The power of gratitude 2 – How to cultivate gratitude

[Seminar at ISKCON. London, UK]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Srila Prabhupada.
Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. So, continue the discussion on the power of gratitude.
In the previous session, I spoke about how what appears on our inner screen determines our satisfaction or dissatisfaction. And the mode of passion makes it almost inevitable that dissatisfying imagery, imagery that causes dissatisfaction will appear on our inner screen. And by cultivating the mode of goodness, we can change the state of our mind.
In this session, I will talk about three things. I will talk further about what we can do to change what appears on our inner screen. Then we will talk about the inner seer beyond the inner screen.
And then we will talk about how bhakti itself can help us to cultivate a positive and grateful attitude. So, basically, as I said, we always have a choice about what we focus on. There are many things that are happening in our life.
There are many things that have gone on in our life. Some things are good, some things are bad. Now, when a bad thing happens, at that time, it is very difficult, it’s almost impossible to feel grateful for that bad thing.
If we get some terrible disease, we lose our job, some relationship breaks up, it’s going to be very painful at that time. So, we can’t be grateful for all situations. But, we can be grateful in all situations.
Even if we can’t be grateful for all situations, that means, I’m not grateful for that situation. It’s a bad thing that has happened. But, I can be grateful in that situation also.
Because in this situation, there are still things that are right. So, this will determine, if I just look at this situation and think, sometimes people say, live in the present. Now, yes, as compared to the mind as a time machine, the mind going to the past, the mind going to the future, it can be a big problem.
But, if we are living in the present, sometimes the present is very distressing. So, if somebody is terribly sick, and they are in a hospital, and at that time, live in the present. Well, the present is unbearably painful for them.
It’s only the hope of a future recovery that will enable them to live on. Yes, of course, they have to live in the present enough so that they can take the medicines, they can take the treatment properly. So, we may live in the present, but we don’t live for the present.
We live for something bigger than the present. So, I have this disease and I have the pain, I acknowledge that I have this disease and I have this pain, but I have a bigger purpose to my life. And for that purpose, I will try my best to recover.
And for recovering, I will take the treatment. So, we live for something bigger than the present. So, similarly, we are in a particular situation, and we have to be aware of that situation.
But sometimes that situation is bad, we can’t be grateful for that situation. But even in that situation, there may be many other things that are right, and we can be grateful for that. So, our mind, by its nature, will count our problems.
This problem, this problem, this problem, this problem, this is not right, this is not right, this is not right. When our mind starts counting problems, we have to make sure that our intelligence starts counting our blessings. With our intelligence, this is right in my life.
Oh, I lost this job, but I have got a good education, I have got good health, I have got good experience, I have got contacts, I will get a new job. This job I have lost, that’s a bad thing. But still there are things that are right in my life.
So, usually, it is difficult at that time itself to think of all the blessings. And that’s why it’s a good habit to consciously take out time to count our blessings. So, if we just, before sleeping or say after waking up, before sleeping during the day, now we decide three things that are good about today.
I will thank Krishna for that. In today’s world, sometimes people want virtues, but they don’t want God. Many people, even secular people, don’t be grateful.
You can be grateful for something. I am grateful that this worked out right. But gratitude is also for something, to something.
I am grateful towards this person. I am grateful to this person for doing this. So, nowadays people think they want to make gratitude disconnected from God.
Just be grateful that it worked out. So, being grateful in general is like being married in general. He says, yes.
So, are you married? Yes. So, whom are you married to? No, I am married in general. What do you mean? How can you be married in general? Marriage is with the person.
So, similarly, gratitude is for someone. I am just grateful. Grateful to whom? You can be grateful to a particular person who did something for us.
You can be grateful to somebody else. Ultimately, things are happening in life by God’s arrangement. So, be grateful to God.
So, many times people want virtues because they have positives. But they want it disconnected from the whole picture. Ultimately from God.
So, when things have gone wrong in our life, at that time, we have cultivated before a habit of being grateful. Say, every night before I sleep, just look back at the day and list three things which went right in my life. And I am grateful for that.
Simple exercise actually will sleep much more peacefully. And if you remember those three things which went right, you will wake up also much more fresh. Otherwise our mind is thinking, this problem, that problem, that problem.
Every day we have things that go wrong and we have things that go right. Now, it depends on what we focus on. It’s not that the things that have gone wrong, we neglect them.
It’s not a utopian idea that everything is alright. No. There are things which are bad also and we will have to deal with them.
But if you keep obsessing over them, that creates negativity within us. And that saps our energy which will prevent us from dealing with the problem effectively. If we feel exhausted, if we feel burdened, if we feel as if, oh, so many problems in my life, how can I ever deal with them? Then, whatever we could have done also, we will not be able to do.
So, focusing on the things that have gone right and cultivating a habit of being grateful for them. I found that when the mind gets agitated, when we get distressed, things go wrong, people act reasonably, at that time if we have made a list of the blessings in our life and look at them, then that just forces the consciousness, yes, no, don’t make a mountain out of this molehill. It is a problem, it is a big problem, but still no need to catastrophize it.
It is not the end of the world. There are so many other things that are right. So, in general, the intelligence doesn’t always work when the mind gets agitated.
As I said, when the mind starts counting problems, the intelligence should count blessings. But the mind’s influence becomes so powerful that at that time the intelligence just doesn’t work. So, just as if there is a, normally, our normal immune system works.
Always there are some germs in the environment and there is a constant battle going on within us. In normal situations, our immune system is enough to protect us from these germs that are there. But sometimes an epidemic starts.
A particular kind of germ starts becoming more in a particular area. At that time, we may have to get a vaccine. We may have to take some special medication.
If malaria is spreading, then the doctors may say, take this medicine. It is a preventive medicine. Now, if you consider a vaccine, what does it actually do? Vaccine doesn’t actually protect.
It simply prepares our immune system to protect. It gears up our immune system so that a small dose of the germ comes into the body. The germ is there.
