Why to become spiritual now

[Program for Intel employees, Phoenix, USA]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Can you repeat after me? Om Gyanatimirandhasya. Om Gyanatimirandhasya.
Gyananjanashalakaya. Gyananjanashalakaya. Jakshurunmilitamhena.
Jakshurunmilitamhena. Hare Krishna. Thank you for coming today evening.
This yoga studio where you come regularly. This is probably a design marvel to redesign a garage. It’s a beautiful place.
I’ve travelled all over the world. I’ve never seen anything like this. So you’re all fortunate that you have Ishwar Gaurang Prabhu and Shriji Vyas Mataji.
Jain Sapna Dayar. Dedicatedly practicing and creating some systems for sharing some spiritual knowledge. Opportunity for spiritual practices.
We’re going to talk on the topic of you’re bigger than your brain. I’ll talk about that briefly but before going into that I’ve travelled almost to all the continents in the world now. And there are people who are eager to practice spiritual life everywhere.
Even in I was in Mayapur which is our international headquarters. And there I met one person. He was from a far off European country.
And in that whole country it is a country of several million, not a very big country. He is the only person practicing bhakti. Even there are not many religious people in general over there.
It’s mostly a materialistic atheistic country. Christianity was there but it is in Europe Christianity is dying out quite rapidly. So I was also in the Middle East where there are many people who after they leave India feel the need for connecting with their roots.
And in some places like Bahrain there is a lot of freedom for practicing spiritual life. Because Bahrain is used by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to act like a poster boy for the Middle East. So see how we Muslims can also be so liberal.
And that’s the only place where we have a registered Hindu temple, ISKCON temple. Saudi Arabia is becoming a little more liberal in itself. Other places the devotees have to very secretly and privately practice their spiritual life.
In fact, in many places in the Islamic world people can practice their own religion at their home. But even having a gathering like this is a big risk. So even when we go there we can’t go in these clothes.
We go in civil clothes. And there after going there we sometimes change. Similarly, in USSR what was formerly USSR, Ukraine, Krishna Bhakti is spreading very rapidly.
Russia also a lot of devotees are practicing. But the what was originally the Catholic Church we know it divided into Protestantism and Catholicism in the 16th century. But before that in the first millennia itself the Catholic Church has split into the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church.
Russian Orthodox Church is very opposed to the Hare Krishnas. And because of that there have been devotees who have been arrested, dispossessed. Of course, the devotees have been tormented in the past when the Soviet rule was there, communism was there.
But even now devotees are sometimes they had a land and the land was taken away from them. So basically there is a lot of opposition to the practice of spiritual life in many parts of the world. And yet there is a lot of determination.
I met some devotees when I was in Mayapur. These devotees had come from Russia. And Russia, America is relatively a well-to-do country.
Russia is quite poor. So, I met this lady. She was around 70 years old.
And she started practicing Bhakti around 10 years ago. At the age of 60. And she said that she wanted to come to she heard about Vrindavan, about Mayapur.
And she said, at least once in my life I want to go there. She was not at all well-to-do. So, for getting enough money, for saving enough money to come for one trip to Vrindavan for one and a half years, she had been taking only one meal.
Saving the money which she was earning, whatever she had saved, whatever she was earning. And just some light stuff she was taking. And that’s how she had come.
And when I met and talked with her, I felt that I don’t have so much eagerness to go to Vrindavan as she has. So, when we start practicing or we start exploring life’s spiritual dimension, we see that we all are at different levels in our understanding and our inclination to practice spiritual life. So, the Vedanta Sutra is one of the most important books which gives in a concise way the understanding of the essence of spiritual wisdom.
And it begins with aphorism, Athato Brahma Jijnasa. Now, inquire about spiritual life. Sometimes people think about religion as being dealing with faith.
You have to believe in this, you have to believe in that, you have to believe in that. But the Vedanta Sutra says, no, we are not asking for belief, we are asking for questioning spirit. Ask questions.
What is the nature of reality? What is the ultimate reality? What actually counts in life? So, many of the Acharyas, like Ramanujacharya, Madhavacharya, they have written elaborate commentaries for this particular text, Athato Brahma Jijnasa. When is it that people get some spiritual inquiry, spiritual inquisitive spirit? And when is it that they don’t get that spiritual inquisitive spirit? So, do you know the story from the Puranas about the person who had a business and he retired from that business? This person had a grains business and when he had this business of selling grains, he grew up, his son had grown up now, his son was ready to take up the business but he was not ready to hand it over. Finally, his son thought that maybe I will arrange for my father to go to pilgrimage.
His father went to the pilgrimage and he came back, he did not come to the home at all, he came straight to the office to check whether the business was going on well or not. Then after that, he arranged for some spiritual Bhagwat Katha to be held at his home. His father heard that but as soon as it got over, again he was back in business.
And finally, he decided to take his father to a crematorium. Now, the point is not to be hard-hearted, the point is to be realistic. We all have to grow old one day, we all have to die one day.
