When life doesn’t seem fair three reflections for self-empowerment

[Youth meeting at ISKCON, Toronto, Canada]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Shrimad Bhagavad Gita ki, Shrimad Prabhupada ki, Gaur Bhakta Vrinda ki, Vitthai Gaur Pramanand.
Hare Krishna. So thank you very much for coming today afternoon. And this topic, when life doesn’t seem fair, it is a subject where philosophy very closely intersects daily life.
Some subjects, the existence of soul, existence of God, they may or may not seem so relevant for us. I have a relative who says that, you know, I believe God exists. He is happy there, I am happy here.
So there’s no need for me to get involved with God. So often some aspects of philosophy, I was at an interfaith meeting in Washington, D.C. And there one of the Christian pastors, he has written a book, you know, why God exists and why it matters. So often such things, philosophical ideas, we feel they don’t matter to me.
How do they matter? Maybe He exists, maybe He doesn’t exist. But life’s nature, it does matter to us. We, because if life doesn’t turn out to be fair, then that hurts us immediately, that affects us in a very immediate, disworldly sense.
So I was at a university, and this boy, I had come for the program, and he said that, you know, I used to believe in my God in my childhood, but now I have stopped believing in Him. I said, what happened? He said that, you know, life is so unfair, that how can there be a God who allows such unfair things to happen? I always tried to be a good person, and this happened to me, that happened to me. So I said, I heard him out, as empathetically as I could, and then I said, yes, that when life turns out to be unfair, it is very difficult for us.
We may study very hard for an exam, and then somehow we don’t get the marks, or we work very hard to crack an interview for a job, and somebody who is not as qualified as we are, somehow by some contact or some fluke, they get the job, and we don’t get the job. How many of you have felt at times that life treated you unfairly? It’s almost universal. Isn’t it? So, it just, we all experience it.
Now I told him, yes, it’s very difficult to accept it, but let’s turn the question around, and ask the question, why should life be fair? Why should life be fair? Why? We say, oh, why do bad things happen to good people? Why should good things happen to good people? What do you mean? If I do good, I should get good, isn’t it? Okay, but why? What is the reason why life should be orderly and reciprocate with the way we act? What is the reason for any, the presumption that order be there? We all assume that there is, when we function in the world, we cannot function without a basic presumption of a cause-effect correlation. If you go back to your room and say you have a friend who comes to visit you, and that friend has got a swollen eye, what happened? No, nothing happened. What do you mean? Something must have happened.
The swollen eye is an effect. It must have a cause. So basically, whatever happens, we presume there is a cause-effect correlation, and based on that cause-effect correlation, we function in the world.
So when we see an effect, we want to know what is the cause for that effect, and when we ourselves become a cause for something, we expect the desired effect to come, and when this doesn’t happen, it can be very disorienting. But the point here is we presume a cause-effect correlation, and why do we presume it? If you consider, many people sometimes feel that, oh, I’m scientific, so I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in all this spiritual stuff. It is all unscientific.
While that notion may be there, but if you look at science itself, science functions on a foundational faith. Science and faith are opposites, but science functions on a foundational faith, and what is that faith? That there is an order in nature. When Newton saw the fruit falling, I was just a couple of years ago in Cambridge, and I went to speak there on this topic of science and spirituality, I was invited there in Cambridge.
So there, while going by, we passed the tree. It is purported to have been the same tree where Newton saw the fruit falling, under which. Now, that tree is like a pilgrimage place for scientists, for aspiring scientists.
They want to go and get inspiration for their scientific creativity. Now, when Newton saw the fruit falling, at that time, he inferred from that, oh, there must be, what made this fruit fall? Now, his brilliance in postulating the theory of gravity is appreciated. At the same time, the question itself, what made this fruit fall, implies that things don’t happen by chance, that there is a cause, and he assumed that.
So, if there were no cause-effect correlation in nature, science itself would not function. And all of our scientific progress and our technological advancement happen because we presume that science has a correlation of cause and effect. Einstein is attributed to have said that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.
What does that mean? The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. That simply means that if we consider the universe and everything within it is a product of unguided natural forces, then one set of forces produce the world out there, another set of forces produce the brain in here. So, why should the world out there be orderly? Why should the brain here be capable of discerning the order? And why should the two be such that the brain can perceive the exact kind of order that is present in nature? Eugene Wigner, the Nobel laureate scientist, and he wrote a paper, a celebrated paper on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the study of the natural world, in natural sciences.
He says mathematics, especially advanced mathematical concepts such as say triple integral calculus or imaginary numbers, now all these are basically human conceptual constructs. Now, why should constructs of the human mind correlate with the way how nature functions? You see, there is a fierce storm and we are caught in that storm and that storm just sweeps us away. And we are in an ocean, we are in a boat and the boat is swept wildly away and in that process we lose our compass, we lose our bearings, we lost our phone and at that time a log sweeps by us while we are somehow holding on to the boat and on that log are written some directions and those directions are written in a language that we can understand.
So now, how did that storm bring us there? How did that storm bring the log there? And why did that log have the directions that we need to know written in a language that we can understand? Similarly, if by unguided natural forces our brain has been produced by some explosion or whatever, by unguided natural forces the world out there has been produced, then why should the world out there function in a way that our human brains can comprehend? So, science begins with an act of faith that there is order out there and let us pursue that order. Now, Newton himself believed in God and he considered his scientific discoveries as spiritual insights into the way God fashioned the world. He said, oh father, I think thy thoughts after thee.
I think thy thoughts after thee. Now, as science progressed, gradually the result was that science started becoming more and more sophisticated in terms of understanding the behavior of natural phenomena better and then by the 20th, start of the 20th century, 1895 at that time, early start of the 20th century, Lord Kelvin is reputed to have said that the biggest problem for future generation of physicists is going to be unemployment. He said, because we have understood the full physical world now.
For then they will have nothing to do except fill in some details. But at that time, sometimes the sky appears to be very clear, but there is one tiny dark cloud in the, dark cloud in the distance and that dark cloud turns out to be like a fierce hurricane. So, at that time there is one dark cloud was black body radiation.
