, when the programming comes, we can resist it.
And this capacity to resist can be increased by spiritual development. The Bhagavad Gita is a manual for spiritual development. It begins with Arjuna who was an extremely powerful warrior, one of the greatest archers of his times.
He was about to fight the biggest war of his life and even before one arrow was shot, he was defeated. He was defeated by the emotions of his mind. He put aside his bow.
He said, Being overwhelmed by distress, he said, I can’t. And the Bhagavad Gita’s instruction, that helped him to restore his morale. And by the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Yatra Yogeshwara Krishna Yatra Partha Dhanurdhara That same Partha, Arjuna had picked up his bow and he had become ready.
So, the Bhagavad Gita’s message helped him to overcome the negative emotions. The negative emotion, the depression, the dejection that had overwhelmed him was like a virus that had corrupted his software of the mind. But that corruption was removed.
How? By the message of the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita’s wisdom is like an anti-virus software which can protect us by removing whatever viruses are there and by preventing new viruses from coming. So, how does the Bhagavad Gita’s message work as an anti-virus software? I talked about these four things.
Our unique, our endowments our self-awareness this is how I am. Our creative imagination, this is what I want to be. Conscious this is how I am relapsing.
Determination, this is how I am going to act. Now, these four faculties can be strengthened by spiritual awareness. The Bhagavad Gita’s first lesson is that we are not the body, we are the souls.
So, the Bhagavad Gita says that the emotions that come within us they, we are not those emotions, we are different from those emotions. The self-awareness in terms of understanding that I am not my feelings. I am the feeler of my feelings.
The feelings are there, I acknowledge them, but I am not my feelings. The self-awareness, when it is rooted in spiritual understanding that I am different. I am different from the mind, I am different from the emotions in the mind, I am different from my habits.
Bhagavad Gita tells us that we are bigger than our habits. So, we have habits, they can overwhelm us, but we can change those habits. We can, whatever it is that we wish to do, we can tap that potential.
So, first is self-awareness is enhanced by spiritual knowledge. Second is creative imagination that Bhagavad Gita explains that there is a whole domain of reality that we are unaware of, that is spiritual reality. Many times in our life, we try to improve in certain things and when we can’t get improved, we get discouraged.
But quite often when we try to improve, we improve in things which sometimes the world tells us, you do like this, you do like that, you do like that. We may try to, we have certain amount of looks and we try to look like some movie stars. We have certain amount of memory and we try to develop, I want to develop phenomenal memory.
And in this way, by trying to improve in areas which sometimes is unrealistic or difficult, we dishearten ourselves. But the Bhagavad Gita tells us that beyond the material reality, there is a spiritual reality. At the level of spiritual reality, every one of us is equal.
Every one of us is potentially divine. Every one of us is a part of the supreme reality, God, Krishna. And that means that there is a higher plan for our life.
There are some things which will be easy to change, there are some things which are difficult to change. And sometimes what we try to change is often determined by whatever is considered glamorous in the world today. And when we find it difficult to change, we get disheartened.
But the Bhagavad Gita inspires us to change. The creative imagination says, we don’t have to become like anyone else. If God had wanted us to be like someone else, he would have made someone else.
He has made you you, and he has made me me. So for me to improve, I don’t have to become like you, and you don’t have to become like me. For me to improve, I have to become a better me.
And you have to become a better me. So, the creative imagination gets directed according to what is truly important for us. What is our distinctive potential? Rather than simply whatever is the world’s glamorisation.
Thirdly is conscience. Our inner compass of what is right and what is wrong, our awareness, sometimes we speak something, some people speak to express their thoughts. Some people speak to discover their thoughts.
They speak, I don’t want to speak that, why do I speak that? So, when our conscience becomes stronger and stronger, we become aware much faster. Hey, don’t speak like that. You’re angry right now? Don’t act like that.
This conscience ultimately is the voice of God. Bhagavad Gita says that, sarvasya chaham hrdi san nivishto. 15.15 Krishna says that, I am present in the hearts of all living beings.