I have to fight it. It galvanizes the resources to fight it. And then if a bigger set of germs also comes in, they are ready to fight.
So, basically, similarly, the mind will bring in negativity. This routine negativity which we can deal with, with our intelligence, which will act like a vaccine, which will act like our immune system. But sometimes some big negative thing happens.
That’s like an infected. So, huge quantity of germs are there at that time. At that time, our normal vaccine won’t work.
At that time, our normal intelligence will just not be able to think. Sometimes it happens, we get some news, this happened, that happened. We just freeze.
We can’t think, we can’t do anything. We just get paralyzed. Emotionally, physically, intellectually.
So, at that time, if we have written down separately, these are the blessings in my life, the things I am grateful for. And if that time, for us, although we may know those things, to remember those things ourselves is difficult. But we have written it down and we look at it.
Then, that reading, making that list is simply using our own intelligence. But in the sense, we have stored that intelligence. And then we access it.
So, reading some illuminating material like that acts like a dose of vaccine. It gives us the inner fillip by which we can counter the negativity. So, having things in the head doesn’t help when the head itself is attacked.
At that time, we need to have something outside the head also, have something written down and then read it. So, writing down, sometimes, some evenings we feel so tired, so frustrated, so exhausted. What are the good things that happen? I can’t think of anything.
I just want to sleep now. I just want to end this day. So, then, better just look at the list of blessings and, you know, yeah, I experienced this.
I had a good friend. Oh, this friend helped me today. Yes, yes.
So, like that, if we count our blessings, make it a habit, then even when negative situations come up, even if we can’t be grateful for that situation, but we will be grateful in that situation for the other things that are right in our life. That’s the first step. The second step is that not only am I grateful for the things that are right in my life, I am also grateful specifically for the things that help me to deal with this problem.
In some distressing situation that has come in my life, my mind gets consumed with this distressing situation and I feel resentful, I feel helpless, I feel devastated. But I look at all the things that are right in my life, I feel grateful. But then I zero in on the things within that which will help me to deal with this.
Suppose, say, I suddenly find that I got a terrible disease. Then I can look at, okay, this disease is a terrible thing that has happened, but what are the things that are right in my life? If I have a list for that, then what will happen? That negative thought will not dominate our consciousness. Oh, there are other things also.
Like I talked earlier about the inner screen having many windows. One window can just sometimes consume the whole screen. It prevents us from thinking of anything else.
And if that window is negative, we start feeling negative. But what we are doing? By counting our blessings, we are saying, okay, there are other windows also that can be opened. Everything is not so bad.
And now specifically, we can zero in on the things which will help us to deal with this bad thing. Say, if I got a terrible disease, then we think, okay, at least I got health insurance. Or we got a system by which my health expenses are taken care of.
At least this disease is treatable. And overall I am young and healthy. I can recover from this.
So basically, in that situation, we conscientiously make an effort to focus on the things that are good for us, which will help us to deal with this bad thing. And by that, not only will we feel overall that things are not so bad in my life, but we will feel even somewhat prepared to deal with this difficult thing. Like I said earlier, okay, I lost my job.
But then, okay, I lost my job, but I have got a good experience, I have got a good education, I have got some contacts. These will all help me to deal with this. So what happens by this? We can counter that negative thought dominating our screen.
And then, we cannot be grateful for that situation, but we can be grateful in that situation. And beyond that, sometimes the bad thing that happens, that itself may eventually lead to something good. Normally with our life, we look at the present and we plan for the future.
Krishna looks at the future and plans for the present. The way Krishna works is different from the way we work. We look at the present and think, in this situation, this is good for me.
But Krishna looks, Krishna can see way ahead on the road. And therefore, even if something is wrong in my life right now, still, that doesn’t mean that it is totally your turn. It is forever going to be bad.
Sometimes good things can come out from the bad things. If you consider Srila Prabhupada’s life, so many bad things happened for him. He was distributing back to Godhead on the streets of India.
A cow came and knocked him over. He was trying to build an organization, League of Devotees in Jhansi. The same people who were supporting him conspired against him and forced him to leave.
He was working with his God brothers and they just had no vision for expansion. But through it all, each of that seemed to be a reversal. But through it all, what happened? Prabhupada eventually came to America.
And in the unlikeliest of settings, he got the most extraordinary success. So that way, essentially what happened was, all those bad things led to some very big good thing. So for Srila Prabhupada, at that time, it is not that even for a pure devotee, they necessarily know why this bad thing is happening, why this bad thing is happening.
They just persevere in their purpose to serve Krishna. Normally for us, we start in life with big ambitions. A small child may say, I want to become the President of America.
Actually, I am in England, I can’t become the President of America. Maybe I will become the Prime Minister of England. Then they think, as they keep growing up, I want to become the wealthiest person in my country.
Then they think, I want to become the wealthiest person in my community at least. And then as life’s problems keep coming up, by the time they graduate, they think, if I get a job, that would be good. So, sometimes as we have big big ambitions, but as life’s problems keep coming up, they keep beating us down, beating us down, beating us down.
For Srila Prabhupada, he tried so many things. He tried to run a business, it didn’t work. He tried to start an organization, it didn’t work.
He tried to start a magazine, it didn’t work. And then what did he want to do? He wanted to do the biggest thing he had ever attempted, go to America. Sumati Maharaj, she was the person who gave Prabhupada the passage on her ship, Jalduta.
So, she said, my secretaries are saying that you will not be able to live over there. America is so cold and you are so old. So, how will you live there? So, Prabhupada said, no, nothing will happen to me.
I have to fulfill the instructions of my spiritual master. And with that understanding, he just persevered. And he got spectacular success.
So, basically, all those bad things that happened, they were preparing the ground for a big success. So, we don’t know what plan Krishna has. Sometimes, the bad things may themselves eventually lead to something good.