This could make sense of that. And similarly, another was distant objects, their motion, very, very far objects, very, very large objects, their motion, they are not able to make sense with Newton’s law of gravity. So, Newton’s laws of motion we see, not just gravity.
So, Newton’s findings became the bedrock of what was called as classical physics. But, by the time, the scientists tried to explain these two things, the black body radiation and cosmic objects motion, just couldn’t explain classical physics. Now, when they couldn’t explain, they didn’t give up the idea that there is no explanation.
They tried to find out some other theories. And those theories which they found out, those theories were for quantum physics, for explaining subatomic particles behavior and relativity for explaining for a cosmic body moving near the speed of light. Now, this whole subject is very technical and I am trying to explain as simple and non-technical way as possible.
So, it will just outline. The point here is that for our discussion, that when science encountered something which did not make sense, they did not give up the idea that there must be some order. They thought that the order that we know, the basis of the order, the Newtonian physics that we know, that does not do work to make sense of this, then there must be some other order.
There is a faith in the principle of order. If it is not this order, then there must be some deeper order. And now at present, Newtonian physics is considered to be a subset of the more inclusive branches of physics, relativity or quantum physics.
But significantly, both quantum physics and relativity are at present in many ways violently contradictory. In the sense that quantum physics considers that it is primarily waves that exist. And when we observe the waves, the wave function collapses and that is how we see objects.
But the actual particles do exist. So, these two are very different conceptual models. And how to integrate the two, that is something which even the best scientific brains have struggled and have almost given up.
Stephen Hawking, who passed away a few months ago, now he said that after many years, many decades of trying to find what is called a grand unified theory. You know, he said in one public announcement that I am happy to announce that humanity’s quest for knowledge will never end. What that means is that we do not know.
And we will never know. It is the admission of ignorance. So, the point is that again, that there are these two models.
So, we can make sense of some part of the world using this model, quantum physics. We can make sense of some part of the world using relativity. We cannot make sense of both.
We cannot make sense of everything using either model. And how to bring these two models together, we do not know. But what do scientists do? They adopt a functional approach.
Whichever model works, adopt it and move forward in life. So, when science finds that things do not make sense, then they are ready to look for some other theory that makes sense. And then even if the theory does not make complete sense, as much sense that they can make with it, they use it and move on.
A similar pragmatic approach is what we also need in our lives. We do normally see a causative correlation. If I eat healthy, I stay healthy.
If I eat junk food, then I fall sick. It is a normal correlation that we see. But sometimes, this correlation will not be seen.
Some people, they just eat. Some people, just little imbalance in their diet and their health gets spoiled. Their body is too sensitive, too vulnerable.
Some people, they treat their tongue like a conveyor belt. They just tunnel down anything and everything. But nothing happens to them.
So now, why is that? I was at an interfaith conference in India, a science and spirituality conference. There was this guru who had come. And he said that, it was his reasoning, which I found it hilarious at that time.
He said that, actually, everything is a play of the mind. If your mind is strong, nothing will have any effect on you. I said, look at me.
He said, I have been smoking and drinking every day. He is a guru with disciples. And he is smoking and drinking every day for the last 30 years.
I have no heart problem, no liver problem, perfect health. Why? Because my mind is strong. If you make your mind strong, nothing will have any effect on you.
So he gave this talk. And about two weeks later, he got a heart attack and died. So now, yes, normally if somebody smokes, drinks, they get a liver problem, lung problem.
But sometimes, it may happen that some people just smoke a little bit and they just start coughing so much, they get so many issues. They can’t bear it. Some people keep smoking, nothing seems to happen to them.
So we see, normally, a cause-effect correlation. There are no cause-effect correlation, then no medicine would work. Isn’t it? But sometimes, the cause-effect correlation doesn’t work.
So similarly, when life doesn’t seem to seem fair, that means the cause doesn’t produce the expected result, then at that time, just a scientist, look, is there some bigger theory? Is there some deeper theory which will make sense of these things? We’re open to that. So this is where the theory of karma needs to be coupled with the theory of reincarnation. Karma means simply action-reaction correlation.
A cause-effect, what we call in science, in the interactions involving consciousness, there are conscious beings with free will, at that time we call it karma. So now, our present actions, the results come not just because of our present actions, the results are also determined by our past actions. If we want to look from this life’s perspective, it is not that life seems unfair.
Life is unfair. It’s not a matter of perception. It’s a matter of reality.
We see, if we look at the world, people’s career, people’s success, it is shaped by a few factors. One is how they look, appearance. Now some people are born with great looks, and some people are born with mediocre looks.
This is just the way it is. It makes a big difference in life in many ways, but that is the way it is. So, in different cultures, some complexions are considered attractive, some color complexions are considered not attractive.
Now, again that affects people’s perception of other people, but that is the way it is. It’s not just the appearance. We can also consider our intelligence or memory power.
Some people just have outstanding memories. Some people have outstandingly poor memories. There is a particular kind of goldfish, its memory lasts a few seconds.
So, it nibbles from a particular, nibbles from some grass, nibbles from the underwater vegetation, and then after sometime it looks like, oh, this is new. It again tries to nibble on that. So, that’s the way it is.
So, now our memory, our IQ, it does affect us throughout our life. And it’s different for different people. Some people just are gifted.
So, similarly, the family in which we are born, some people are just born with so much wealth. They are born with a golden spoon, as they say. Some people are born in poverty.
So, in today’s world, we may say, some people may think that, oh, if I was born in India, it’s not so good. If I was born in America or a first world country, it would be so much better. So, now if we consider life, if we look at it from this world’s perspective, it doesn’t just seem unfair, it is unfair.
But then, although there is this huge, huge starting point of unfairness with which we start, but still we expect life to be fair during the course. And this expectation is reasonably fulfilled. It is sometimes frustrated.
Normally, when we eat good food, we get energy. Sometimes we eat food and sometimes we just don’t get energy. Or that same food may have some effect on us.
We get food poisoning or digestive problems. So, at one level, we presume and we also see cause-effect correlation in life. At another level, we also accept that there doesn’t seem to be any cause-effect correlation.