So, from there, I give guidance. So, especially when we start practising bhakti yoga, bhakti yoga is the process of yoga by which we connect with the supreme through the path of devotion. Because our emotions are extremely powerful and if you can channel those emotions to connect with the supreme, then it can become a very powerful and quick connection.
And then we become attuned to the voice of God speaking from within us. And then our sense of right and our sense of wrong becomes much, much more acute. And most importantly, with respect to our determination, whatever willpower we presently have, that can be tremendously enhanced if we complement our willpower with divine power.
If I have to lift say a 20 kg weight, I may have to exert a lot of energy. But, if I put that 20 kg weight on a lever, and I just press the lever at the right point, it will easily get lifted. So, similarly, for us, we have negativities within us, thick crushes.
But our connection with Krishna becomes like the lever. And, if we connect ourselves with Krishna, then He is omnipotent. He is far more powerful than us.
And when we connect with Him through devotion, then we get access to power far greater than our own power. There are thousands of people all over the world, millions, who by applying the principles of the Bhagavad Gita have broken free from hundreds and thousands, from various kinds of negative habits, from addictions, from negative emotions. All that has happened because they got access to a power higher than theirs.
Nowadays, there is a fear that from the Korea, a nuclear weapon might come and destroy a major part of the world. Most powerful nuclear weapon, even with its fullest explosion, cannot destroy even one bad habit of one person. But, the power of devotion can actually transform eternally.
It can help us to get rid of our negative habits, our negative emotions, our negative thought patterns. Because here, we access the higher power of God. In 2015, when I first went to America, I went to a university and I spoke there on regulating our mental diet.
I spoke to a vegetarian society over there. After that, one boy, he came and told me, that American boy, said that just before this class, I was contemplating suicide. I said, I was in a relationship with a girl and she had broken up with me.
So, I was shattered. But as I was contemplating, I saw the programme of this poster, of the Bhagavad Gita programme which I was given. I said, I thought, something within me said, just go and attend that programme.
So, he came there and he said, now I am understanding, it is not that I wanted to commit suicide, it is my mind. It is the negativity which is in the mind which is telling me to commit suicide. I said, you have understood very well.
Study the Bhagavad Gita very nicely and you will be able to overcome all negativity. So, then every year when I go to America, I meet him, talk with him. This year, when I went and I met him, so he was practising bhakti nicely and becoming much more positive, doing well in his career.
I said, this time when I met him, he said, this year, I again faced the same situation. I was in a relationship with a girl and he has texted to me that she is breaking up with me. He says, when I got that text, I was so disturbed.
I went straight to my room. I locked the door, shut down the windows and he was a singer. He loved kirtans.
Just like we have sweet kirtans right now. So, he picked up his violin and started singing. He started singing the Hare Krishna mantra and praying to Krishna.
He said, for six hours, I was continuously singing. It was pouring out my heart. And he said, sweetest, the best moments of my life.
As I was calling out to Krishna, I felt his presence. I felt a divine presence comforting me, uplifting me. And the time which would have been the worst moment of my life, the most painful moment, actually became transformed into the most joyful moment.
That happened because the same mind which had earlier been corrupted, frustrated, just committed suicide. Rather than self-destruction, now by the power of devotion, that reflex action had changed. He did not take advice from someone.
Instinctively, he took shelter of Krishna. And the emotion got channelled positively. So we all, whatever negativity we may have in our life, whatever positivity we want to tap in our life, we can do both of them much more effectively if we empower ourselves with the spiritual power of devotion.
The Bhagavad Gita is a manual which explains to us what this power of devotion is, what the spiritual essence within us is, and how we can bring it out. So this is an opportunity that we all have. His Divine Grace S.C. Bhaktivedanta Swamishla Prabhupada, the founder Acharya of ISKCON, at the age of 70, he travelled all over the world.
In 11 years, he established 108 temples, wrote over 70 books, and inspired millions of people to take to the message of the Bhagavad Gita and to transform themselves and to transform others. And he has, by his inspiration, inspired thousands and thousands of people all over the world to take up this message. Our former Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, when he had come to the inauguration of the Delhi Temple of ISKCON, he said that that was a time when globalisation was happening.