So, I was speaking on this topic in America last year, in Florida, in Fort Lauderdale. So, after that, one Ukrainian Mataji, she came and told me, she had this experience about how Krishna sees the future and prepares for the present. She said she had gone to New Vrindavan.
And in New Vrindavan, she had, actually, she was in a cruise ship. And the ship was in the dockyard. So, she had gone there.
And suddenly, she got a phone call from her boss. Our ship is going to leave. Please come immediately.
And it is a remote area. It is not so easy to get transportation over there. She started asking, is anybody going to the airport? So, she came to know that there is one boy who is leaving the next morning.
So, she asked him, can you drop me tomorrow to the airport? He said, yes, I am also going there. I can drop you. So, then she said, come at 10 o’clock at this point.
Vrindavan is a big place. So, she went there at 9.45. 10, 10.15, 10.30. She was calling, calling. It was a remote place.
So, the network was not working. 10.45, 11, 11.15, 11.30. 11.30, finally, the call went through. And that boy said, Oh, I am sorry.
I forgot. Now, I also have to catch a flight. I can’t come back now.
And she was furious. How could you forget like this? I have been waiting for so long. She was very angry.
She just went back to her room. That evening, she came to the temple for the Aarti. And then, another Mataji told her, you know that boy? He is there in the morning.
She is still very angry. He says, his car met with a terrible accident. It was hit by a drunk driver.
And the drunk driver hit right on the passenger side. So, this boy had some minor injury. But if anybody had been sitting on the passenger side, they would have been killed.
So, she realized that if she had been in that car, she might have died over there. So, it is that sometimes sometimes bad things happen and there may be a higher plan for them which we do not know. So, that way sometimes we in cricket there is a concept called benefit of doubt.
You know, if a batsman is the bat inside the crease or not inside the crease? You know, if it is unclear, then you may decide, okay, give the batsman the benefit of doubt. He is not out. So, like that, you know, when things are not making sense to us, rather than thinking this is a terrible thing and my life is ruined, we can give the benefit of doubt over there.
You can give God the benefit of doubt. Do I really know the future? What is going to happen in the future? I don’t know that. So, because I don’t know what is going to happen in the future, so let me just accept the situation.
And I accept the situation. Let me try to do the best in the situation and I will move forward thereafter. So, if we accept it that way, we will find that actually we will, whatever bad thing happens, something good may emerge out of it.
In 2011, I was in our Juhu temple in ISKCON India and morning I was chanting and I was walking and somebody had spilled water on the floor. And I was chanting, I was absorbed and noticed. I slipped on the water and I fell badly.
Actually, it was not a big fall but because my leg was already having polio and osteoporosis, I fell and practically the thigh bone came out of the socket. It was a bad fall. So, after that, I was rushed to the hospital and then the doctor said that now, this is a very bad fracture, we will save your leg, but at that time I was travelling a lot in India.
He said, now you cannot travel anymore. If you travel, your leg will not be able to sustain it. So, initially I was very frustrated.
What to do? I always had a desire to share Krishna. That’s what I decided to join as a Brahmin. So, then at that time I decided that one time I was just giving a class on Skype to some devotees.
And while I was giving that class, normally we have Skype, we have a video call, but there the internet was not so good. So, we had to switch off the video, it was just an audio call. So, I was speaking on the six opulences of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
So, then I just closed my eyes and I started speaking and kept speaking. I didn’t notice that the phone had got cut. So, I was just speaking, speaking, speaking and with my eyes closed, I just kept speaking and then after almost 10-12 minutes, I opened my eyes and there was no call over there.
There was no call over there. And then I looked at the phone, the devotees had almost 20 missed calls over there. They tried to call me, but I had kept the phone on silent because the class was going on.
So, initially, I felt frustrated. I spoke for 12 minutes and I just wasted my time. But then, it struck me at that time that actually, while I was speaking about Krishna, I was absorbed.
And then I got the thought, actually, for speaking about Krishna and being absorbed in Krishna, I don’t need an audience. Even without an audience, I can speak. And that’s how I started my whole online outreach.
I started answering questions online. Then I did the Bhakti Shastri course online. At that time, now of course, people do Facebook Live and everything, but this was almost 7-8 years ago.
At that time, all that was not happening so much. So, for me, it was just an accidental discovery. So, that whole area of online outreach opened for me because I was immobilized.
And then I started connecting with devotees internationally. And then, over a period of years, I recovered. And then I started traveling also.
So, I found that at that particular point, that fracture and that immobilization, actually, it closed one door for me, the door of physical outreach in India, but it opened the door of online outreach. Now, at that time, it was just Krishna’s blessing that I thought that point. I could just have been frustrated.
Oh, I wasted 12 minutes talking with nobody listening. But somehow it was Krishna’s mercy that you are satisfied. By talking about Krishna with no audience also, you are satisfied.
So, why don’t you talk about Krishna more? So, basically, sometimes doors will close. But sometimes a better door may open for us. But what happens? If we are resentful, we just keep glaring at the door that has closed.
Why did this close? When will it open? How can I make it open? Why is it not opening? And we just stay so consumed by that, that even if some other door opens, we don’t even notice it. So, we can give God the benefit of doubt. That means, even if this bad thing has happened, maybe something good will come in future out of this.
And that way, we can move forwards. If we consider in our life, bad things do happen. But that way, much bigger bad things could have happened to us anytime.
You see, oh, this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong. See, all of us, we are, most of us are at the age of 30, 40, around about 50. So, now, we are at least alive.
There is one country in Africa where the average life span is 27 years. Average life span is 27 years. Because there are so many diseases over there, people die by that time.
There are so many people who don’t even live till as long as we have lived. So, there are many, no matter how many things are wrong in our life, there are many things that are right also. So, by these three thought exercises, these three ways, I said, first is that look, even when things are wrong, and things goes wrong, look at what is right in our life, look at what is right which helps us to deal with the wrong, and look for how that wrong may also lead to something right in future.