As I said, starting point of life itself, there is unfairness. Now, because that unfairness seems unchangeable, we just resign to it. This is the way I am.
This is the best I can make of it. So, we just accept that and move on. But during the course of life also, sometimes we get unfair situations.
So, now, basically, if we consider the situation that we see some amount of fairness and order in life and we see some amount of unfairness and disorder in life. So, how do we make sense of this? So, for this, we need to look at a bigger picture. So, if we consider reincarnation, that means that what all I am getting in this life is determined not just by what I have done in this life but also what I have done in the previous life.
So, this is the set in which I am looking for cause-effect correlation and many times I find a cause-effect correlation within this set. The set is this lifetime. But when I can’t find the cause-effect correlation in this set, then I have to expand my picture.
Expand my picture and look at the bigger picture. What’s happening? Say, a group of players. In India, street cricket is quite common.
In schools, children or some young people, they play cricket on the streets. And all of them may have some mediocre level of skill. And they bowl, they bat, they field.
And say, suddenly, as they are playing the ball, they have their own group of players, and suddenly the ball comes charging in at much bigger speed than what any of them can bowl. Look, who is, where is this coming from? And there might be an international player who is passing by and he throws the ball. So, this is the normal set of which they are playing.
But something outside of that set might be much more powerful. So, for them, you bowl like this, the ball goes over here, you hit the ball, this is a good shot, that is a good shot. But that is completely out of their scale only.
Somebody, an international player might play. So, basically, if things don’t make sense within one set, then we need to have a bigger set. Expand the scope of our vision.
Francis Bacon said that reality should not be reduced so that it fits into our thinking. Our thinking needs to be expanded so that it can accommodate reality. So, when we say life is not fair, that means what we are doing? We are looking at our observation and say, this doesn’t make sense.
But maybe I need to expand my scope of perception. And that is what the Bhagavad Gita’s explanation of karma and reincarnation does. So, we, the Bhagavad Gita says, are souls who are on a multi-life journey of spiritual evolution.
And in this multi-life journey, we get results of different actions at different times. So, each action is like a seed. So, different seeds grow after different time durations.
And similarly, different actions produce results after different time durations. So, when at present we do something and life doesn’t seem fair, so at that time we need to understand that something else is going on. The results here are determined not just by my actions alone.
So, today in the evening, I am going to speak elaborately, not elaborately, but I am going to speak in the Sunday feast class on the topic of destiny. I won’t go into detail about that. Today I am going to speak on the topic of are we the makers of our destiny.
But I will just mention some points from there. If you want to understand how results happen in this world, how things work, we can consider that there is a simple equation. Karma plus daiva plus kala leads to phala.
Karma is the work that we do right now. Daiva is destiny. Kala is time.
So, two examples. If a farmer ploughs the land, sows the seed. That is the karma.
After that rains have to come at the right time and right quantity. That is daiva. After that the season has to change till the harvesting season comes.
And then the farmer will get the crops. So, karma, daiva and kala together produce the phala. Similarly, say a couple gets married and then they want to have a child.
Now, they may unite. That is the karma. But sometimes you just don’t get a child.
Conception doesn’t happen. So, their uniting alone doesn’t produce a child. Something higher.
And even if there is conception happening, immediately the child is not going to come. It is a period of gestation. And after that the child emerges.
So, karma, daiva and kala together produce the phala. So, now daiva is something which sometimes just it works invisibly. That means sometimes daiva does not intervene in a dramatic way.
Then that is why we may not even notice daiva. So, if I eat food, I get energy. The karma has produced the phala.
But the daiva is what? The destiny is that I have a healthy body. That is why it is producing that result. But if my stomach is upset because of digestion, digestive problems, then I eat the food.
It may not give me energy. It may aggravate my sickness. So, going back to the earlier example of somebody eating anything and still remaining healthy, what happens is their unhealthy eating is going to have consequences.
But just not immediately. By their daiva, the destiny is determined by our own past karma. The kind of karma that we have done in the past gets accumulated as our destiny.
And that helps us, that determines whether which karma will lead to immediate phala and which karma will lead to later phala. Some people are just meant to have a healthy body by their past karma. That is the daiva.
So, their karma does not lead to the phala at present. They eat unhealthy, but still they stay healthy. Some people, by their destiny, by their past karma, they are meant to have a sickly body.
They are not very careful. Just a little mismanagement and their health gets spoiled. So, here, normally we may not even consider the daiva is there.
Because we just presume this action produces this reaction. But when that action-reaction-action result correlation is not seen, that is when we raise the question, why is this happening? So, this is the philosophical understanding of why sometimes we may do good, but not get the good results. Now, to make this whole understanding more acceptable, if we can be a little honestly introspective, we can look at times when we did not put in much effort, but still got a lot of good results.
How many of you have this experience? You put in little effort, but got a lot of results. It works sometimes for us. As a speaker, I have this experience quite frequently.
Sometimes I prepare a lot for a class and throughout the class, people seem to be preparing, when can I leave? So, people just don’t seem to connect with the class. But sometimes I just go, I just go and start speaking, prepare a little bit, and I’m able to connect so much with people. Now, I always try to connect as much as I can, but there is something beyond me.
So, sometimes some people say that, you know, oh, this class was life-changing. I feel like saying, my life has not changed. I didn’t feel so inspired while giving that class, but somehow, at that time, there is something bigger than me, which is also acting.
And they just hear the right point at the right time, and they are benefitted at that time. So, in general for us, if we consider, in general, both the things happen, that sometimes we do a little, and we get a lot of results, and sometimes we do a lot, and we don’t get any result. Say, if you consider a cricket match, if you consider, there is a cricket match, the umpires sometimes make wrong decisions.
Now, we may have this decision review system also, but still sometimes the decisions go wrong. So, now all players, say all batsmen, all bowlers, they all know that sometimes we get unfair decisions. And in the long run, it will even out.
Sometimes a batsman will be out, and he is given not out, and sometimes he is not out, and he is given out. Both ways it will work out. But, sometimes, say, it is a critical phase of the match, and that time, the batsman is out, and is given not out.