His father was quite elderly. He took him to crematorium and as soon as his father saw the wood burning with the corpse on it, his face became twisted. He started crying, he said, Oh no, I have wasted my life.
So, when he said this, his son thought, oh, at least now some detachment has come. He said, Oh my dear son, I wasted my life. My whole life, I was simply doing some business of grains.
Now, if I had done the business of selling woods for crematoriums, my business would always have been up. So, the nature of the mind is that what it is attached to, it always stays attached to. And there are different visions of when and why we should practice spiritual life.
This particular story I talked about is, I talked about two different aspects. There are some people who with great opposition are still practicing spiritual life even today. And there are some people who despite getting a lot of spiritual stimulus, don’t get spiritually inclined.
So, one thing is when we grow old, we may think, I’ll become spiritually serious at that time. That is fine. But the way we have lived throughout our lives, that creates a momentum of the mind.
And that momentum is extremely difficult to change. If a car is just starting to move and then you see that, okay, somebody has come on the road in between. You can press a brake and get it to stop quickly.
But if the car is moving on the expressway at a very high speed and it has been moving at that high speed for a long time, then if you see suddenly somebody coming on the road, even if you press the brake, the car won’t stop immediately. The momentum keeps it moving on and on and on. So, similarly for us, we at our mental level acquire a momentum and that momentum keeps us moving in the direction which we have chosen and which we have cultivated.
So, our mind refuses to go in any other direction without much stimulation. The mind generally chooses the path of least resistance. The path of least resistance means that if we are moving in a particular direction, keeping moving in that direction seems an easy thing to do.
Now, spiritual life, practicing spiritual life is not just about changing direction. It is about adding a new dimension to our life. Generally, if you consider, the biggest challenge we all have in today’s world is probably time.
All of us are hard pressed for time. In 1920, there was a social critic who wrote that in 50 years, the biggest problem before humanity will be what to do with all their idle time. Because at that time, the age of mechanization was picking up.
And as this age was picking up, machines will do more and more of the work which we humans are doing. And once that happens, what will we humans do? So, now, machines are doing much much more work than what they were doing even 50 years ago. But still, we are busier than ever before.
So, time is something which is very mysterious. Time is taken by activities, but time is also taken much more by mentalities. The way our mind is set, the mind continues moving in that direction.
And we see that everybody know, how many people, say if I ask you in the last one week, how many people have you met who have said, I have a lot of time at my hands. I don’t know what to do with this time. You know, very few people have time at their hands and actually in one sense, being busy is also considered to be a sign of prestige.
So, busyness is also like an addiction. Wherein, the idea is that even if I am not busy, I have to look busy. So that people respect I am doing something important.
And in this way, of course, it’s not just that we look busy, our life also tends to be very busy. And so, very few people have spare time at their hands. And yet, if we see on one side, we are becoming busier and busier and busier.
But, one of the highest growing and the highest paying industries in today’s world is the entertainment industry. Entertainers be they movie stars, sports stars, they get paid much much more than any other professional. A surgeon who can heal a broken leg gets paid only a fraction of what a person who can kick a ball with that leg.
There is a North Indian female boxer who won gold medal at international level and a Bollywood movie was made about her. So now, the Bollywood actress who depicted that female boxer in that movie, by playing the role of that actress in that movie, she made more money than what the boxer made throughout her life. So, even with boxing, it’s a sport.
People watch it for entertainment. But even entertainment, when it is depicted through an entertainment medium, which is a movie, then it mints money. So now, where is the money which is being paid to these entertainers coming from? It is coming from people like all of us.
And why are we paying so much money for it? Entertainment has always been a part of human culture. But, the sheer magnitude of money invested in it, the sheer obsession with the entertainment that is there in today’s world, that is unprecedented. If you consider the IPL, which is going to start very soon, the amount of money that the cricketers get for just playing for 50-60 days, it runs into crores.
And it’s an amount that many people would dream of making in a whole lifetime. Why is it that people are ready to pay so much for entertainment? What we value reflects our values. If we are ready to pay so much for entertainment, it means that being entertained, we feel such a great need that we can’t live without it.
In fact, a group of teenagers was asked, what is your worst nightmare? So, they all said, some typical things were expected. If we lose our driving license, teenagers, youth basically, if we lose our driving license, if our love interest breaks up with us, if… So, one of the things which they said, somewhere I understand, one of the things they said was, no, one of our biggest nightmares is to be disconnected from the internet. And it’s not that they need it for work.
It’s just that I saw one video which showed that there were three young people on a hill station. Beautiful scenery. And they were all looking at their phones.
And on their phones, they were looking at scenery of a different kind. So, it was natural scenery only. But, what happens is, the scenery that we see with our eyes, and the scenery that we see, which is, say, digitally doctored, that real life stops seeming appealing enough when we get captivated more and more with the digital depictions of real life.
Or digitally doctored or exaggerated images of real life. I was at a college program. And people put different kind of shirts with different kind of things written on it.