He said, India started globalising its economy about 10-15 years ago. But he said, Bhaktivedanta Swamishla Prabhupada, almost 50 years ago, started globalising India’s message of the Bhagavad Gita. And he says, that message is now spread all over the world.
So many of us may know about the Bhagavad Gita as a sacred Hindu book. But it is not just that. It is a powerful guidebook for self-transformation and self-empowerment.
And the opportunity to empower yourself, each one of us, is open for us if we study the Bhagavad Gita and learn to apply its teachings in our life. So, that is the invitation that is there for every one of us. So I’ll conclude and I’ll quickly summarise what I spoke.
So I spoke about science, spirituality and self-empowerment. I started by talking about how I saw that, whether it is in my life, whether it is an uneducated person or a super-educated person, still, there is something negative which makes people act in self-defeating ways. So the Bhagavad Gita helped me to understand that it is the mind which is corrupted by viruses of negative emotions and negative habits.
The body, like the hardware, the mind, like the software, the soul, like the user. So, to science, it has progressed phenomenally in terms of giving us control over the outer world. But, it’s like improving the software but not doing anything to remove the viruses within.
Science, if we take it as the only source of knowledge, that will mean that, because matter is all that exists and matter does not have any free will. It simply acts according to laws of physics. Then we have no free will.
That would mean all systems of justice, all systems of responsibility and all possibility for self-improvement would become annihilated. So, we are not programmed machines. We are the possessors of programmable machines.
And, by understanding this critical difference, we can reprogram ourselves. So, this idea that we are distinct from the body, this is not just some religious dogma. There are strong scientific pointers towards it.
I talked about Dr. Penfield’s experiment, where he concluded that the source of consciousness is extracerebral. The mind is like a computer, but it’s programmed by something outside of itself. And, how can we improve ourselves? How can we reprogram ourselves? By tapping our four human potentials.
First is our self-awareness. Rather than just acting according to our emotions and our thought patterns, we become aware of them. Bhagavad Gita’s systematic explanation that we are souls increases our self-awareness.
Then there is creative imagination. I am like this, but I can become like that. Much imagination is used to improve the outer world.
But we can use the imagination to improve our inner world by understanding our spiritual essence and by exploring what gifts we have and how we can develop them. Rather than imitation of others, we can try to have expression of our authentic selves. And then, consciousness, we can connect, by the practise of bhakti, we can connect with Krishna’s indwelling presence.
And his voice will enable us to discern more quickly what is right and what is wrong. What is beneficial and what is harmful. What will improve us and what will drag us down.
And lastly, our determination can be enhanced by devotion. Because that gives us access to the omnipotent power of God. Then the devotion becomes like a lever which connects us with the Supreme.
And then, the same thing which would require us a lot of energy to lift up. Through the lever, we can lift it up with much lesser energy. And this potential for self-transformation through devotion can give us a power greater than nuclear power.
Nuclear power cannot destroy one bad habit, one negative mentality. But, spiritual power can do that. I talked about how.
The same incident for the student in America, where the same breakup initially caused him to commit suicide. But later, inspired him to go deeper and deeper in his connection with Krishna and experience shelter and joy in that situation. The way Arjuna was transformed from depression to determination by the Gita’s message, that same opportunity is available for all of us today, if we understand and apply the message of the Bhagavad Gita.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? But not related to this one.
You can speak the question, I’ll repeat it. I just read the Srimad Bhagavatam, that why Krishna testing his devotee to the end, you know, like a last bite. Sometimes Maya becoming like a devotee or sanyasi.
He’s eating, there’s one king who was there, reading a story about king and his wife and his son. And he’s eating the last bite of his food. And this Maya come like a sanyasi or devotee and this king give it to his food to him.
And then his wife will give it to his other guys, just like he come like a dog. Okay, I get your question, yeah. So, why does Krishna test his devotees, so without going into specifics of any particular story, it’s an important principle.