That is much more fateful for the match, than, say, the match is in a routine phase, and a batsman, a decision goes wrong. So, the errors of human judgment can happen. But, when do they happen to whom? That can be quite consequential.
And, therein, we see that even in sports, there is an element which is beyond human control. The Australian cricket team, maybe 10-12 years ago, was considered to be the world’s toughest cricket team. Now, of course, they have got into some, they have got some bad press because of trying to do ball tampering and other things.
But, so, they were considered to be very tough. And, one cricket commentator wrote a book about them called In It to Win It. They were always dominating the world cricket at that time.
So, still this same generation of very tough Australian players, Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor, all of them had their own superstitions. Mark Taylor, whenever he would go out to bat, before going out to bat, he would go to the restroom in the pavilion. And, he would shut the commodes, all the commode lids.
And, if he would get out early, he would not go back to the pavilion, he would go to the commode. And, if any lid was open, he would go and shout at his teammates, why did you keep that open? Because of that, I got out. Now, what has the commode lid got to do with his getting out? But, even the best of sports players know that performance matters.
But, performance is not all that matters. There is something beyond that performance, which also shapes the results. And, their own quirky way, they try to appease that unknown.
Some tennis players would wear an earring only in one ear. And, you could consider it like a good luck charm. So, they all practice, they all perform.
But, they know that their performance alone does not determine the result. So, I am giving all these examples to illustrate this point that, we all at some point or the other acknowledge that there is something beyond my efforts also, which provide the results. And, sometimes that may work fairly, sometimes may work unfairly.
So, if we understand that something from my past life is coming out now, and that is why things are not working out favorably for me. That is how life seems to be unfair. So, from the past life, if we include karma and reincarnation, then life in the big picture is fair.
Although, in the small picture, it may appear to be unfair. Say, you know, if you have, if you have a movie in multiple parts, say, then in the end of one movie, the hero might be beaten up, the hero might be jailed, the hero might be, might be in a dire state in the movie, and you say, what kind of movie is this? So, I think one devotee was telling me, there was this very popular South Indian movie, Bahubali. So, at the first part of it, the hero died.
So, then for one and a half years, people were in suspense. You know, why did he die? What happened? What happened? What happened? So, what happened? If you just look at one part, you say, this is a stupid movie. What is this? The hero is dead.
But, then you get the sequel, and then you, okay, this is what actually happened. And then you see the full picture, you say, okay, things have turned out right. The bad guy died, bad guy was killed, and the good guy was successful.
So, sometimes we just look at one frame, it may not make sense. So, if you look at the big picture, then things start making sense. So, similarly, when, when things don’t make sense, when life seems unfair, what do we do? First, just with humility, understand there is a bigger picture.
And, in the long run, things will even out. So, this is, I’ll talk about three steps for dealing with life’s unfairness. First is, look at the bigger picture.
Look means, we may not be able to see what I did in the past. Intellectually understand that there is a bigger picture. And look at the bigger picture, okay, this thing went wrong, but that time, that thing had gone right also.
So, it’s not that life is deliberately against me, singling me out to hurt me. I was just talking a couple of days ago with a psychotherapist. And he was telling that, that there are two kinds of psychotherapy.
There is one-to-one psychotherapy, where people are disturbed, and you, the psychotherapist tries to encourage and help them heal. And there is group psychotherapy. Say, a group of people, all come and talk, and the psychotherapist acts as a facilitator.
So, he said that, for many people, group psychotherapy works a lot better. Why? Because, when we are suffering, the mind makes us feel that our suffering is like no one else’s suffering. The mind makes us, the mind has a desire to feel special.
So, it wants to feel special by doing something special. You know, see, I am so famous, I am so clever, I am so smart, I am so successful. But if that doesn’t work out, the mind in a perverse way wants to feel special by thinking, you know, the suffering I am experiencing, nobody has experienced this.
The kind of problems I am going through, nobody has gone through this. But, so when you do group psychotherapy, he was telling, that, if he tells, as a psychotherapist, he tells people that, actually, it’s the nature of the world that sometimes everybody gets problems. No, no, no, nobody has got problems like me.
That’s what they feel. But then they have 5, 6, 10 people talking, and each person hears other person’s problem. My God! My God! So, he said that, he did an exercise that he, everybody, they have a code of confidentiality.
You are not going to tell anything to anyone. That’s important over there, vital. He said that, if, all of them were told to tell the kind of issues they were going through in life.
And, at the end, he told them, if you are given an option, and you could take your problems, and all of you could put all your problems on the table, would you want to exchange anyone else’s problems? Nobody said, my problems are okay for me. So, everybody has issues. So, when the mind, what the mind does is, it makes us, it makes us think that we alone are suffering.
And that’s why, it makes us, it hurts us more and more. See, the mind gets us alone, and then it gets us. It gets us alone.
Oh, life is so unfair to you, you work so hard, and that person is so bad. This is like this, this is like this. And then it gets us.
That’s why, studying the philosophy, and especially, studying, understanding the philosophy of people who are realized, it helps us to see the big picture. Yes, like, I am getting unfair things that are happening, and we don’t have to deny it, that this is, this hurts. But, by seeing the big picture, we will contextualize the problem.
Otherwise, the mind will catastrophize the problem. Catastrophize means, make it much, much bigger than what it needs to be. Contextualize means, okay, this is, this is a problem, it is there, but this happens sometimes in life.
Something in the past must be coming out, some bad, some negative karma is getting evened out now. Let me just tolerate it. So, with philosophy, we see the big picture.
The second step is, that we need to look for the positive. We can’t see everything as good, because bad things do happen in life. But, we can’t see everything as good, but we can see the good in everything.
We can see the good in everything. Even when something terrible has happened, say, okay, I worked so hard for this job, I lost my job. I worked so hard for this relationship, and I was just ditched.
I’ve been doing so much work, and now I’ve got this terrible disease. So terrible it is. So, now, yes, it’s terrible.
No doubt. But, even if that bad thing is there, which has happened, we can look at the good, even in that. Now, what do we mean good in that? We can, we can look at, okay, this bad thing is there, but are there good things also in my life? Okay, I’ve got bad health, I’ve got this disease, but, oh, okay, I have some financial security, I have some health insurance.