By these three thought exercises, even if we can’t be grateful for a particular situation, we can be grateful even in that situation. Look for the overall things that are right in our life, look for the things that are right which help us to deal with that wrong thing, and look for the right that may emerge eventually from that wrong also. That way, we can cultivate gratitude.
And, here, I have already brought in one point, I said earlier that there is a outer world, there is either screen, and there are we. So, we are trying to get good images on the inner screen. And we discussed some thought exercises on how we can get good images.
But, let’s do another thought exercise which will involve a little guided meditation. A little guided meditation. Third is, look at how the wrong may lead to right in future.
How from that bad, something good may emerge. So, now, let’s do a simple thought exercise, a guided meditation. Wherever you are, you can relax and you can close your eyes.
And, take three deep breaths. Two. Now, with your eyes closed, look at what you see in front of you.
Because your eyes are closed, you cannot see what is physically in front of you. But still, you can see something as if on an inner screen. You may see this room.
You may see your home. You may see a loud one. You may see your phone.
You may see your car. Or, you may just see a dull haze of colours. Whatever you see, you see that on an inner screen.
Now, while you are observing that inner screen, try to take a step back and catch sight of who it is that is looking at that inner screen. I repeat, take a step back and try to catch sight of the inner seer, the person who is looking at that inner screen. Let’s try once again.
Take a step back and look at the inner seer. No matter how many steps we take backwards, the inner seer steps back with us. What we are looking for is what we are looking with.
That inner screen is your mind and that inner seer is you, the soul. You, the soul, are different from the mind and the world that is being displayed on the mind. You can take one deep breath and you can open your eyes.
So, whatever happens happens in the outer world, whatever happens, it gets projected on the inner screen. But we are different from the inner screen. Krishna says that events happen in the material world by the chain of cause and effects.
But happiness and distress is experienced based on how much the soul invests the consciousness. So, I’ll explain this with an example. This inner screen and the inner seer they are two different things.
Suppose, you have a child who is sitting in your home and the child is watching a horror movie and they are getting horrified crying, trembling, shivering, and screaming. Actually speaking, the child is safely at home you are right next to him, you will not let anything happen to that child. But for that child there is great fear at that time.
Why? Because the child’s consciousness is projected on the TV screen where the horror movie is going on. So, we, the soul is like that child and the mind is like the TV screen. We belong to a different category of reality.
We are souls. Krishna says that just as the sky exists high up and dirt may come in the sky, clouds may come in the sky smoke may come in the sky but the sky itself is not affected. Similarly, the soul consciousness is like that sky and the various emotions, various thoughts, various worries, various distresses that come they are like the smoke and the dirt in the sky.
We are different. Now, of course what happens in the inner screen and what happens on the outer scene, I could say outer world matters to us but just understanding that I as a soul am different from all this that gives us a sense of security. Understanding that okay, these images are there on my inner screen but they are not me.
So, suppose say, we have a lot of work to do and we are feeling very tired at that time we can become resentful you know, I have so much work to do and nobody appreciates I am doing so much work everybody still burdens me with more work and as this is going on, basically what happens more and more negativity starts coming on the inner screen and we start feeling more and more burdened but if I just understand I am the inner seer, I am the soul I am different from this, yes physically I may be tired and I have to deal with the tiredness, I may need to take rest but I as a soul am different from this so as soon as we realize that we are the observer of the reality then that creates a distance Krishna talks about it in the Bhagavad Gita 13th chapter also become an observer of your situations and also become an observer of your emotions going back to the inner screen metaphor when this inner screen it can go off as I said in the past and into the future, it can become like a movie a TV that displays a movie in today’s world people suffer from two major mental health problems one is depression and the other is anxiety in terms of this inner screen metaphor when the inner screen goes out of the past and starts replaying all the bad things that have happened to us in the past oh this person did like this oh this happened, oh I made this big mistake all the bad things are playing out over there and we start thinking so many bad things have happened to me and the future will be more of the same then we get depressed so of course depression can be a clinical disease which may require medication but in the general sense depression means that our inner screen has gone to the past and is replaying all the bad things that have happened and conversely when the inner screen goes to the future and starts replaying all the things that may go wrong in the future oh no I may lose my job somebody may abandon me oh what if I get a terrible disease what if this happens, what if that happens then when the inner screen starts showing movies about the things that can go wrong in the future we get anxiety so when the inner screen becomes a movie showing tragedy movies from the past we get depression when the inner screen becomes a TV showing horror movies from the future we get anxiety so at that time if we could just understand actually this is just an inner screen and I am different from it ok this thought is coming but I the soul am different from this Krishna says while talking about the three modes of material nature how to transcend the modes so he talks in 14.21 Arjuna asks the question how do we know who has transcended the modes so 14.22 and 14.23 Krishna gives one part of the answer he says so he says these are the characteristics of the three modes of material nature Prakash is yeah knowledge but it is associated with which mode goodness, pravrutti work, work, work so Krishna says these will come in you and when they come don’t resent it and they will go, don’t crave for it just be an observer just be an observer, observe them as if detached so we are working on our computer and suddenly a window pops up we know that window but we process is this important, no, let it be there sometimes some windows pop up some software they just want to auto install so do you want to install the software yes, no, remind me later three options are there now in some software the default option is no but in some software the default option is yes and not only is it yes if we don’t click no within 10 seconds it will install it so basically when we say that we have certain conditionings conditioning basically means that a particular idea a particular thought pattern, a particular emotion pops up within us and the stronger the conditioning the quicker is that default choice selection for alcoholic, they pass by a bar do you want to drink alcohol yes, no, later so at that time if they are very strong alcoholics by default the option clicked yes they look at the alcohol, yes, no, later they will go to the bar, they will not even notice I went to the bar and they are drinking I resolved not to drink, what happened I think Oscar Wilde said giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world I have done it over a 100 times so what happens is that actually we may give it up but even before we realize it we have taken it up also because one time it is a no I am not going to do this but next time the proposition