So, this boy had written on his T-shirt that 90% of the world’s girls are beautiful. The remaining 10% are in my college. So, what he meant by that is that, I don’t know whether he knew what he meant by that also, but the point there is that when, how does somebody know how beautiful the girls of the world are? It is what is depicted in the images.
So, when we see TV, we see movies, we see all these good looking people, and then we look at real life and we feel, oh, people are not that good looking. So, when we go into the world of entertainment, the result is that we get such exaggerated sensory stimuli that as compared to those exaggerated sensory stimuli, the stimuli that we get in real life appear pale. They appear stale.
And, because we all want to be stimulated, we all want something exciting. And, this need for excitement, the more we fulfill it through entertainment, the less it can be fulfilled in real life. And, the more we find real life boring, the more we go towards entertainment.
And, the more we get stimulated by the hyper images, the hyper stimuli at the level of entertainment, the more we feel dissatisfied with real life. And, this becomes a vicious cycle where, for many people, real life is just an interlude between their digital life. They act in real life, do this, do this, so that I can get back to my digital life.
I can watch this movie, I can see this, I can see that, I can see that. Device addiction is a specific, significant but specific problem, but beyond that, the compulsion to be stimulated by artificial things is almost assuming manic proportions. Recently, I read a news in India that there’s this boy who was playing video games on his net, on his phone.
Mother told him, you got your exam, stop playing it. No, he’s can’t even play. Mother just grabbed it.
This boy got so angry, he took a chair and slammed it on his mother’s head. And, the mother died on the spot. All for what? For just not watching some, telling him to stop watching some video games.
So, now, the sense of perspective can get so distorted that for the sake of that entertainment can seem more important than real life relationships. And, not only more important, but one is ready to do anything to continue to be entertained. So, basically, we live at the physical level of reality.
And, the physical level of reality is never very stimulating. There is some pleasure, some pain. I surveyed a lot of people in the western world.
What are their emotional states? So, 5% of the time, people are happy. 5% of the time, they are distressed. And, 90% of the time, they are bored.
90% of the time, bored. So, the entertainment industry has also been called as the boredom industry. The more people are bored, the more people will want to be entertained.
And, so, this is the physical level of reality which more or less appears boring sooner or later. And, when it appears boring, in order to get relief from it, we go towards the world of entertainment. The digital world, the virtual world, in general, the fictional world.
Some people may watch or read novels. Some people may watch movies. Some people may play video games.
Some people may watch spectator sports, whatever. There are different ways in which we may be entertained. However, going in this direction doesn’t give any lasting satisfaction.
It is like a painkiller. I am bored with life. I get myself entertained so that I feel relief from the boredom.
But, after some time, the boredom comes back again. And, the nature of painkillers is that the more painkiller I take, the more painkiller I need. And, not just I need the same painkiller, I need painkiller of a greater dosage.
Because, the disease is still there and the disease has worsened, in fact. That’s why we see the entertainment is becoming more and more aggressive. More and more violent.
More and more explicit. More and more pervasive. And, yet, people are still bored.
They are agitated. They are bored. They are distressed.
So, actually speaking, the same longing for stimulation which we are fulfilling through the fictional world, that is what is meant to be fulfilled by rising to the spiritual level. So, the physical level of life is meant to be, is by nature, not very satisfying. And, the unsatisfying nature of physical reality is meant to prompt us to ask questions What? Where can we be satisfied? What is it that we need to be satisfied? And, that question is अथातो ब्रह्मजित्न्यास ब्रह्म means spiritual reality.
So, what is spiritual reality? Is there something beyond this world? Unfortunately, instead of going in that direction, when we find the physical level of reality unstimulating, unsatisfying, instead of going to the spiritual level, we are going more and more towards the fictional level. So, I started by talking about how we all seem to not have time. Although, technology is doing so much of the work that we had been doing earlier.
On one side, we seem not to have time. On the other side, we are paying more and more for entertainment. And obviously, we all have time for entertainment.
So, when we say we don’t have time for something, what it essentially means is that in our hierarchy of needs, there are other needs which are more important and which we think deserve our time much more than this particular thing. So, we have our jobs, we have our families, which all need our time. Along with that, we see entertainment as almost a vital need.
Again, there is nothing wrong in being entertained. It is primarily the excessive manic obsession with entertainment that is being seen in today’s world that makes it problematic. And this is actually a misdirection of our original longing for the spiritual level of reality.
So, at some level, we may conceive spiritual life as something which we explore after we have explored material life, after we have lived a good life. Then, in old age, we start exploring that. But, I said that the momentum that we acquire is very difficult to slow down.
The momentum of materialism, if we have lived throughout our life, we just can’t slow it down. No, it is not very easy. And, even in youth, we are seeing, where is the momentum going? The momentum is not just going towards more and more fulfilling of our material responsibilities or even fulfilling of our material ambitions.
It is more of, the momentum is going with many people towards just gratifying our need for stimulation by exposing ourselves to more and more aggressive forms of entertainment. The result of this is that our consciousness becomes increasingly deadened. It just becomes incapable of perceiving and experiencing reality.