If I had this disease, I didn’t have that also, it would have been even worse. Okay, I’ve got this disease, but I have got family members, I have got relatives, I have got friends. They will help me this time.
Oh, I’ve got this disease, but at least the disease is curable. But if the uncurable disease would have been terrible, at least it’s curable, and I know what treatment to take. So, I’m starting the treatment.
So, for me, when I was, after I just joined as a brahmachari, 19, late 1990s, within four or five years, I fell very sick. And, it was almost four or five years after that, every few days I would fall sick, and it was that, nobody was able to diagnose, what is the problem. So, we tried this test, that test, that test, sometimes it appeared to be good, and again I would fall sick.
It would be good, again I would fall sick. So, one time I went to a doctor, and the doctor did some elaborate test, and then, there are technicians, radiologists, others would do the test, and the reports are given to the doctor, specialist. So, then I was looking at it.
So, he said, diagnosis, P-U-O. So, at that time, we didn’t have Google and everything, I was thinking, what is P-U-O? Some disease I have never heard of. Then I went to doctor, he says, oh no, that we, nothing has come out, no, but he said, nothing has come out till now.
He said, no, but it is a P-U-O. He says, P-U-O simply means, pyroxia of unknown origin. Pyroxia is fever, of unknown origin.
I also know that. So, that is also code word, for hiding their ignorance. But eventually, after five years, somehow, they did a chest X-ray, and this doctor told me, my, it became so grave, he saw my face, my God, he said, you have got advanced TB.
You have to be admitted. My, thank God. He says, what? Hey, you have got advanced TB, do you understand? He said, yeah, I understand.
I said, at least you have diagnosed what is wrong. Otherwise, you do not know what to do. Having a disease, something wrong in the body, they are not able to find out what is wrong.
So, then they found out, I had to take almost eight months to one year of intense treatment. But then, I recovered reasonably well after that. So, yes, having a disease, having a serious disease is a problem.
But even in that, at least the disease is curable. We can look for good, even if it is not good in that. So, basically, if we keep looking at the bad, oh, why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why did this happen? That will simply hurt us.
But if we look for the good, and there is good in everything, it is not, I am not saying that when life is unfair, we see that unfairness as good. That is, and that is almost humanly impossible. It is, it is unfair, it hurts, it hurts.
But let me not obsess on that. Let me look at what is good. And for this, our spirituality can be very helpful.
So, this is the third part, as you know. Connect with the one who is all good. So, Krishna, he is always there with us.
He is always there with us in our hearts. So, and he is the one who can give us relief amidst all problems. There are two distinct ways in which we approach Krishna.
That is, the material way of practicing bhakti, which is mostly, you can say, people do punya. I go to temple, it should be good, you will get good things by that. There is a material way in which we connect with God and there is a spiritual way in which we connect with God.
The material way of connecting with Krishna is that we connect with Krishna for release from problems. That Krishna, I have this problem, please, please, please, free me from this problem. When I was in Pune about 10 years ago, 7-8 years ago, the temple was right next to a school and the school was an upper class student school.
So the children were not at all religious, they would hardly ever come to the temple. But, every April, they would all come to the temple. Is it that April is the month of bhakti? No, nothing like that, nothing mystical about April.
But what happened at that time? Exams. Oh, Krishna, please pass me in this exam. That’s the time they come.
It’s good at least at that time they are coming. But here, the point is, they think, Krishna has this problem, please, please, free me from this problem. So we approach God for release from problems.
And it’s good we approach Him for that, but there is, there is a better way to connect with God. And that is, not for release from problems, but for relief amidst problems. So the nature of this world is, problems are going to come.
Even if Krishna removes one problem, another will come. That’s just the nature of the world. It’s like, we want to say, it’s too cold, Krishna, please let the cold go away.
The heat comes, the heat is too hot, Krishna. So the nature of this world is a place of dualities. So yes, sometimes some problems are overbearing and we can pray for release from those problems, but we don’t make our bhakti conditional to the release from the problems.
If I’m free from this problem, then God exists, then God is good. Otherwise, God doesn’t exist, God doesn’t care, God is not good. No.
What we do is, if we connect with Krishna for absorption in Krishna, then even amidst the problems, we will get relief. The problem will be there, but we will get relief amidst the problems. By remembrance of Krishna, we will be sheltered, we will be internally, we will be internally calm.
It’s like say outside, it’s very cold, and trembling because of the cold, and then we come to a house which looks like a very comfortable, cozy house, and then we come to that house, we open the door, and we just rush into the house, and close the door, we will get inner relief. But suppose we come to the door, open the door, and then demand that the heat that is there in the room, in the house, should heat up the whole outside atmosphere, that the room should make the whole weather change. That is not going to happen.
So sometimes when we come to Krishna, so if we just absorb our consciousness in Krishna, it’s like entering into the house of devotion. We absorb ourselves in Krishna, we can get relief. But instead of absorbing ourselves in Krishna, what do we do? We come to Krishna, we open the door, Krishna, you come out and solve this problem.
We just stand at the door, we don’t come inside. Okay, has it become warm now? Has it become warm? Has it become warm? Has it become warm? Just keep waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for that. So instead of trying to get Krishna to solve the problem, we can see that absorption in Krishna is the first solution to any problem.
Because many times when the problem comes, it is our reaction that can make the problem worse. Somebody has hurt us and then we hit back at them and that makes things much worse. But if you just say, I just want relief right now, I become absorbed in Krishna by that.
And through that absorption, the next step that will come is that by that absorption, pacification will come. The Bhagavatam says that in the material world, there are many different kinds of distresses that come. But they don’t afflict my devotees.
Why? Because Madhacharya Katham Ishta, the devotees take shelter of me, they become absorbed in me. Naitan Madhgacchit Saha, the consciousness becomes absorbed in Krishna. So through the hearing, through the chanting, through the seva, through the consciousness in Krishna, therein we can get relief.