comes up and yes is already there by default and even before we realize things are happening they start happening also so when we become observers of our consciousness then oh this window has popped up if we are too caught then whatever comes up we just start going along with it oh yes, yes, yes and solve it, so some idea comes lets do it but to the extent we understand that we are the inner seers to the extent that I am a soul different from the mind, different from the body to that extent what happens on the mind, on the inner screen we can observe with greater objectivity and then once we observe it we can evaluate it, is this what I want to do or this I don’t want to do just because the proposition has come doesn’t mean I have to do it I can choose whether to do it or choose not to do it so by the practice of bhakti when we chant Hare Krishna, when we try to connect with Krishna we are all going towards stronger and stronger realization that I am the inner seer I am different from the mind, I am different from the body and when we become situated on the platform of I am the inner seer then what comes on the inner screen we will scrutinize it we won’t just get carried away by it at one level this may seem a little abstract but at another level it is very practical so certain things will keep popping up on the inner screen certain say one bad thing happens, oh things always keep going wrong so if I have a habit of say being resentful, one thing goes wrong why does this happen, why does this happen so we can either identify with the mind or we can identify the mind identify with the mind means that a particular image comes up particular thing pops up and ya you start thinking accordingly so we could say the resentment movie starts on our screen and we start watching it ya things are always so terrible we just start resenting but instead we can identify identify the mind that means identify the habitual patterns of the mind so for example somebody has done something terrible and we start feeling angry either we can become angry or we can say the mind is saying I am feeling angry the inner screen is displaying I am angry as soon as we, whatever emotion we are experiencing if we preface it the mind is saying I am feeling so unhappy now the mind is saying I am feeling so unhappy if we can just preface whatever emotion we feel with the mind is saying then what happens we will start evaluating it we would identify it suppose sometimes say A and B had a conflict and we are C and A has told us to give a message to B and it is a very insulting, disrespectful, provocative message like Duryodhana before the Kurukshetra war started he thought, he was so confident I am going to win this there is not even a match over here so he said let me provoke the Pandavas and he said Uluka, the son of Shakuni to provoke the Pandavas now it was all a very insulting message for the Pandavas so Uluka went there, the first thing he said is O Yudhishthir, please remember that I am a messenger whatever I am saying, I am not saying it Duryodhana said like this so he started by, what do you say, a qualifier a caveat this is not my words so like that, if we can just identify this is, the mind is saying I am angry the mind is saying, life is so unfair life is so unfair yeah, life is unfair, what to do mind is saying, life is unfair as soon as you put mind is saying before that it creates some objectivity it creates some distance and then we can evaluate it we won’t get carried away by it now it’s not that, life is not unfair some unfair things may have happened to us and we have to acknowledge them but we don’t have to get carried away by them Krishna says, Udasinavad Asinam Udasinavad means as if detached not exactly detached in English there are two words there is uninterested and there is disinterested sometimes people use these two words interchangeably but uninterested means one who has no interest in the subject only disinterested means one who has no vested interest one who is impartial so consider say a cricket match is going on and in the cricket match there is umpire now the umpire needs to be disinterested not uninterested the umpire should not favor any particular team then that team appeals, all the other batsmen out no, not like that, umpire has to be disinterested impartial but the umpire can’t be uninterested the bowler is bowled and the bowler says, how’s that and the umpire says, I was not watching the match how can you not be watching the match you are umpire, you have to see, isn’t it so the umpire has to be disinterested not uninterested similarly we can say we have to be disinterested not uninterested observers of our consciousness so when life is so unfair the mind is saying, life is so unfair now this is not necessarily mean it is true or it is false when we are saying, the mind is saying we are not evaluating at this stage we are simply qualifying it’s saying, now if I come and tell you, life is so unfair now you will understand that maybe something bad has happened in my life I am distressed by it and then you will think, ok, what do I know about this person how can I encourage this person how can I respond to this person so it’s not that if I say, life is unfair, you are going to dismiss what I am saying but once you understand that I am a person different from you then you will objectively evaluate what I am saying and then you will intelligently give some guidance, some solution some encouragement, whatever so like that we can evaluate what the mind is saying and respond otherwise the mind is saying, life is so unfair and we get carried away, oh life is so unfair we start feeling burden, we start feeling resentful but mind is saying, life is so unfair, what exactly happened yeah I worked so hard and it didn’t work out that’s true, but then I was giving a class on destiny in Canada so I asked the devotees over there how many of you feel that you worked very hard and you did not get the result get the result that you deserve how many of you had that experience so you worked very hard but you did not get the result that you deserve some of you are honest some of now, but now let’s look at another way how many of us have the experience that sometimes we didn’t work much hard but still we got a good result that also happens sometimes we work very hard on a project and nobody gives us any credit and sometimes we do a little thing in a project and people say, hey you did such a good work so life works both ways so it’s not that life is just always unfair if we say that it’s unfair, sometimes it gives little result for lot of effort but sometimes it gives lot of result for little effort also so basically when we evaluate what the mind is saying then we can respond intelligently to it so by understanding that I am the inner seer what appears on the inner screen I don’t immediately get carried away by it but I identify it and I evaluate it say if you come back home and you see a child is watching a movie now before you start watching the movie first you say what channel is this now if it is having too much horror movie channel or adult movie channel or something which you don’t want the child to watch then first you will not immediately start watching the movie you look at the overall context, what movie is this, what channel is this, what exactly is watching so now we can also start watching the movie and you can get caught in watching the movie but we can also evaluate what is going on so similarly on our mind there are many channels and sometimes as I said earlier sometimes the horror movie channel will start in our mind oh no this will go wrong, that will go wrong, that will go wrong we go to our office and the boss looks at us with a strange look and as soon as that one strange look the mind starts thinking why did the boss look like that maybe they are going to fire me oh no if they fire me what will happen if I lose my job how will I pay my mortgage if I can’t pay my mortgage I will be evicted I will have to look for another house if I don’t get a house then I will have to live on the streets now it’s so hot right now we will be comfortable oh it will be so hot in the future so what has happened, one small stimulus the boss looked at us in