The power of gratitude 1 – How gratitude empowers us

[Seminar at ISKCON. London, UK]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I talked about the power of gratitude and I said that we may have various different technology different kind of powers but our happiness personally will be determined not so much by what electric power we have what thermal power we have it will depend on the power of our thoughts so if we are in comfortable situation but our thoughts are replaying something distressful then they will keep us miserable so what powers our thoughts what determines where our thoughts go that was the main subject of this class I talked about how the mind is like an inner screen there is a world out there and we are in here so satisfaction is both a state of mind and a state of being so if I am in pain if I have got a scar which is hurting it is a state of being but if I keep thinking about it more and more then that is also a state of mind if I have flu because of bed ridden that is a state of being but if I am thinking about it again and again because of which I am feeling resentful that I could not go out for an outing then that is a state of mind now we can’t very often change the state of being what is out there but we can change the state of the mind Krishna says satisfaction is an austerity of the mind that means by nature just as we would like to eat but fasting means the austerity of the body we don’t eat so by nature the mind tends to look at the things we don’t have it keeps us dissatisfied but if we make as austerity focus on the things that we have then satisfaction will not just be emotion that we feel it is also a decision that we make I look at the feast in my plate and not at the feast in others plate and for doing this we need to discern what appears on our inner screen so this inner screen is like a window to the outer world in which there are five different windows five senses and inputs from all of them are coming in and if physically you are comfortable but some other window is showing something sitting comfortably in a class as that window starts playing we feel dissatisfied we feel agitated so the mind can also act like a time machine it can go into the past or it can go into the future and it can become at any moment a TV screen if we don’t understand it we will get carried away our whole state of mind can change in a moment and as long as in the image of the mind the things that we don’t have keep coming we will stay dissatisfied satisfaction and ambition are not opposite because ambition healthy ambition is about proportionate growth but when ambition becomes disproportionate like in workaholism that is like cancerous growth disproportionate and destructive so what determines the images that appear on our inner screen that is determined by the moods that are influencing us the moods are are like gears in which the body mind machine operates in the mode of passion in the mode of goodness we first think and then act there is illumination what to look at what to take in, what to let out in the mode of passion there is first action and contemplation a desire comes up we get carried away by it we lose perspective in the mode of ignorance we just stay in a daze so the mode of goodness is conducive to satisfaction and gratitude the mode of passion is not conducive and the mode of ignorance is totally unconducive in the mode of passion we may think that I have dissatisfaction because of this particular position I don’t have but no matter how many positions we get dissatisfaction will remain because our disposition is to look at the things we don’t have till we change that disposition we can’t have satisfaction and I conclude by talking about optimizers and maximizers in the mode of passion once we get infatuated by one thing we just want the best in that without looking at the big picture without looking at the overall balance of things and then even if we get that best thing still we have thought that oh I might get something better oh this is just not good enough, oh and something better was out there that eventually causes us distress, there are optimizers we want good things but we also have proportion of what is how important and then with a holistic understanding we can pursue then even if one thing doesn’t work out because we are aware of the big picture then we can still be grateful for the many things that arise in our life so I will continue