Even material reality. What to speak of? Spiritual reality. The result is that we start feeling bored with life.
So, when people say, go to watch movies, most of the time, when we go, we take something to eat with us. Popcorns, our favorite. But, something like that we take to eat.
Why? Because everything is imaginary, something has to be real. Laughing Laughing Yeah, we are seeing this hero beating that one, this hero and heroine hugging each other. All that is, basically, how do we enjoy a movie? We enjoy by vicarious identification.
That means, we think, oh, if I was there, it would be so nice. If I was doing this, it would be so heroic. So, it’s imagination.
But our imagination doesn’t give us real satisfaction. So, some physical stimulation we need. So, we try to get something by munching on something.
So, basically, the imaginary level doesn’t satisfy. When it doesn’t satisfy, we either try to get more and more stimulation at the imaginary level in trying to get satisfaction or at the physical level we return again seeking stimulation over there. At the physical level, stimulation will never be enough to satisfy us.
So, for us, if this longing which we have for stimulation, for satisfaction that needs to be fulfilled, we have to reconceptualize what is truly important in our lives. What is it that really counts? We all, we have been coming for programs over here for some time. So, you all have some understanding of spiritual knowledge, some understanding of life’s spiritual side.
And, if we look at our own lives, there is there is a conceptual list of priority for us. This is number one, this is number two, this is number three, this is number four. And there is a practical list of priority for us.
That means, I may think, this is so important, this is so important, this is so important. But if I look at my life, there are many things which I give my time to, which are not that important. Because within us, there is the mind.
And the mind is restless like a child. A child may be studying a very important subject for an exam next day. By that time, the child sees a new toy, he just leaves the study and runs towards the toy and starts playing it.
The child doesn’t understand what is important and what is not important. Now, when we grow up physically, our mind to some extent remains childish. Bhagavad Gita says, the mind is childish.
And because the mind is childish, it does not have a proper sense of discernment, of understanding what is how important. Now, of course, our jobs, our family responsibilities, these, even we recognize this is important. If I don’t have a job, what position will I have? How will I eat? Where will I live? So, even if the mind doesn’t like it, it does it.
Our family responsibilities, if you are brought up in a culture where commitment is important, commitment is valued, relationship is taken seriously, then even if it requires some effort, even if we don’t feel it, we stick to it. So, what we may conceptually recognize as important, but what we practically relegate to do something later, that becomes our spiritual side. Our spiritual side, okay, yes, this is important, but I can do it later also.
And in this process, yes, I’ll do it later. And thinking like this, we get sidetracked by the mind. If we consider that we all have a finite life span, and we all hope to live a long fruitful life, and many of us will live that life, but the important thing is this life span, however long it is, it is finite.
And we all are on a multi-life journey of spiritual evolution. We are here in a particular situation for a particular amount of time. And in this journey which we are going through, material success, material influence, material happiness, this has its place.
But, it is by not by any means the most important thing. It is something which we need during this lifetime, we acquire during this lifetime, and even in this lifetime, this alone will not satisfy us. Sometimes, when we seek something very intensely and don’t get it, that disappoints us.
But actually, even more disorienting it is when we seek something and get it, and then find that it doesn’t satisfy. What am I to do next? What am I to do next in my life? So, if we recognize that our material life is as important, but it cannot be allowed to become all-important. Our spiritual growth is what will ultimately bring us satisfaction even in this life, or to speak of beyond it.
And that same satisfaction we are seeking and because of which we are going from the material level to the fictional level. Consider an example. Suppose a student goes to a place like a top institute say IIT in India or Ivy League University in America.
Bhagavatam says that we are souls on a multi-life journey of evolution and getting a human body is like getting into a top-notch university. labdhva sudurlabham bahusambhavante labdhva sudurlabham this is very difficult to get bahusambhavante, the soul goes through many many lifetimes. manushyam anityam arthadam apihadhiraha This human form of life is also anitya, it is temporary like all other forms of life.
A dog’s life is temporary, a tree’s life is temporary, similarly this life is also temporary. But the difference is arthadam. Arthadam means in this life we can get something meaningful.
What is that meaningful thing? All temporary bodies can give us temporary pleasures. But the human body is the only body although it is temporary it can give us eternal pleasure. The human life is the opportunity where the soul can seek beyond the temporary.
anityam arthadam apihadhiraha Therefore, hearer becomes sober, become reflective. turnam yathet napathet anamrtyuryavan turnam, immediately yathet endeavor napathet anamrtyuryavan, anytime this body may fall. So yathet, endeavor immediately, for what? nishre nishre yasa anakhalu nishre sarvatalsyat Seek your spiritual growth.
The material gratification is something which is available in all species. It is not that to be neglected, but by maximizing it, you are not going to get anything special. So I will give you the example of somebody, some student gets into a top-notch university, say an Ivy League in America.
And after getting there, the student feels that, oh, in this place where I am staying, the mess that is there, the food is not good over here. So, the student starts searching, where can I get good food? And then all the time in the university, they are spending simply looking for good food. Good food, food everybody is getting, good food can get in thousands of places.
