The search for happiness – how bhakti pacifies, purifies and satisfies us
[Congregation program at the Radha Krishna Cultural Center, Gold Coast, Australia]
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I spoke about how when we practice bhakti it pacifies satisfies and purifies us so I started by talking about we all seek happiness through positions positions and relations but below it all the foundation is our disposition our state of mind if that state of mind is disturbed we may have delicious food but we can’t enjoy it so the state of mind is like the ground we are busy building big houses but if the ground is prone to quakes then the houses are not of much use similarly everything that else we achieve if we don’t have a state of mind that is peaceful we can’t gain happiness then I talk about if you want to be peaceful how can we be peaceful that is often we are not peaceful because we have a particular definition of happiness which we feel unless I achieve it I cannot be happy so we are slaving for it but often the definition of happiness and the experience of happiness don’t concur even if we get to that definition still we find happiness eludes us so I gave my experience of where I thought that becoming a topper would make me happy but I found that it made me only more dependent on others for happiness so each one of us can think whether our definition of happiness and the reality of happiness have concurred or they have gone in different directions and then when we understand that okay my definition of happiness actually doesn’t lead to the reality of happiness then we become open to purifying ourselves and that brings us to God so today most people come to God because they are distressed and the distress is primarily at the psychological level that people feel that so many problems at the level of the mind I want some relief whatever be the reason we come to God what we are looking for is happiness is relief from distress and happiness so if we again compare as I said how will we understand whether I am experiencing whether my definition of happiness is right or not it’s in terms of our experience oh I thought this will make me happy but my experience is not making me happy similarly when we come to God we may have particular conceptions does God exist, he does not exist but the existence of God is something which is not so easy for us to analyze but what we can analyze is our experience just as we don’t know for sure how many of us understand what is the concept of electricity but we experience its effects we say ok electricity is there so the experience of God is extremely enriching and that is like a flow of a reverse flow of happiness whereas everything else the pleasure of happiness from that is like small glasses of water and the more we practice bhakti yoga the more we start experiencing this happiness which is within us by our connection with Krishna, so this is the happiness which once achieved makes us feel there is nothing more to be achieved and which once achieved makes all other distresses tolerable so all other distresses are like losing one glass of water but then I have the river of water it doesn’t matter when I talk about the story of Dhruva how he started off in order to a feeling of anger and revenge but by the practice of bhakti done with intensity he got the darshan of Vishnu which satisfied him so much that he gave up his previous desire purified of that desire and when he came back he was pacified having no desire for any kind of revenge may I also talk about the story of this devotee who came for robbing Srila Prabhupada but found that his heart was robbed by Srila Prabhupada his heart was robbed by Krishna and similarly for us if we start practicing bhakti and don’t practice bhakti with holding on to our definition of happiness but being open to experience then bhakti will enrich us in such a way that we will become pacified, satisfied and purified. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna So are there any questions or comments? Yes please Excellent question