a strange way that started a horror movie so when we start thinking about all terrible things instead of just started watching we can just say oh this is a horror movie channel so in the mind the horror movie channel has started so if I understand that I am the inner seer and in the mind various things are happening then I can distance myself from it and I can identify it and although the mind can distract us many many times it usually does not have many many ways to distract us it has some standard ways to distract us maybe some health issue some financial issues all of us have some typical patterns in which the mind distracts us and once we identify them then it becomes easier to distance ourselves from them so to be grateful means that to be grateful what we need to do I earlier talked about how we need to get make sure that positive imagery comes on our inner screen but now we are talking about another aspect of being grateful is understanding that we are different we are the inner seer different from the inner screen and as the inner seer we are always safe, secure as souls and rather than identifying with the inner screen some images just come up over there rather than identifying with them we identify them as we identify them the negativity that they may induce will start decreasing we will start evaluating them more objectively and ultimately we understand that I am the inner seer and next to me is the supreme seer the Paramatma is situated right now even in my heart Krishna is just one thought away from us always he is just one thought away if I think about him I can connect with him however our mind is so distracted that we just can’t think of him presently if we strive to connect with him we will find that as we practice bhakti as we take shelter of Krishna our habits start changing like earlier I gave the example of if you type B bollywood.com comes but if I again and again start going to bhagavadgita.com then eventually if I type B what will happen bhagavadgita.com will come and then the default will change so we all may have currently some negative defaults resentment, depression, anxiety negative defaults might be there but if we keep practicing bhakti regularly the defaults will start becoming positive our mind will start going towards Krishna no matter what comes on the inner screen I am the inner seer and Krishna is always with me and in remembering Krishna we can get great shelter so I will conclude with one story one experience which I had I observed somebody else I have been travelling outside India for few years now the first time when I went to America I went to a particular university there and I spoke on the topic of regulating our mental diet it is a vegetarian society we need to regulate our physical diet we need to regulate our mental diet also I talked about the mind then after that one boy he came and told me just before this class he was contemplating suicide he had been in a relationship with a girl and she had broken up with him so he was shattered as he was just wandering about gloomily in the campus he saw a poster of my talk something within him told him lets go for this program so he said now I heard the program now I understand that actually it is not I who wanted to commit suicide it is just my mind on the screen commit suicide so I told him understanding the difference between you and your mind this is a vital insight that can be life saving not just life transforming I encouraged him to study the Bhagavad Gita and connected him with the Bhakti Yoga Club that was over there I write on the Gita everyday on www.gitadenji.com a small 300 word article you can read there also to get the practical application of the Gita every year when I go to America I meet him last year when I had gone he told me that he again faced a similar situation he had been in a steady relationship for sometime and then that girl suddenly sent him a message I am breaking up with you and I am blocking you, don’t try to contact me I was completely shaken up he went straight to his room and then he closed the door he pulled down the drapes shut the windows, turned off the lights and then he loved to sing he loved Hare Krishna so he had a violin, he picked up the violin and started singing Hare Krishna and he said for 6 hours continuously I was singing and he said in those 6 hours I had the most sublime experience of my life he said I felt as if I was being bathed in some divine light I felt as if I was being comforted, hugged by some sublime presence those were the most enriching moments of my life I could feel the presence of God over there so the very situation which earlier had prompted him to become suicidal it was not that the situation didn’t affect him the situation affected him but by the practice of bhakti his default tendency had changed instead of being suicidal he became spiritual and thus on that inner screen and that outer scene a terrible thing had happened on that inner screen a terrible image came up of rejection, depression, frustration but he took shelter of Krishna as the inner seer he connected to the supreme seer and in that sublime presence that he experienced over there that which could have been a very depressing experience transformed into a very enriching experience this is the transformational power of bhakti so we talked a lot about intellectually analyzing the mind, distancing ourselves from the mind all this is important but ultimately bhakti is of an entirely different category bhakti will change our default habits itself bhakti will give us not just experience of some nice imagery on the inner screen bhakti will give us experience of a life beyond the inner screen a life at another level of reality and sometimes the outer scene may be very gloomy sometimes the inner images, that inner screen may also be very very dark so gratitude as understood in bhakti is not just about a positive perception of reality oh you know this is negative, this is positive look at the positive but gratitude in bhakti is about perception of a positive reality the material reality is one level of reality and there is another level of reality entirely that is the spiritual reality so gratitude in bhakti is not just positive perception of reality there is negative, there is positive, look at the positive that is what most positive thinking talks about it is not just positive perception of reality but it is perception of a positive reality there is another reality beyond the world beyond the mind that is the relationship of the soul with the supreme soul and bhakti opens up that world for us bhakti gives us access to that and the more we start practicing bhakti determinedly, the more we will be able to go beyond the negativities of the world so some bad things may happen out there some bad images may come on the inner screen and they will affect us but they won’t overwhelm us because we will understand that I am different yes some unwanted image comes on our inner screen but it doesn’t fill our inner screen then we will note it, we will deal with it when I want to deal with it but right now, I won’t get carried away by it sometimes life may just put us in pain we can’t avoid that pain, some problem is there, some worry is there we can’t wish it away, it is there but we may have to live with pain but we don’t have to live in pain live with pain means yes there is one window on my inner screen which is open which is painful, there is a problem over there, there is pain over there but live in pain means that is the only window, that window has maximized on my inner screen I can’t think about anything else so I have problems, sometimes we may have some issues at the job, we may have some issues with health we may have some issues with some family relationships they are issues we can’t deny them, we can’t simplistically say everything is happy, everything is fine no, things are problematic so we may have to live with that problem, we may have to live with pain that unpleasant window is there, it is open and I will have to deal with it how I can deal with it, when I can deal with it that all I will plan and prepare but I won’t let that window fill my inner screen I won’t let it dominate my consciousness and focus my consciousness