But if somebody has got into a top university, there someone can get much better than good food. There one can get a great education, with which one can have a great career. Now food is not to be neglected.
Food is important, it is a vital necessity. And if food tastes good, that is great. But, the purpose of being in a university is not to be searching for good food.
The purpose of university is to grow in one’s career, to learn the subjects that are being taught over there. So, similarly, in the human form of life that we have currently, this is like being in a top-notch level, top-notch university. And here we have the opportunity for spiritual growth.
We all have our material needs, and they all are important. But, we can’t afford to lose our sense of perspective. To the extent we recognize what is how important.
The bodily needs, our material ambitions, they need to be taken care of. But the nature of life is such that, no matter how much we get these things, they are not going to satisfy us. I conclude with one reflection that we often think that there are certain things in my life which I don’t have.
And if I have those, I will become happy. If I get a good house, if I get a good spouse, if I get a good job, if I get this promotion. And there are all things, these are important in the sense that they are goals which can drive us forward in our life.
At the same time, even if we get these things, there will always be things which we don’t have. Isn’t it? Right now we are seeing, ok, I don’t have this, I don’t have this, I don’t have this. So, I am not happy in my life.
If I get this, I will become happy. If I get this, I will become happy. Yes, there are things which are important and we can strive to get them.
But, even if we get them, still, there will be some things which we don’t have. Even if I get a house, somebody else may have a bigger house than mine. Even if I get to a big post, somebody will have a bigger post than mine.
So, always we will be in a situation where there are some things which we have and there are some things which we don’t have. Now, the things that we don’t have, we can have ambition to get them. But, if looking at the things we don’t have is going to cause us dissatisfaction, then the dissatisfaction is something which will stay lifelong with us.
Not just lifelong, it will go on life after life. काममाशुत्ति दुष्पूरम् दंभमानमदान्मिता मोहाद् गृहित्वासद्ग्राहान् प्रवर्तन्ते अशुचीवतः Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, 16th chapter, 10th verse, that if somebody starts taking shelter of their desires, thinking that the fulfillment of their desires will make me happy, then that person will get more and more entangled. मोहाद् गृहित्वासद्ग्राहान् That person is an illusion accepting something which is illusory.
So, we all will experience dissatisfaction at times. Because no matter how much we have, things which we will not have and things which we will have. So, we will all feel negative at times.
But if we just give in to our desires and start let me fulfill this, let me fulfill this, let me fulfill this, in the quest for pleasure, then we will get more and more deluded. Suppose, somebody is walking along a road and a thief comes to catch them. A thief comes to rob them.
This person starts running, running from the thief and the thief is running behind them. And then they see somebody on the side of the road Please help me, please help me. Yeah, come, we’ll help you.
And that person says Okay, I have my car, please come inside the car. We’ll escape from the thief. And that person gets into the car, escapes, and as soon as this person enters into the car, the two other people take a gun.
And it turns out these people are kidnappers. The thief would have stolen what is in your pocket. The kidnapper will take what is in your bank account.
Isn’t it? So, if you are troubled by thieves, taking shelter of a kidnapper is no shelter at all. It is actually Dukkha ushedam tadapi dukkham. It is a solution that is worse than the problem.
Similarly, we all will face different dissatisfaction in life, different distresses. And these distresses are like thieves coming to rob us of our happiness. But in trying to become free from those distresses, we succumb to more desires.
If I do this, if I get this, I’ll become happy. If I do this, I’ll become happy. At a gross level, we can see that somebody has some problems in their life and they start taking alcohol or drugs.
There we can see that actually this problem was smaller, but by seeking relief in that indulgence, in that desire, they have created a bigger problem for themselves. But the same principle applies to whatever becomes our obsession in life. We all face problems and the way out of problems is not just by seeking shelter in something material, but it is by raising our consciousness to the spiritual level.
So the dissatisfaction that we face when we say, oh, I don’t have this life, I don’t have this, I don’t have this. The world shows there are so many things which are there which we don’t have. And by seeing this, we feel dissatisfied and then we just start giving in to our desires, trying by hook or by crook to get things.
But that only, that’s like escaping from thieves into the hands of kidnappers. We just get so entangled by that. Satisfaction is not just an emotion we feel.
Satisfaction is also a decision we make. Sometimes I say, I feel satisfied, but I don’t feel satisfied. In the Bhagavad Gita, the 17th chapter, verses 14, 15 and 16, Krishna talks about austerity, tapasya, of the body, of the tongue, of speech and of the mind.
And in austerity of the mind, the first thing he says is, Austerity of the mind. First austerity is manah prasada, satisfaction of the mind. So Krishna says, satisfaction of the mind is in austerity.
Normally, austerity means what? Something that is difficult to do, but we do it voluntarily. Say, some holy day is there, we want to fast. That’s austerity.
Nowadays, the word austerity is used more in economic sense. The government puts austerity measures. You have to pay more taxes or you have to get less facilities.