And sometimes we may not get, when life is unfair, we may not get God’s explanation. Why is life unfair? But more important than the explanation is the experience. If we can experience God, if we can experience inner strength, if we can experience inner relief, that can give us the capacity to deal with this, the strength to deal with this situation.
Even if we come to know, okay, in your previous life you have done this and because of this, this happened. Okay, what next? I have to still live with this. And the strength to live with this will come by absorption in Krishna.
So when we seek to come in the presence of Krishna, become absorbed in Krishna, then even amidst the problem we can experience relief. And then that relief will give us, will pacify our mind and then we will find, be able to find the best step forward. Then we will be able to even amidst that unfairness, we will ensure that we won’t make things worse.
Rather, we will act reasonably and find a path of growth even through that situation. And eventually we will find that, yes, although one door had closed, another door has opened. But sometimes if we don’t, if we demand Krishna, then we will just frustrate ourselves.
Let’s take shelter of Krishna, calm yourself down and then another door will open. machittaha sarva-durgani madhya-prasada dharishyasi In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that if you become conscious of me, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace. That is the assurance which we can all experience in our lives by taking shelter of Krishna.
So I’ll summarize. I spoke today about when life seems unfair. I started by talking about, we all presume that we expect fairness.
Why? Because we presume there is a cause-effect correlation. Science also functions based on a presumption of cause-effect correlation. Newtonian physics evolved because of this assumption.
And when Newtonian physics didn’t seem to be able to explain nature, then scientists tried to find a bigger theory. That is how quantum physics and relativity came up. So we all have a particular theory.
We have a particular frame of reference that is our present life and the cause-effect correlation with which we try to make sense of things. But when we can’t make sense of things, then we may just become resentful and depressed. Oh, life is so unfair.
But instead of doing that, we can look for a bigger picture. That means that karma plus daiva plus kala is equal to phala and daiva is determined by purva karma, by past karma. So rather than becoming resentful, what we can see is this is just some phase of bad karma from the past that is getting evened out.
So normally daiva may just be invisible and karma leads to phala. But sometimes daiva comes very strongly to the picture. So the first step we need to do is see the bigger picture.
When the mind catastrophizes the problem, let the intelligence contextualize it. Sometimes I do good and I don’t get a good enough result, but sometimes I don’t do much and I get a big result. That has also happened.
So performance matters, but performance is not all that matters. So by seeing that, this kind of unfairness, everybody is experienced in life. Everybody goes through difficult situations and we all start with life being unfair because our looks, our intelligence, our family’s wealth, they all vary.
But there is some cause-effect correlation also we see in life. So if you see the bigger picture, there might be some other cause-effect correlation that we don’t know about. That way we can pacify our intelligence to some extent.
Second is, look for the good in that situation. The mind will look at the unfairness, but even if we accept that it is unfair, but okay, what is the good in my life that is there and what is the good especially that is helping me to deal with this bad. I have got this disease, I have lost my job, but what is the good? At least the disease is curable, at least I have support of family, whatever.
We look for the good, again the agitation, the distress will go down. And lastly, seek to connect with Krishna. So Krishna, we may connect sometimes to get release from problems and he can release also, but the nature of this world is problems will keep coming.
So instead if we seek relief amidst problems, that means it’s cold, if you are demanding that the heat from a house make the whole atmosphere warm, come into the house. Don’t think about the problem, just let yourself be absorbed in Krishna and get calmness by that, get pacification by that. And from there, we will be able to find out with the calmness coming in, how to deal with that problem.
So even if life seems unfair, still Krishna is supremely fair. He is always there with us in our hearts. And with his guidance, we can overcome whatever problem comes in our life.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Any questions or comments? Yes.
I was fortunate that I got to listen to you in 2009 as well, like I was attending a camp in Katipur that time. So I was very excited that you are coming, so thanks for coming first of all. I think my question is mainly, I don’t feel I am making that progress I want to make, like I have been now associated with this cause, like the teachings are imbibed in me and it’s helping me in the world as well, but I just chant a few rounds still, I just feel I am not there yet in the spiritual progress, like I don’t have a guru yet, and it’s not that I don’t want, but I am not getting that direction from within that, because I want to be ready before I get to that stage and somehow the, I have material desires as well, so they kind of don’t let me go to that stage, so sometimes I have in this mind that yeah I get totally spiritual and give everything, in the sense that totally devote yourself, I still continue to give my service, but I don’t feel I am making the progress in spiritual path how much I want to make.
Okay, so if you feel that we are not able to make much progress in spiritual path, and if you feel that we also have material desires because of which we can’t devote ourselves too much to spirituality, how can we move forward so? Firstly, that we all have material desires, and I think the word material desires is a very very broad term. In material desires also there can be some desires which are pro-spiritual, some which are non-spiritual, some which are anti-spiritual. So, Bhaktanath Thakur was a high court judge.
He had a desire to become that judge, otherwise he would not have become that judge. But then he used that position in Krishna’s service. So, it’s not necessary that just because we have material desires we cannot practice bhakti.
If it is anti-spiritual material desires, a desire to do grievously wrong activities, then that can be a serious problem. Otherwise, if we have some desires and we want to pursue them, that just means that they are going to take a lot of time first. But still, even if they want to take a lot of time, nobody, no matter how ambitious they are, they don’t work 24 hours a day.
So, everybody needs a break, even if they have a passion for doing something, they need a break in that. So, then we can decide our priorities. Okay, this particular career goal is my primary ambition.
But then my spiritual life is also important. Let me make a second. If I come here first priority, at least second priority, third priority.
But then we don’t have to let too many other things come in. So, that way, it’s a, in different stages in our spiritual life, spiritual life is the most important. But, in different stages in our life, we may not feel the same level of urgency for it.
That’s okay, if we associate serious devotees, we also start feeling that urgency. But even if we don’t feel that urgency, at least with the intelligence we understand the importance. This is what ultimately matters.
Because I am a soul and the soul is going through many many lifetimes and now is the opportunity to grow spiritually. So, we make a decision that I am going to practice at some level and decide at that level and to stay at that level and to move forward from that level, we need to find something in bhakti which we like to do. If I consider this to be the circle of bhakti and this is the circle of my interest.