In this world, quite often, when we want to choose the right thing also, often the wrong things seem to allure us. Sometimes, once I was in Melbourne last year and one day one person asked the question, when God wants us to do the right thing, why does he provide us so many wrong options? So I explained, that is the way always it is in any multiple choice exam. In a multiple choice exam, there are, say, four wrong options and one right option.
The purpose of giving the wrong options is not to fail the student. The purpose is to test the student. When the student chooses the right, the student gets the marks.
Similarly for us, when we face difficulties in our life, at that time, we have option. We can take that difficulty and say that, no, why so many difficulties coming in my life? I am trying to be a good person. I am trying to live in a devoted way.
Why is this happening? So we can go inwards or rather we can go within self absorption or self obsession and we can just blame God or reject God. It’s one option. The other option could be that we can become more open.
I don’t know why this is happening to me but, oh God, please give me the strength to serve you. Please give me the strength to move on in my life. If we adopt this attitude, then we will see that in due course that through that difficult situation that we went through, we will become better.
We will become stronger. We will actually emerge as more evolved human beings. So whatever difficulties come in our life, they are meant for our spiritual evolution.
They are meant to help us grow in wisdom and grow in devotion. And if we take it with that attitude, then we will grow through it. The purpose of the test is to help us raise our consciousness.
And when we raise our consciousness, we will find that the test will come. The test will go and the test will go but internally we will grow stronger. So just like if you are going on a road, at that time suddenly lights go off.
What do I do now? It’s all dark around me. Either I can curse the darkness or I can just turn on my flashlight. My flashlight does not replace the street lights.
But my flashlight can show me one step ahead. One step ahead. So similarly sometimes we may have a plan for our life and suddenly some upheaval comes, a catastrophe happens.
It’s like the lights in our life’s path go off. What am I to do now? Arjuna faced a situation like that. So we may be perplexed but we don’t have to be discouraged.
Perplexed means to not know what to do. Discouraged means to not feel like doing anything. There may be situations when you don’t know what to do.
At that time, what do we do? Just turn on our torchlight. Torchlight is our prayerful service attitude. Oh God, how can I serve you? Okay, you can take one step forward.
One step forward. One step forward. Okay, I can do this.
I can do this. Faith often means that you just take one step forward even when the full path is not clear. When we in this way try to connect with God in a mood of devotion, we will feel his presence.
We will find that we have layers of strength within us that we did not know we had. These layers of strength develop for us through our connection with Krishna, through our devotion to Krishna. And the obstacles, the difficulties, the tests, they will stay for some time, they will go.
But through the tests, if we become spiritually stronger, that is a gain that will last lifelong. Not just lifelong actually, it will stay with us for eternity. So rather than seeking a problem-free life or thinking that by going to God, my life will become problem-free, we seek a purposeful life.
Not a problem-free life, but a purposeful life. My purpose is to connect with Krishna, to connect with him in devotion and in a mood of devotion to make my contribution in the world. Whatever my responsibility, whatever my role.
So when we have this purposeful life as our driving focus, even when problems come, we will see those problems not as external obstacles that are stopping us, we will see them as internal pushers to go within and strengthen ourselves. And we can remember that there is a higher plan for our spiritual evolution. So it is said that when we are down to nothing, Krishna is up to something.
So we just have to be patient and what he is up to, we will meet. Thank you Prabhuji for the enlightening discourse and the many pearls of wisdom. It’s been very enlightening.
So many thoughts are going through my head and I’m sure it’s going through many other people’s heads. The way you related science to spirituality I think has appealed to a lot of us because we come from different walks of life but professionally pursue science one way or the other. So I’m just throwing open the question and appreciation to everybody in the audience.
I would like to welcome questions for this great answer and for us to discuss. Do we have chits also? If somebody wants to write. Do we have chits also? Or if you want to write a question and have it discussed later, that’s also an opportunity.