It’s austerity measures. Here Krishna is saying, satisfaction in an austerity. What that means is that we need to cultivate satisfaction.
And how do we cultivate it? We make it a habit to look at the things we have and stop looking at all the things we don’t have. If we are habituated looking at the things we don’t have, then no matter how many things we get, even after we get those things, our mind will keep looking at the things we don’t have. And it will keep us satisfied.
The point is not to give up our ambition, but the point is to change our disposition. Our ambition is fine. That’s what has to grow in our life.
But if we think that by getting this or getting that I will become happy. What are we doing? We are looking at the things we don’t have and thinking those things will make us happy. But by keeping looking at the things we don’t have, we create the mental habit, the disposition of looking at the things we don’t have.
And even if we get after a particular thing, even after we get a particular thing, still that disposition keeps looking at the things we don’t have. And thus we stay perpetually dissatisfied. So when we cultivate satisfaction as a decision, don’t wait for satisfaction to come upon us as emotion, by consciously looking at the things we have, then we start breaking free from this momentum which otherwise drags us deeper and deeper.
We think of working more and more at the material level to improve our situation, but this is so agitating, unfulfilling, boring that in coping with that we go more and more into the fictional level. And then in that fictional level we get so much stimulation that here we don’t feel it entertaining again. We again go deeper.
And in this way, these two things just trap us. But if we focus on our spiritual growth, making it a new priority, then we will find that even as we connect with Krishna through the practice of bhakti, we get spiritual stimulation. And that may not seem as stimulating initially as, say, sensory stimulation or the stimulation through entertainment.
But this stimulation satisfies at a deeper level. It pacifies at a deeper level. And as we connect with Krishna through the practice of bhakti, we start experiencing not only spiritual satisfaction, but the purification of the mind that happens that helps us to be satisfied, to change our habits of the mind so that we can look at what we have and be satisfied.
This doesn’t mean that our drive or ambition will go away. That will still be there. But we will not be driven by dissatisfaction.
I don’t have this, so I want it. We will be driven by a mood of contribution. I have been given some talents, I want to use them properly.
But I have a whole life. In my life’s broad perspective, this is this important and this will get this much time. This is this important, this will get this much time.
When we are driven by dissatisfaction, then that drive leads to obsession. Because we feel as long as I don’t have this, I just can’t be happy. Therefore, at all costs, I have to get it.
But when there is a core foundation of satisfaction, then our ambition is driven from a stable foundation. That ambition will be for contribution. I have some meaning, some purpose in my life.
I have some talents. I want to make a difference in my own way. But that is not coming from a platform of insecurity.
So, we can work in a balanced way. Developing all dimensions of our life. Thank you very much.
I’ll summarize. And if you have any comments or questions, you can talk. So, I talked today about how how does the spiritual drive arise in people? And what is the importance of the spiritual drive? So, I started by talking about how in different parts of the world, there are people who have practically no facilities for practicing spiritual life.
Say, there is the government that is opposing. Or there is the whole culture which is atheistic. Or there are people who are poverty stricken.
In order to come to a holy place like Vrindavan, they have to stop stop eating food to save money. So, still people have such enormous spiritual drives. Where does it come from? So, the Vedanta Sutra says that Brahma Jijnasa, spiritual inquiry is the defining characteristic of human life.
The spiritual inquisitiveness, it doesn’t come naturally simply by the advancement of age. I talked about this. Grains business person who lamented in old age that I did not have a business of food.
Otherwise, I would have made so much money by selling wood to the crematoriums. So, here we see that the mind, the way we live, the way we desire, we cultivate, they create a momentum. And that momentum is very difficult to stop once it picks up.
So, why do we in today’s world at all feel the need for spiritual life? Because spiritual life is going to fulfill our need for deep and fulfilling stimulation. We talked about the paradox. At one level, it was promised that technology will make our life easier, do most of our work, and then we’ll have more time.
But, despite technology doing much of our work, our time is never available to us. We’re working more and more. And why are we working so much? At one level, it is because we have made entertainment into such a fundamental need, almost an obsession, that entertainment has become outrageously expensive.
On one side, we feel I need the entertainment. On other side, entertainers are paid obscene amounts. So, what happens? At the physical level, when life is either boring or un-stimulating or distressing, to escape from that, we go towards entertainment.
And then entertainment becomes like a painkiller which we need more and more and more. And then we can lose perspective like a boy killing his mother just because she took a video game away from him. That’s an extreme example, but the principle remains that entertainment, when it becomes an obsession, it can just distort our priorities completely.
So, what we value reflects our values. So, life at the sensory level becomes, at the physical level, becomes more and more boring because we get hyper-stimulated by the entertainment. And because life at the physical level seems boring, we feel the need for the entertainment more and more.
Thus, it becomes a vicious cycle. And actually, our need for stimulation points to our spiritual side. That is where the soul and the super-soul, when they are connected in a bond of bhakti, they experience supremely satisfying stimulation.