So, find out where it intersects. And if we just keep doing that, we take that as a service, take that as a passion, take that as a something which is a commitment and keep doing that, at least that connection will stay. And from there the connection, the overlapping will also grow.
So, our advancement doesn’t just depend on our getting initiated or our chanting a particular number of rounds. These are all very important. But advancement is primarily how much our heart is connected with Krishna and how much we want our heart to be connected with Krishna.
And the heart is not just some vague feel good kind of sentiment. It has to be expressed through actions. So, this is what I want to do for Krishna and let’s take it up.
Especially if we can find good association, not just good association in the sense that in general good association, but some association which inspires us personally, someone whom we can connect, then that can just cause our bhakti to flourish. And as far as we not be waiting for the right time, in general, in the material world, there is never a completely right time. So, waiting for the right time to take to spiritual life is like waiting for the waves in the ocean to stop so that we can take a plunge and start swimming.
We will be waiting forever. So, we have to ourselves take the plunge. Now, how deep we want to go into the ocean that we can decide.
I am not such a good swimmer so I don’t want to go too deep inside. But we can’t wait to start swimming. Similarly, we have to push ourselves a little bit.
The whole process of sadhana bhakti is the process of voluntary force. Our mind doesn’t feel like doing it, we push ourselves. So, you can decide how much you want to push yourself but it’s not that we think that in future sometime I will be ready.
Yes, we could say at future time I will be readier but there is no time and everything will be right and I can practice sadhana bhakti. So, I have to start right now and what intensity, what pace, that is adjustable. Okay, thank you.
Any other questions? Yes, miss. Can this be equated with, so for example… Okay, okay, I got your question. So, if we have a problem, say our health is an issue or we have some relationship issue or some job issue or some problem, then if we absorb Asa and Krishna, we get some relief.
So, is the relief itself the solution? Not exactly. When we, we, our current existence is dual, we are spiritual beings living in the material world. So, at the material level, we need material solutions.
If my hand is my fracture be healed? Well, Krishna can do anything, but that’s not how it normally works. Even in the Vedic tradition, there is Ayurveda, a specific branch of medicine by which this kind of treatment is done. So, we don’t demand that Krishna do something miraculous to help us.
We want to serve Krishna. Not that we demand Krishna, you serve me. So, material problems will require material solutions.
But, what is the best material solution in a particular situation? That is something which we can’t figure out unless we are calm internally. So, absorption in Krishna gives us the relief by which we can have clarity. It’s like, say, if I have, if I am in too much pain and doctor says, you know, you can do this surgery or you can do this treatment or this treatment.
First, I am in so much pain, I can’t think, give me some relief. Give me a pain medicine, then I have calmed down and I can think about it. Similarly, absorption in Krishna is one level of the solution.
That means, at least the lack of the constant distress which prevents us from dealing with the problem, that gets mitigated somewhere. It’s not exactly a painkiller because it is the ultimate solution. We become absorbed in Krishna, we go beyond this material world to Krishna’s abode, where there are no problems.
That is why Kuntada, abode free from the anxieties of this world. But as long as we live in this world, we want a solution in this world also. So, after we have developed that inner calmness, then we can rethink about how to deal with the external situation.
And sometimes we decide, okay, I can just tolerate and live with this. Sometimes, I may work aggressively to change it. Sometimes, I may just decide to move out of that situation.
I call this as three, broadly we have troublesome situations, we have three options. Tolerate, mitigate or immigrate. If it is like the weather is too cold for me, I learn to tolerate it or I get a lot of warm clothes that I mitigate it or I immigrate, I go somewhere else where the weather is better.
Similarly, when we have a problematic situation, then we have to do one of these three things. Now, which one, all three can be done with a negative attitude. I may tolerate, tolerate, with all resentment pent up within me.
I may mitigate not to solve the problem, but to get revenge at the other person. If you did like this to me, I will do this next year or we may immigrate not because we are looking for something better to do in life, but just because this is such a terrible thing we have to get out of here. Then, all three things, the problem is still in our mind, it will go on.
But, we can do all three with a positive attitude. Tolerate simply means that we keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. This is the problem.
There are many other things good in my life, this is what I want to focus on. Mitigate means we try to correct it not to get back at someone else, but we correct it so that there is proper justice, proper dharma, proper order that is established. And we immigrate not because we can’t deal with the problem, that may also be true, but because we feel my life is meant for better things.
I don’t want to get involved in this fighting with this issue. Let me focus on something bigger. So that clarity of what to do, that will come through the absorption in Krishna.
So absorption in Krishna is itself not the solution at a practical material level. We do have to deal with the situation, but the clarity to find that solution at a practical level will come through the absorption in Krishna. You had something else? Yeah, if death is inevitable, why do we feel death as shocking or unfair? Yeah, that’s because sometimes the death is unexpected and premature.
We normally expect that a person should live their full life and old age they die. If somebody dies in youth or middle age or childhood then it feels very unfair. That’s one of the big reasons why people say there’s a problem of evil in the world.