on my service to Krishna on the higher purpose of my life and as much as is possible in the right way I will try to deal with this window also so by understanding that the mind is the inner screen on which multiple windows can open and that we are the inner seer then we can live live with pain instead of living in pain and when we see the pain as just one window on our inner screen then we won’t feel resentful because this window is there we will still feel grateful because there are so many other things that are constructed in our life, that are positive in our life that’s how gratitude is not just an attitude gratitude is also a level of awareness attitude means again same point, look at the positive, don’t look at the negative but gratitude is much more in bhakti it’s a level of awareness that I belong to a different category of reality and at this level of reality whatever needs to be done, I will do with it but this does not affect me directly I am a soul, I am with Krishna I am eternally safe that understanding is enormously empowering in helping us to deal with the negativities of life so ultimately the power of gratitude comes through the power of bhakti when we connect with Krishna, that helps us to become grateful because that gives us an access to a reality at entirely different level and there with Krishna we can always be secure no matter how much insecurity we may face in our life so I’ll summarize I spoke in the second session about understanding something beyond the inner screen so we did the thought exercise first of how we are the inner seers beyond the inner screen when this inner screen goes in the past and shows a tragedy movie that causes depression, when it shows a horror movie in the future that causes anxiety so this inner screen will show various things but if we can identify identify that mind rather than identifying with the mind then we won’t get carried away by it so Krishna says become an observer of your emotions so we become like an umpire of the emotions the feelings that come within us we are not uninterested but we are disinterested we evaluate each emotion on its merit just as an umpire evaluates each appeal on its merit so the philosophy and the practice of bhakti helps us understand that I am the inner seer beyond the inner screen and further we can identify whatever feeling we get the mind is saying I am angry then we can evaluate it or a certain set of thoughts starts so as we start identifying it we can distance ourselves from it and evaluate it objectively bhakti is not just about using our intelligence to identify the patterns of the mind it is also about connecting with Krishna the inner seer connecting with the supreme seer so we can experience not just positive perception of reality but perception of a positive reality to the extent we experience the perception of positive reality to that extent we can be grateful no matter how much negativity comes in the world or negativity comes on the screen we may have to live with pain but we don’t have to live in pain and for adjusting the imagery on our inner screen I talked about three directors for our thought we can’t be grateful for all situations but we can be grateful in all situations how? by counting our blessings by looking at what is right in that situation also and to be able to count our blessings in that time we need to write down our blessings and refer to it it’s like a normal immune system doesn’t work when there is a big epidemic so our intelligence will not work when the mind is overwhelmed by some negativity so write it down so look at the things that are right in our life overall and look at the specific things that are right which help us to deal with that wrong and then look at how that wrong might also lead to right give God the benefit of doubt we look at the present and plan the future Krishna looks at the future and plans the present so when one door closes another door may open I discussed the example of Srila Prabhupada so many things went wrong but a big thing came right by that the boy forgot to pick her up that’s how his life was saved the limitation in my physical travel opened the door for online outreach so when we understand that the supreme seer is ultimately in control then rather than getting overwhelmed by the negativity happening in the world or negativity coming in the mind we patiently persevere in our service to Krishna and then we will find reasons to be grateful even in situations that would otherwise make us resentful or fretful and that’s how we can with positivity practice bhakti and attain Krishna thank you very much Hare Krishna so are there any questions or comments so one thing that I feel personally that affects my state of mind is a condition you spoke about default and how when you type B for Baba Gita it just keeps going to Bollywood like that so something personally for me is since childhood I’ve always looked at sports so even now whatever situation I’m in now especially with the phone it’s just very normal, press internet, press iSports and I just read rubbish so I try sometimes, I’ll try pressing Nandavar so I’ll try Gita Devi but then after some time back to the condition default and this then leads to ultimately thoughts that are nothing to do with Krishna and then ultimately even when situations come, bad situations come rather than thinking of Krishna, I think let me escape the situation and just read a silly article about sports so how does one overcome a deep rooted condition that’s been there for a long time so if we are very attracted towards sports and we keep reading that by default then how do we overcome that we all have to choose our battles in spiritual life I would say that attachment to sports is not a very damaging attachment it is still an attachment, it is still a distraction but there are levels of distraction also if there is an attachment to something, some gross sensuality something which is directly anti-devotional something which involves breaking of the regulative principles that is much more damaging sometimes we consider a conditioning to be I just have to give up this conditioning and we invest all our willpower in that and we can’t do it and we just get disheartened by it it’s like we have a mosquito that is biting us and we get out of machine gun I am going to kill this mosquito sometimes some conditionings they just go away on their own trying to fight them too much simply leads to our mind getting occupied by that basically in the mental world we can’t not think of something if I touch this mic and I find that there is an electric current going through it I just move my hand away and decide during the rest of this class I will not touch this but with respect to the mind at the mental level I can’t decide, I will not think of this suppose I tell all of you for the next 30 seconds please don’t think of a pink monkey you can think of whatever you want just don’t think of a pink monkey now throughout your life you have never thought of a pink monkey but now you start, oh pink monkey so if we consider thought to be like a subtle energy that reaches out to the object of thought then when I say I am not going to think about this already to say that I am not going to think about this my thought energy has reached out to it so in deciding to not think about something we have already thought about it so therefore spending too much energy in giving up something is just not worth our energy instead what we can do is try to focus on something positive that is valuable for us or that adds value to our life intellectually we can say oh yes I can go to some Bhagavad Gita site I can go to Dandavats yes that’s fine but we have to find out something which stimulates us and that may take some time so we can try to make it more purposeful but the focus should not be on I have to give this up the focus should be I have to take something positive out and then if you decide that ok if say sky sports is the site where you go then maybe just get some internet filter and block it on the phone, you may have the passport you can say unblock it and go there but what happens for the mind it is just sometimes we resolve to do something and we can do it but we all have a few moments