Now, to move towards the spiritual dimension, what do we need? We need to give time. Now, when we say we don’t have time, that simply means in our hierarchy of needs, that particular activity doesn’t figure up as that important. So, we have a conceptual hierarchy of priorities, and we have actual hierarchy of priorities.
And often there is a difference between the two because our mind is restless. It’s like a child which doesn’t discern what is important, what is not important. And the things which we are obliged to do, say like our career, like our job, or like our family responsibilities, we do.
But things which we don’t feel obliged to do, we just put them on the back burner. But putting them on the back burner and pursuing only material needs is like being in an Ivy League college and looking only for food. The human form for the soul is a precious opportunity for spiritual education, elevation and liberation.
And to waste it in seeking the material things that are available in all species that is a tragic underutilization of human potential. And this doesn’t mean that we don’t pay attention to our material side. We talked about how satisfaction is not just an emotion we feel, it’s a decision we make by choosing to look at what we have not at what we don’t have.
If we keep looking at the things which we don’t have, right now we feel I don’t have this, I don’t have this, I don’t have this. Once I get these things, then I’ll become peaceful, then I’ll be satisfied and then I can practice my spiritual life. But once we keep looking at the things we don’t have, that is going to become a disposition of the mind.
And no matter how much we have, the mind will keep looking at what we don’t have and will keep us dissatisfied. So we need to cultivate the habit of looking at what we have. And that will give us satisfaction.
And further, when we give time for our devotion and connect with Krishna, that will give us spiritual satisfaction also. Now, being satisfied doesn’t mean being unambitious. Our ambition, when it is driven by dissatisfaction, then that ambition becomes an obsession, which throws all other aspects of our life into disarray.
Because we feel our whole sense of self-identity and self-worth depends on that. But when we have a foundation of satisfaction, then our ambition is driven by the mood of contribution. Then we can have a balanced perspective, do our best in our particular vocations, but not lose track of other priorities in life.
Because when we are satisfied by habitually looking at what we have, and we are satisfied by connection with Krishna through bhakti, then we can be satisfied. We can be satisfied even in this life, what to speak of the next. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So, are there any comments or questions? Yes. Thank you so much for this very stimulating lecture.
So, my question is you said that one needs to be satisfied, one needs to make a decision to be satisfied. It’s not an emotion, but it’s a conscious decision. It is not just an emotion.
It is also a decision. So, where is that line we have, you know, how do I, you know, where do I make the decision, okay, now here is my level of satisfaction, very great. So, how do we decide what to be satisfied with, when do we make the decision of being satisfied? In general, it is purpose that provides perspective.
For example, if I have to go shopping for some new clothes. Now, yes, I need to get some new clothes which look good, but I can go to a clothes mart, I can spend 24 hours over there looking for a new dress. Sometimes people can spend months looking for a good dress.
Now, it depends on for what occasion is it. So, if my purpose is clear, okay, now this is say somebody is getting married. At that time, they would like to have very attractive clothes.
Spending some time at that time is okay, but if I am just not just a new set of clothes I want to wear. For that, I am spending one month searching for it. So, that will be a waste of time.
So, purpose provides perspective. If my life doesn’t have a clear purpose, then I won’t have a perspective. What to spend how much time on? Similarly, when we say that we should be satisfied in our material life, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to stop our material life, but it is more in terms of we see that my overall life has this, this, this purpose.
And within this purpose, this is worth this much time. So, for example, if I decide that in my profession, I want to grow. It’s not that when we decide I am satisfied, that means I stop working in my profession.
It may just mean that I have other things in my life also. So, this I will do for this many hours. And in this many hours, whatever I can do, that’s good enough.
Any activity we can do, we can do till it occupies 24 hours of our day. But our life is not just our work. Our life is not just the money that we earn.
That’s important, but that’s one aspect of our life. So, if we have a clear sense of purpose, and that sense of purpose comes by regular study of scripture. Because it’s not that one day I set a purpose, and it will stay with us forever.
Some devices, if you want a temperature in your house, you set it at this level, and that’s the temperature it will stay. So, these devices are set and forget. They’ll stay like that.
But our life’s purpose is not like that. We set the purpose, and then we forget the purpose. So, it works the opposite way.
In the sense that we set the purpose based on understanding really what is important in life, how our priorities should be. But this comes in, that comes in, that comes in, and then we forget our actual priorities, and then whatever comes in, whatever grabs our attention, we go away with that. So, that’s why repeated either study of scripture or association with people who are discussing scripture, that helps us, that reminds us of our purpose.
And based on that purpose, we can decide, we get a perspective of what to give how much time. So, there is no one level which is enough forever. It’s like food.
We all eat different quantities of food. But how much we should eat, that is up to us. Krishna says, Vishwa Upanishad says that if we all have our kota, how do we know our kota? Basically, it’s like how do we know our food? If we eat too little, if we eat too much.
In 6.16 Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that one who eats too much or one who eats too little, such a person cannot become a yogi. Similarly, one who sleeps too much or one who sleeps too little cannot become a yogi. So, Krishna is talking about balance over there.