Another thing could be that although death is inevitable somehow we in the routine course of our life live as if life is normal and we don’t expect death. because of that when death comes it’s always a shock and that’s why because the soul is eternal and the soul is currently trying to eternalize the material level of reality and that’s why whatever we can get in the spiritual level we are trying to get in the material level and some of our attempts are successful some of our attempts are not successful but at least the hope that it will be successful goes on but when death comes that hope is shattered and it becomes unbearable so death is so disorienting because our conception that life will go on and I can create a good life a happy life enduring life in this level that is strongly shattered and that leads to the third point that death ultimately is a manifestation of God that by disrupting the temporary Krishna forces us to look at the eternal so then if we do that then death will not appear so disruptive what is the realistic way of resolution other than being positive and connecting to the Lord that is why I said tolerate mitigate immigrate there are three practical things which we have to do any problem we have either I live with it or I change it or I move away from it but these situations to do them in a positive attitude we need a proper connection with the Lord and proper self-understanding so when something seems unfair is it try again till you succeed approach that we should use not exactly we have to use our intelligence to decide how best to move forward in this situation if I am pursuing a particular career say in India many of us wanted to go to IIT and we make one attempt second attempt third attempt somebody spends ten years trying to get into IIT that is not worth it the IIT itself is four years so we have to have a sense of proportion this is important but there is a bigger life also so in general intelligence Sridhar Prabhupada defines as to see things in their proper perspective proper perspective this is this important this is this is more important this is less important so should we keep trying till we succeed not necessarily sometimes reversal in a particular area might mean this is not the best field for us we should work in some other field sometimes reversal might just be circumstances not good for me but I have interest in this field I have talent in this field I have a zeal for this field so I will proceed here so it is basically with our intelligence we have to decide what is the best way forward for me sometimes the reversals may come as I said because of circumstances then if circumstances change we might get the results but sometimes the lack of results might just be because I am not meant for this field so we can’t just say keep trying that idea is there we could say that yes we should always keep trying but whether trying in this field or some other field in this job or that job or this relationship or that relationship or this career or that career that is something which we will have to decide so we can as devotees if we want to say that whatever we are doing in our material life so what do we do yeah in our life we all go through phases so phases means that if the traffic if you want to go in a particular direction if the traffic is too much at that time we go slowly once the traffic clears we start going faster so there can be times in our life when we may not be able to be regulated but we just accept that and we move forward in life and whenever the situation improves we try to come back to regulation so lack of regulation like the time when there is too much traffic we can’t move at all fast so but afterwards when the workload decreases then we can try to be regulated even while striving for regulation as we are not going to become attached to regulation we don’t want to make regulation as a precondition for our for doing anything else including our devotion our attachment to Krishna has to be greater than our attachment to regulation also regulation helps us to move towards Krishna regulation helps us to be overall balanced in our life but sometimes regulation is just not possible circumstances are like that and there are phases in life if a loud one is sick or something like that then hospital or if you have family in future and then you have a child the child is like alarm clock that goes off anytime then you cannot settle the child 6 hours sleep quota or 7 hours sleep quota don’t wake up now you can’t do that so for millennia now people have lived with lack of regulation also so life has its phases now if in a particular career that excessive demanding kind of thing is not just a phase but it’s a regular pattern and if we can’t take it then we may have to think that maybe I need to look for some other job somewhere else we decide that okay this job maybe it’s you know it’s giving me some credibility or giving me some financial stability so I’ll do it for some time and then I shift over to somewhere else so basically we all have to endure phases of lack of regulation and we don’t have to let that bog our mind okay this is just a difficult phase let me go through it tolerate it and it will get over in no course it’s like sometimes the leech catches and bites and sucks blood when the leech is sucking blood at that time if you try to pull the leech out it’ll rip the whole skin out the solution is let the leech drink blood the leech tubules are not unlimited once it’s tubules are filled it’ll itself let go and you can just flick it out so like that sometimes some phases of life are there but things are difficult if you over react at that time that’s like trying to pull out the leech it makes things worse you tolerate that phase gets over so what is the process for find out what needs to be done so at that time finding our passion or anything just survival is what is most important so just like a player is not always returning so sometimes I don’t like the situation this is not what I want to do in my life now we don’t have to resent that and let that boggle down our nature we can understand through quality and through activity now quality means if you are doing something which we are meant to do then we feel internally comfortable doing it so while going along with the flow try to observe yourself now if we start resenting that I have to go along with this flow then that resentment can consume our mental energy and we can’t learn anything about ourselves or learn anything from the situation but we just go along but keep observing yourself and then over a period of time as we keep observing ourselves we will learn and this is what I am competent at and this is what I am comfortable doing and that’s how we can go along with the flow so we can even look back at our past and look at that so in general we can’t make this decision on the spur of the moment inside us is our mind and then catching the current when it goes in the direction where we want to go that’s how we can find our passion in life okay so how do we how can we overcome say negativity like lust anger greed or laziness and improve ourselves in general there are three steps I call it as redirection reconstruction and restriction redirection reconstruction I will explain this what I mean by it suppose this floor is inclined in this way then as soon as water falls on this floor it’s going to move in this direction it’s natural because the floor is inclined so like that our mind is also inclined in particular ways so it may be inclined towards anger it may be inclined towards lust so that means as soon as some stimulus comes in immediately our consciousness starts flowing in that direction if I don’t want the water to flow in this direction what do I do first thing is restriction just saying the water should not flow in that direction even if I say water should not flow still it is going to flow so restriction put some restriction put some wall build some barrier by which it doesn’t go in that direction so we all have our particular weaknesses and we need some help in overcoming those weaknesses if somebody is an alcoholic and they want to give up alcohol and their home happens to be right next to a bar then no amount of will power is going to be enough because even with the strongest will power we all have our weak moments and those weak moments will fall so restriction means I can’t stay over here I can’t keep alcohol in my house so some physical barrier something which makes sure that indulging in that weakness is not so easily possible for us I tend to be short tempered I decide if I am angry with someone I am not going to speak a word for at least 24 hours and during that time I will process and then I will decide what to do so make some restriction that is the first step second step is redirection when the water is flowing in this direction then I have to push the water in the other direction push the water in the other direction that means you have to create a healthier habit so our emotions our consciousness need the channel so for example if I feel angry I just want to vent out but no when I vent out I hurt others I hurt myself also I don’t want to do that but then I have to do something to deal with my emotions I am feeling bad I am feeling depressed I need to do something about it so we need a healthier channel for directing our emotions except yes I am feeling like this rather than thinking that I should not feel like this acknowledge I am feeling like this now what do I do about it so if we find out some positive activity which we like to do some of us may like kirtans some of us may like philosophy some of us may like say darshan of the lord or something like that sattvic activity or devotional activity whatever it is which we like to do so at that time when the negativity starts coming in we try to keep this positive channel readily and instead of thinking lifelong I will never do this again the mind makes lifelong appear to be too long and then it says lifelong you can’t do it anyway you are not going to do it do it today only now so better plan that for one week for one month I am going to do this I am going to do this seriously and then after one month look back and see what happened how much did I miss something what is the nature of my life what is the quality of my life take stock of that maybe I can continue this