of weakness and during that moment of weakness if the temptation is easily available we will go there but in that moment of weakness somehow we can tolerate it or we can’t go there for some reason over there then ok if I don’t go it doesn’t matter it’s not so important so basically we can deal with something unwanted at a negative level thinking I will not do it just create some obstacle so that it’s not that easy to do it create some kind of blockage and more importantly try to find something more positive it might be something ok not just visit a particular site a particular spiritual site you may decide ok you can yourself make a list of say quotes spiritual quotes which you find stimulating and one devotee did a very interesting thing he made a list of 300 quotes that he likes and whenever he feels basically what happens neuroscience says that sometimes we need dopamine something stimulating we watch a dopamine dose we get he himself made it into a random program so whenever he has made the 300 quotes found out different quotes stimulating quotes devotional quotes spiritual quotes put them in an app and that app will at random show one of the quotes so what happens whenever he wants some break for whatever he is doing instead of going to some website just open that app oh which quote has come ok this is the quote I thought about it’s a nice quote think a little bit about it just speak it out a few times I know it but just when we engage ourselves with it speak it out 2,3,4,5 times speak it out it might be even a bhagavad gita verse you might take not just a verse but something which is meaningful to us some verse like that so and create some amount of randomness because what happens when we go to some news site there is some newness that gives us a kick so if we can that’s why there is randomness over there oh which quote will come up now so that creates some freshness over there so basically we have to find out how we can rather than repress the mind we can redirect it the mind has a need for some stimulation the mind has a need for some newness then ok how can I provide that stimulation and newness in a more devotional way and if it doesn’t work out no need to get agitated so much ok we might indulge a little bit we will come back over a period of time we will ourselves feel this is not so worth it this is not worth my time let me move forward and let me focus on Krishna so sometimes detachment may come in an organic way gradually also so don’t focus too much on just giving it up and feeling disheartened because you are not able to give it up try to focus on something positive and in due course this will get overcome ok thank you any other questions yes please appreciating what we have yes ok yes so when I said gratitude means appreciating the value of what we have what does it mean exactly or how can we do that basically consider say we are talking with a family member or talking with some other devotee personally and that time some message comes up on our phone now the message may not be very important but somehow because that message is something new we pay more attention to that there was one devotee he was working with a devotee manager in a temple and this devotee manager he would if somebody would come to meet him somebody would make a phone call and he would start talking on phone and this person would be waiting to meet and he would be talking half an hour on phone and then eventually he is telling that I learned that talking with him on phone is easier than meeting him in person so what happens somehow from a practical point of view we may actually value the person in front of us much more than whoever send us the message that person this person may actually be more important and we also know they are more important but somehow here at that point some new messages come, what is the new message we get carried away by that now the phone may also have an important message and looking at phone message is also fine when it is needed but I am giving this as an example that in the mode of passion what happens is our sense of priority sometimes gets skewed so a person in front of us may be important and what they are talking may also be important but just in the mode of passion or something new what is this new thing, I want to look at that message and then we get carried away by that message so in the mode of passion our sense of discrimination our sense of evaluation is not very strong whatever looks new whatever seems more stimulating whatever titillates more, whatever tends more that’s what I want to focus attention on so we may value a thing in our life but we may not give it our attention that means we understand studying Bhagavad Gita is much more important than reading a newspaper but in the mode of passion Bhagavad Gita it has been there for 5000 years and it will be there for 5000 years more I can read it anytime, this news is for today tomorrow it will not be there the mind in passion has its own rationalization ok it will be there, it will not be there tomorrow because it will not be important tomorrow Bhagavad Gita will be important eternally but the mind sometimes in the mode of passion just distorts our sense of priorities normally our priorities are determined by our values that which is most valuable, I will give priority to that that which is less valuable, I will give less priority to that but in the mode of passion our priorities get distorted in the mode of ignorance they get even more distorted in the mode of ignorance a person may just for getting one bottle of liquor that person may just spend hours and hours one devotee his friend was an alcohol addict and they were trying to recover from alcohol people become very very creative when they are trying to get to that alcohol so he said what this devotee did was this devotee’s friend when he wanted to drink they always make sure that they are in a phase of de-addiction they always have someone with them who observes what they are getting so what this friend did was that he actually filled alcohol in his car gas tank and then he pretended that the car had got spoiled and he had a tow, get the car back and then in his home he got a pipe by which he could remove the alcohol from the car gas tank and then he drank the alcohol so now how much creativity is required for that but it’s so unfortunate the desire can overwhelm a person so much so it’s not that in the mode of ignorance one doesn’t have intelligence the intelligence is there but the intelligence is directed towards an ignorant purpose so if we we have certain things which are valuable for us we know they are valuable for us but based on the mode we are in we may start valuing other things so when I said gratitude means appreciating the value of the things that we have that means conscientiously remembering or reminding ourselves this is what is important ok that thing has happened it’s bad but this is much more important and I am grateful this is right in my life many times when one thing goes wrong the mind starts catastrophizing everything is ruined there are so many things that are right that doesn’t matter, this is bad, this has gone wrong that’s all that matters so when the minds are distorting our sense of values then what do we do? we need to use our intelligence to remind ourselves what is truly valuable, ok this is bad there is one devotee, one boy was becoming a devotee and a few months ago there was this cricket champions trophy so India was I think it was here only in England so India was expected to win against Pakistan but India lost and lost very badly this boy told me after that for three nights I could not sleep I said the cricketers slept you put to sleep because what happened because of the attachment to cricket that match became so important for him sleep is required for health sleep is required for functioning but the priorities get completely distorted so at that time by our conscious act of intelligence we have to remind ourselves what is more important, what is less important and then we direct our consciousness towards what is more important and then we can feel grateful even in that situation ok so shall we stop here any other questions so thank you very much Gaur Premanand