What stuck me was when you said in our world today, we have guided missiles and misguided men. That is so true and so everything that you said is so applicable to our everyday life and I’m a public health doctor and for me when you spoke about smoking, about alcohol as example, addiction, there is a tested model called the decremented model which talks about you pre-contemplate and then when you change behaviour, then you contemplate taking action and then you actually take the action but there is always a risk of relapsing, going back. And when you were talking about those four important ways to go through self-awareness, creative imagination and then in the end, after consciousness, how we have the determination, that’s when we are acting but it’s so easy to keep relapsing back to that state of negativity, to that state of reacting to other people’s actions.
How can we make it more a habit than work consciously on it? We try to resolve but sometimes we relapse. So how can we make the right action our habit instead of something which requires conscious work? There are two distinct aspects in this. Suppose say, on one side I have sugar candy and on the other side I have carrot and I’m hungry.
Now, I may tell you the healthy food is carrot, take that. And the tasty food is the sugar candy, enjoy it. So for us, at the first level, at least I have to understand that this carrot is healthy and this is, although this is maybe tasty, this is more healthy.
But what happens, the taste itself, this is much more tasty. So for us, we have, this is one choice, this is one choice. So often the lower choices appear to be the tastier choices.
And even if the higher choices are healthier, they require a lot of willpower to go through. But the process of Bhakti Yoga helps make the healthier choice also the tastier choice. How does that happen? It happens because we connect with Krishna.
Krishna is Sarva-Akarshiti Krishna. He is the all-attractive source of everything. So the Bhagavad Gita says in 10.41, you can sit.
Hello, we’ll stand. So the Bhagavad Gita says in 10.41 that yad yad vibhutim sattvam shrimadurjitamevava tattvadevabhagacchattvam mamatejo amshasambhava It says that whatever is attractive in this world, its attractiveness reflects a spark of Krishna’s super-attractiveness. That means that somebody looks very beautiful.
Something tastes very delicious. Something is very intellectually stimulating. Something is very adventurous.
All these things, they have their appeal. But their appeal is a reflection of God’s supreme appeal. So that’s how the people who look very good, they look good.
But that beauty, it’s temporary. It is there for a few years. After that, it goes.
But that beauty is meant to remind us of the supreme spiritual beauty. Some people are brilliant intelligent. But that intelligence is also there for a few years, few decades.
But afterwards, it’s no longer there. So everything attractive in this world, the bhakti, the Bhagavad Gita’s philosophy helps us to connect with their source. So when I see, okay, this is carrot and this is sugar candy.
This is what I have eaten. But I would prefer to eat this. And this is how, for us, initially, even the process of spiritual growth and self-improvement will appear.
I know I have to do it, but I know I have to do it, but it doesn’t, not so attractive. But as we infuse ourselves with a mood of devotion, as we purify ourselves by the practise of bhakti, our tastes themselves change. We start seeing that the healthier course of action is also the tastier course of action.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that param drstva nivartate. When we get the higher taste, when we can experience the higher happiness to be higher, then the struggle to give up the lower ceases. So, determination is the first step.
But determination plus devotion leads to purification. Determination means I feel like doing it, but I’ll do this. When I couple this with devotion, then purification means the taste itself changes.
I start liking this. So, basically, another example we could give for this is a floor. The floor is inclined in a particular way.
As soon as the water falls, it will flow in this direction. Now, I can push the water in that other direction, but it will require a lot of force. If I want the water to flow in that direction naturally, I have to reconstruct the floor so that it becomes inclined in that way.
So, the process of devotion, it is initially the process of redirection. Initially, we require willpower. I feel like doing this, but I will do this with determination.
But by doing this, by pushing the water in this direction, by pushing our thoughts and actions in the direction of Krishna and service to Krishna, the floor itself will get reconstructed. When the floor is reconstructed, then we go beyond relapse because we have already got a higher taste. The taste itself doesn’t remain.
So, without that, there is always a potential for relapse. In today’s world, there are so many temptations, it’s not the potential, it’s quite a probability of relapse. We need determination, but we also need purification.
That purification happens through devotion. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.