Just as by experience, by observation, we understand, now maybe I’m eating too much, maybe I’m eating too little. So, it’s a balance that we learn through experience, through intelligence and through experience. Similarly, with respect to deciding what to be satisfied with, that is not necessarily like one line in terms of okay, that’s enough.
It’s more a line that we repeatedly learn where to set based on intelligence and experience. But if we have a broad purpose, that will give us the perspective to decide this. So, when we recognize that satisfaction, in today’s world, satisfaction is sometimes seen as negative.
Because if you’re satisfied, you no longer have the drive to achieve, you no longer have ambition. But that is not what we’re talking about. It’s not that we’re saying that don’t look at what we don’t have.
What I’m saying is where does our steady vision stay? Where does our sense of identity come from? If my steady vision is always staying at what I don’t have, then my sense of identity will be that oh, I’m always inadequate, I’m always unsatisfied. So, in the mode of goodness, in sattva guna, also one can work hard. In the mode of passion, also one can work hard.
But, in the mode of passion, in dvaja guna, one will always be haunted by the scarcity mentality. lobha pravrttir aarambha karmanam asyamaspravah Krishna says, in the mode of passion, the characteristic is lobha. I don’t have this, I don’t have this, I don’t have this.
karmanam asyamaspravah insatiable desire. So, no matter how much we have, we will feel I don’t have enough. The scarcity mentality will be there.
The constant dissatisfaction will be there. rajasastu phalam dukkham. Krishna says, the mode of passion leads to dissatisfaction.
Whereas, in the mode of goodness, also we can work very hard. We will look, okay, this is what I don’t have, this is what I have. I want to get it.
I want to work to get it. But, that doesn’t mean that is what I’m constantly thinking of, and thinking about that is constantly keeping me dissatisfied. I am grateful for what I have.
There is abundance mentality. Yes, I have enough. But, I would like to do more.
I would like to contribute more. I would like to get more. But, that’s not where our self-identity is based.
So, by getting, by studying scripture regularly to remind ourselves of our purpose, and then through intelligence and experience, we can decide how do we cultivate satisfaction and decision in our lives. Any other questions or comments? Regarding the same concept, what I understand that the problem is this understanding that if I don’t have this, until I don’t have this, I’ll be unhappy. That understanding is a problem.
But, I’m just repeating what I understand, so that you can correct if I’m wrong. And, so basically, if we see what I don’t have, just from that perspective, if I can get, I can contribute more, I can help more. But, whatever I have, I’m also satisfied with that, even if I don’t get anything else also.
Okay, yeah. So, when we’re talking about cultivating satisfaction as a emotion, as a decision, that means we’ll try for more, but we don’t depend on that more. Yeah, that’s true.
It is, I’ll give two examples to illustrate this. Suppose, I go to someone, I go to a hotel to eat food. At that time, till I get the food, I’m hungry.
I need the food, I need the food, I need the food. I’m agitated. But, suppose, I go to some slum or somewhere where I’m going to deliver food.
There also, I have some intention. I have some expectation. I want to go and give this food.
But, I’m driven not so much by getting, but by giving. In giving also, I’ll get. That is there.
But, one, the going to somewhere to get food, that is driven by a sense of emptiness. When I’m going somewhere to distribute food, there also I expect some reciprocation. But, I’m driven not by emptiness.
I have fullness. I have so much that I want to share with others. So, when we talk about contribution versus ambition that is driven by contribution, what that means is that we understand that I’m a spiritual being who is a part of God.
And, God has arranged for me to be in a particular position. Has given me certain abilities. And, even as I am right now, I’m secure in my relationship with God.
Krishna loves me. Krishna is present in my heart. And, I have an eternal relationship with Him.
So, there is that security which I have. But, along with that, whatever abilities I have been given, I want to use them in a constructive way. So, it is pavurusham drishyam.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, I am ability in people. So, jaya usmi vavasa aya usmi. Krishna says, I am adventure.
I am victory. So, the thrill of seeking something fresh, of achieving something, Krishna says, that thrill that we experience, that is also an experience of Krishna. But, there is no existential insecurity in me.
I am secure in my relationship with Krishna. But, I would like to make a greater contribution. Therefore, I will work hard.
But, it is not that. When I have a materialistic self-conception, then as long as I am not materially influential, I think basically I am a non-entity. If I don’t, if I think that my self-worth is determined by my net worth, then, if my net worth is nothing significant, then I feel I have no self-worth at all.
So, in the materialistic conception of life, our sense of self-identity and self-worth gets tied to our possessing or not possessing something. And that causes enormous insecurity. But, in the spiritual self-understanding, our security comes from our relationship with Krishna.
But, in that relationship, as an expression of our devotion, as an expression of our willing desire to contribute, we work hard. But, not without insecurity. But, without insecurity.
So, shall we stop? Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Prabhu, for visiting us. And we are so fortunate to have you here.
I think most of you already know Prabhuji. Hardly, maybe one or two persons who are visiting first time. So, I just might want for my